Pumpkins!

Ever since the pumpkins came into Sainsbury's weeks ago, I begged Mike to help me carve some for Halloween. And now that that time has finally arrived, we went out and bought some. I was possibly a little too excited but hey! Mike and I chose the best pumpkins we could find, took them home and set to work. I tried to make mine into a owl's face with big eyes, and Mike made a skull. Wilbur the pumpkin (that's mine) needed a little bit of pumpkin surgery, because I carved it all out accidentally, but in the end they were fab!

Deutschland!

Having been a really bad penfriend and not visited Kerstin in a few years, I decided about September to book a flight and see her. I flew in quick for the first weekend term started and it was a quick flying visit, flying Saturday morning, coming back Sunday night. Having left Bristol about 3, I dropped Sarah in Wrexham and then I didn't make it home till 11.30, only then to realise I had forgotten my passport back in Bristol! Mike and each drove half way, and then I had an hours sleep before setting off for the airport! When I finally arrived, exhausted, the weather wasn't good enough to go to the Zoo, so we came home, did some food shopping and spent the next 36 hours playing UNO, Skip Bo, eating nachos and watching Ice Age! I was so sad to leave as we were having such a nice time!

More and more waterfalls!

Mike and I had such a super time scrambling up these waterfalls! There was a school group complete with helmets and rope, which made us a bit worried, but we made it up so many massive waterfalls! It was so beautiful there, and it was good fun to put into practice all the stuff Mike taught me on Striding Edge. Plus the water made it extra scary! After, we took the stairs down, back to the car, back to Bristol, ending our fabulous holiday!

The Sheep!

Everytime I go to the countryside, I am facinated with all the animals there! In the Lake District they have these really fuzzy sheep which I keep mistaking for cows, but when we stopped for lunch I went to the field to take their photo, which made me super happy!

Dungeons Ghyll

We had planned to walk Old Man Conniston on the Sunday, but when we went to bed the night before, we decided some more bouldering would be fun, and after looking up where to go, we walked to Booth's, bought a new map, and set off. It turned out to be quite a drive, but when we got there, we were suprised by how busy it was! The Dungeons Ghyll is a bunch of waterfalls, tons and tons of them, which lead up to near the top of a mountain.
The very top of the mountain is popular with mountain climbers, and you can walk all the way up with stairs, but Mike and I decided to get in the water and climb our way up the waterfalls instead of taking the path. Not too far up we decided to stop in the middle of the river and take our time for lunch! It was so super to have lunch in this rock surrounded by all the water!

Windemere Car Ferry

After the stone circle (and even before) we were knackered from being on the water all day, we took the shorter way around, which is much much shorter, and involves a car ferry. It's a VERY small car ferry but fun none the same. We waited in the queue for a long time, but once we were on the ferry it was great. Mike and I wandered around untill it got too cold, and then we sat in the car with our heads stuck out the sunroof!

Castlerigg Stone Circle

Because we never had any time to go to the stately homes in the afternoon (they aren't open Fridays and Saturdays) Mike said we could visit the Castlerigg Stone Circle which was just north of Keswick. It was quite late in the afternoon, but the sun was still up and that was all that mattered!They think that the circle was built in 3200BC! Ages ago! But unlike Stonehenge, you can get there and go up to the stones themselves!

Keswick

Because Derwent Water is just near Keswick we decided to take a walk through the town. We got a little lost, but found some cute earring shops to go in, and they had some market going on too.We wandered around near the park as well. They have a pencil museum, which everyone raves about, as well as a James Bond Museum, but after our day out on the water, we decided to go home via the stone circle and have a rest!

Derwent Water

Mike loves Derwent water, so we drove up there to take a boat around the lake. They also had some rowing boats, which we thought would be good fun, but we decided to try the whole lake first, it wasn't much to have a whole trip around the water. As we saw people getting off the boat before us, they were soaking wet, so we knew we couldn't sit right at the front! It was such a pretty ride, but I fell asleep I was so comfy! When we finished we decided we were too tired to go on the row boats, but took a little walk through Keswick before we went home.

Ambleside and Grasmere

The prettiest places by far that we visited were Ambleside and Grasmere which were on our way to Derwent Water. We had passed Ambleside the day before and so Mike let me stop and take some photos. They have a lot of boats there for taking tourists out on the water, and although we hadn't the time for the tour, we got a couple to take our photo, which made me exceptionally happy as there aren't many of me and Mike on the holiday! I thought the little cafes there were the nicest and it was such a lovely place! I made sure to get postcards too!

A day in the water - Lake Windemere

We hadn't planned to go to Windemere, but everyone had said it was really pretty and we had to check it out. After being so exhausted from climbing and hiking the day before, we decided on no hills for the day! After driving to Bowness-on-Windemere, and wandering a bit, Mike saw some boats for hire, so for actually not too much we were able to rent this little boat for an hour and went off on our own exploring! Mike did most of driving, but I did a little bit too, it's very scary being put in charge of a boat! We went around all the little islands, looking at all the beautiful boats and we decided once we made our first million we would buy one!

THE TOP! And Back to the Car Park

After Striding Edge, it was just a massive cliff face to the top, and I was so excited to make it to the top, and took a photo in all different directions and insisted on my photo at the top, even though it was getting really cold! We took some quick photos and then headed down to the car park. It was so easy on the way down, and we saw this beautiful stream too. We had been told that they never ticket anyone in the pay and display car parks anywhere in the Lakes, so I was relieved when we finally made it back down to not find a ticket! The place we parked was so beautiful and near the same stream too!

Striding Edge

Mike said the whole point of Hellvlyn was to get to Striding Edge, the massive arete you have to climb along before you get to the very top. It's just shear rock that you have to climb over and DON'T look down! Mike is compltely confident in bounding over massive rocks,but I was a bit more cautious, and had such a fab time, sliding down rocks and bouldering in my little boots. It was really dangerous up there and lots of people die there, there was even a plaque where someone had died in the 1800's from chasing the dogs in a Hunt!

Hellvyln - To Lunch!

So it being a romantic holiday, I left Mike to pick out what we climbed while we were up in the Lake District. He picked Hellvlyn, which he's done before, and so in the morning, we went to have breakfast, went to the supermarket and set off. I hadn't climbed any kind of mountain since D of E, so it took me a while to get into it! Mike was really good and let me take photos all the time, whenever we stopped for a water break. We finnnnnnally made it to lunchtime, where we had fabulous crisp sandwiches and snowbites and lots and lots of Kendal Mint cake! It was quite breezy at the top but I still took photos of Mike in his windbreaker!

Romantic Getaway: Kendal

Having finally gotten some free time, Mike and I had organised to go to the Lake District for a long weekend before I went back to Uni. On the Thursday after registration, and Fresher's fair, Mike and I packed up and drove up to our hostel in Kendal. It took hours and hours and Mike was so good and drove the whole way to let me sleep! We finally arrived, we had our own room, which was just perfect, and we arrived just in time to have a little wander around the town and have dinner in Pizza Express!

Museums with Sarah

Sarah had never been to London so I decided it would be a good idea to do at least one museum when we went to collect Mike and so we started with the Science Museum.We had to walk through a really pretty park (Hyde Park I think) too. We saw lots of what I had seen with Mike, but found a whole extra floor of planes and the history of flight, which Mike would have loved! Sarah had never seen the big dinosaur from the Natural Hisorty museum, so we went there soon, and saw some nice rocks, played with some of the water games and went on the mock earthquake ride. It was good fun, and a shame we didn't have longer because it' a really awsome place, but we had to brave the awful rush hour traffic to get to London City to get Mike. It was absolute chaos, and I was terrified, but deseperate to see Mike and Sarah got a fab tour of all the sights of London on our way!

An adventure driving in London

Since Mike was in Spain at FTE and needed a lift back from City airport, I agreed to go collect him. Sarah agreed to come with me, and I'm so glad she did because driving in London was an absolute nightmare! The roads we needed were all closed and it was absolute chaos! We decided to spend some time in the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum before we went to get Mike and his friends so it was an challenge to find a parking spot! We were exceptionally lucky and found a side road near the Roman Catholic Headquarters, the Arabic Persons consullate and a really beautiful church, I didn't really mind paying lots as long as we were close!

Battersea Park

After spending a week in Michigan, I flew back into Heathrow and got collected by Mummy who insisted on going to an antique and modern art fair held in the conference centre in Battersea Park. Having loved Hyde Park when Mike and I visited I was very happy to find that Battersea is just as pretty, even in my jet lagged state. It even had a petting zoo, lots of pretty flowers and masses of fountains. We were lucky enough to arrive early so I could go out with the now very broken camera and take some photos. My favourite was the peace temple they had, complete with people doing morning Thai Chi!