Big day today for the DragonDroplets. Felix’s first day at big school (St. Aidan’s) and Sophie’s first day at primary school (Grove Road Harrogate).
Just watching Felix set off on his bike now on his big solo adventure out of the window as I type this. Mama stuffing last minute things into his ruck sack. He does look really grown up. Good luck my boy and good luck Sophie Pi.
Felix’s very last day at Grove Road School today. What a lovely school it is. We’re so happy with the way they have cared for, educated and inspired our Felix and given him such a solid foundation. As far as the formative years go, we we’re lucky enough to chip him off in that direction. Still got our other two there so we’ll be friends of Grove Road for a while.
It’s quite good having a blog that’s been around for a few years sometimes. I just looked back on the blog that I wrote all those years ago on “Felix’s first day at Grove Road School” Full circle / Start of a new chapter.
Having a little breather for a couple of hours before we carry on with Jaygo’s birthday weekend. We started on Friday night with a game of rounders on the stray that we were invited to. This was really good fun for everyone. Rounders, BBQ, cake and catching up. This photo shows the line up – little to big selection process. We had a few spare kids with us as Jaygo was having a sleep over. J & H and their brood were there also as well as a whole bunch of lovely others.
I was looking forward to the morning of his birthday (yesterday) nearly as much as he was. We’d put the feelers out for an electric guitar and amp. My old friend McParty was selling a Marshall amp, meanwhile a guitar came our way and the serendipity of it all couldn’t have been better. He’s been having guitar lessons at school now for a while and he’s just at that age when he’s really discovering music – he particularly likes ROCK. Here’s a picture of him doing the birthday dance.
We had a lovely day of pottering about, playing guitar! the evening rolled into a rather impromptu BBQ – we’d planned on having a couple of people over and it expanded a little to be somewhere between a gathering and a party. Some old friends that we’ve not caught up with for years. Some splendid attendees and some nice bbq chow which merged into a chilled choons, fire bin and wine type night.
Lots more batting to come in this B’Day weekend – we’re off to Lightwater Valley today and we’re supposed to be going to another BBQ this evening! A BBQ hat-trick no less. A few more photos of the weekend can be found in this flickr set here (which I’ll add to with any photos I take today)
Got back last night after a lovely camping trip to the Lake District. We didn’t see a single Lake though.
Fisherground campsite – lovely spot – part of this set of photos>>
Fisherground Campsite is reputedly (and I can confirm) one of the best campsites in the country for kids to enjoy. It’s got a really good adventure playground complete with zip wire. It’s got a pond with an island and rafts. It’s got a train station with trains that go to the coast or up to the village to the East. It allows fire – a massive plus point in our book – an essential part of camping that so few campsites allow these days. It’s got a 3 acre mowed field for games and sports. It’s got a green team that really do look after the place and its residence – perhaps a bit to Victorian Dad about it at times, but at the end of the day – they do a really good job.
We’ve stayed at Fisherground campsite before – when we were there last time it was rather cold but this time we had the weather on our side. After grouping up on Friday night and imbibing a modest amount of alcohol we got up bright and breezy on Saturday. We made a check list of things to do – Play cricket, look at the trains (perhaps go on one), collect wood (they sell it there, but the Yorkshiremen in us knew best) , eat some nice food, have a few beers and play lots of Boules and Frisby. We did all of the above and added ‘game of rounders’ and ‘fly kite’ to the completed action list. The evening consisted of silly story time from the kids round the fire then we all turned in fairly early after all the days excitement.
Sunday – we got packed up just before the heavens opened. Rainy day activity plan kicked in – Museums. Barrow-in-Furness has The Dock Museum. This was fascinating. A converted dry dock, mainly on the history of (the biggest cul-de-sac in England – ) Bowness. Ships, Trains, Grimness, Engineering, Determination. We all really enjoyed it.
After that, almost by random I discovered that there was another museum on something quite close to our hearts – The Laurel and Hardy Museum in Ulverstone. This consisted of part of an old cinema with anecdotal and historical reference to the comedy duo, as well as memorabilia and a mini cinema showing back to back Laurel and Hardy classics all day long. A very pleasant end to a very pleasant weekend.
I was lucky enough to do a lot of my favourite activities over the past 5 days or so.
Thursday – went to watch the cricket at Headingley with a lovely bunch of people. ‘My’ team (Yorkshire) won one of it’s key matches of the season – they beat arch rivals Lancashire by 17 runs in a confident win. A train ride back to Harrogate, followed by a few drinks in town ensured a healthy hang over the next morning. Luckily, I’d arranged the day off so one of the first ports of call was coffee in town followed by a few missions to stock up for the festival we were headed to for the weekend.
As I’d mentioned in last years post, Lindley Woodstock is technically a private party but had the feel of a small festival – stages, fires, PA’s, people, curry van, bouncy castle etc. Very lovely it was as well. I ran the top stage – the format of top stage act > bottom stage act > top stage act (etc) meant that the music could go on seamlessly (ish) all day and night. The highlight musically for me on that stage was a psychadellic act who’s name I missed – all Gong / Hawkwind ish. really interesting. The highlight for the bottom stage for me would have to be Mick Artistic, who I’ve seen before somewhere but who was on top form at Lindley.
After a lovely Sunday in the sun we headed home to get the kids settled for school night. The next day – Monday – I went and had quite a major haircut followed by lunch at home, followed by the delights of seeing Sophie at her Baby Ballet class. Very cute. Very pink. We let Sophie have a potter about in the KidzPlay at Hammerian House – they had a TV on where I got to see the second half of Portugal thrashing North Korea. The big think of the day was Eirene and I’s 10th wedding anniversary. ‘Tin’ apparently. 10 years ago that day we had our wedding reception / party (and oh boy oh boy, what a party it was!) up at the Harrogate Arms. This was back when the club downstairs was still serviceable, so we took over that with DJ’s, set an acid jazz / funk type band upstairs and I think we had more stuff outside… all very much fun) so with those thoughts in mind we headed back up there with the kids after school for a look. Downstairs is no more, the pub has been knocked about a bit (still nice) and outside has donkeys and birds of pray! what a difference 10 years can make!
After collecting my new DragonDrop shirts and kitting the boys out in the all new 12yr old edition , we headed off to a lovely garden at a friends mum’s house in Ripon to celebrate their boys birthday. The best gift was a massive cardboard box which kept all the kids amused for hours.
Following the rather splendid garden birthday party, we walked up for a look around Ripon. I’ve not actually had a look around the smallest city in England for a number of years, even though it’s just a few miles from where we live. We were lucky enough to see 
the bride of a wedding sweep past us as we loitered around the Cathedral. 
Felix bought some Nurf guns which he’s been after for a while. World cup viewing was taken in by all of us at a friends house via a big screen projection. What a disappointment of a match though. Our half time frisbee and nurf session on the stray was way more exciting. After the footy, we headed back to ours for a fire bin and a few drinks. A nice collection turned up and it was getting light by the time I wound down for the night. Sunday – a bit of a tidy up followed by a super BBQ in our back yard with some old friends. Nice way to spend a day – I’d just got the last thing off the bbq before the heavens opened – good timing!
Sophie meets Erin, originally uploaded by DragonDrop.
Yesterday we went to see our friends who breed trakehner horse.This week and a bit old called Erin is adorable. Made Sophie squeak. Some more photos over here>>
He’s 11. That came round quick. The fantastic cake pictured here was a wholeheartedly chocolaty number, featuring the word FELIX. It didn’t take long for it to say F_LI >, followed by F_l , followed by . .
He had a sleep over with his best friends. 1am was the last time I tried to tell them to stop talking and get some sleep. Much fun. He got a watch and with saved / clubbed together birthday money he got a PSP 3000, and Grand Tourismo (a heavy chunk of my influence on that title it’s got to be said). I’m just about to make Brown Windsor Soup (one of his faves) and we’re off out for Chinese tonight.
Had a mainly cub related weekend – took the cubs out geocaching on Saturday morning – that was nice, Sunday we went to a ‘big adventure day’ at Thornthwaite cub camp. All sorts of fun activities on the go. Felix managed to set a new camp record for crate stacking (where you see how many milk crates you can stand on before they fall over – he was harnessed!) side by side record now set at 46!
Other than that, a bit of nice family time and an evening of Tiger Woods on the wii.
We’re so proud of our Felix. Yesterday was Harrogate’s 50th Annual Mowgli Cup – and Felix’s team WON!
Felix is 10! this was the very moment about 2 hours ago when he opened his main prezzy – an MP3 player. He’s a happy boy. 10 years old. Quite incredible to think back over the last 10 years. So much has happened and yet it dosent seem that long ago at all since we moved back to Harrogate and Eirene had a big baby in her belly.
Superb adventure driven weekend. After studying the weather with more than a passing interest on Friday (as I was guest writing about weather for a blog at work) I worked out that the East coast of Yorkshire was looking like one of the best chances of getting some nice weather in the North (the mid and east were looking rainy)
Pretty much as soon as I got in we set off in the van. No real plan – just head east – where the weather was going to be nice. I’ve got an OS map of the area and once we were not far off the coast I got it out and looked for a suitable place to free camp. Horcam Hole was spotted – I’ve wanted to check that out for a while so decided that would be the destination for the day.
Horcam Hole – a huge natural amphitheatre which legend tells us that it was created when a giant named Wade, a Saxon chief, grabbed a ‘handful’ of earth to throw at his wife, Bell – the soil missed and landed to form the nearby hill of Blakey Topping. Quite a breathtaking place. A nice place to camp over – even nicer as there was a lovely couple with their dogs who’d also had the same idea camped next door (safety in numbers and all that). The local constabulary came by a few times and gave us a friendly nod and wave.
After breakfast we headed off to nearby Goathland, where they film Heartbeat. Chocolate box top picture postcard little village that amongst it’s other virtues has got one of the best kids playgrounds we’ve ever come across. After letting off some steam there, we pottered about – ending at the ye old world steam railway station. This was like stepping back in time – the tourists (who’s numbers had greatly increased throughout the morning) looked very out of place.
After that, on a tip off from our camping neighbours we headed for Sandsend – just up the coast a bit from Whitby. We couldn’t of hit the weather better – by the time we got there it was a gorgeous day. We played in a lovely little pool on the beach, I sat in our portable ergo chairs (which come into their own for a trip to the beach), paddled in the breakers (as pictured up top) and generally had a lovely beached afternoon. After that, a bimble into Whitby itself, where we picked up a huge back of fish and chips and drove up to the top of the hill to eat them, looking over Whitby and the abbey. An walk round the abbey and it’s buildings (it had shut by this point, but you can see ‘it’ just as well from outside the perimeter wall.) followed by a drive home.
Still hungry for new things to do today, we visited Alborough Roman Town near Boroughbridge. Not something I’d have been happy to pay £3 for adults for but we’re English Heritage members so were able to have a look for nowt. The ‘museum’ was a small room containing a few artifacts found nearby and the main event were 2 floor mosaics. Beautiful arboretum surrounding the remains of the original wall though – some lovely trees planted in Victorian times and an incredibly pungent Jasmine. which was worth the visit alone.
Stopping off at Conyham hall on the way home for a cuppa by the river, I got to sit in our camping sofa (a phrase which, incidentally has ranked really highly as a search phrase for people arriving at DragonDrop) with my tree identification books learning about trees (a self improvement excersize I’ve set myself).
Eirene had cleverly left some lamb on slow roast, ready to eat when we got back. What a grade A weekend of adventure. I’ve chucked a bunch of photos from this weekend on my flickr site.
Felix made this. I really like it. I love the range of stuff that’s gone into it – different paint techniques, stuck on stuff, plastic wrappers, black paper… it’s all great in my humble unbiased opinion!
Felix is 8 today 
just had cake and prezzies in bed. He got this Yugio Dual Disk from his uncle Simon and Aunty Maria which he is over the moon with it. Its got some ultra rare import Japanese cards on board.
Mixed bag weekend due to the terrible show from the English bid to get anywhere in the cricket. Quite a good day non the less, it was a friends birthday and he’d asked a few cricket heads to share his special day whilst watching the match. Bloody Marys for breakfast set the tone. After the cricket, we had a game of frisbee then went to the pub for a bit. Ended up at an impromptu party.
Sunday was Felix’s special birthday treat day (his b’day is Tuesday) – he’d decided he wanted to go to the forbidden corner. Along came his best friend and family. It rained when we got there which was ace because I got to try out the full storm shield of our new baby back pack. Superbly designed product, it’s even got a rear view mirror to check on how baby is (this was the key sales feature for me). So – forbidden corner – if you’ve not been before it’s well worth a visit. Optical illusions, mazes, secret tunnels, wierdness, strange things and such like. Photos to follow.
A new pile of fresh Adventure virgin shirts is awaiting dispatch to qualifying adventurers.
