August 12th 2015 - St Bees beach

August 12th 2015 - St Bees beach

As it turned out to be a hot afternoon we loaded the car and set off the 2 miles down the road to St Bees beach.  It seemed that everyone else had the same idea as it was really busy down there.

However we found a spot big enough for us to put the shelter and wind breaks up and "make camp" for few hours.  I laid sunbathing and reading and hubby sat in the shelter reading (he doesn't like the sun that much) and the boys played in the sea, the giant puddle left near the rocks on the beach and the beach.  They built castles and had fun.

A family behind us had started to build a big castle with moat and when they left the boys took it upon themselves to fill the moat with water.

August 6th 2015 - Seascale

August 6th 2015 - Seascale

A few days ago a friend posted some pictures on facebook of her children at a park, it looked really good so I asked her where it was.  She told me and I looked it up, I had heard of the area but wasn't sure where it was.  Well google said it was half hrs drive from us up the coast.

We loaded into the car and set off up the road to Seascale.  Upon arriving hubby took the money for parking and came back with it - the car park was free thanks to the "local residents".  So the afternoon started well.

We went down onto the beach and the sea was quite away out.  I told the boys they could go in it as long as they rolled up their trousers above the knee and didn't get wet as we had no spare clothes with us.  Here are the 3 of them in the sea:

They also spent ages on the mini pier:

 

 and were fascinated that some of the gaps in the pier were filled with rocks:

The tide came in really quickly and we had to leave the beach so they went to play in the park:

A nice afternoon was had by all.

March 28th 2015 - Family Walk

March 28th 2015 - Family Walk

This morning the weather was really bad,  it was cold, wet and really dull and overcast.  I thought this was going to stop us going on a family walk, however, after lunch it brightened up and stopped raining so we stuck shoes and coats on and we headed off in the car.

Yes I no I said family walk and we went in the car, but we were heading 10mins up the road to a nature reserve we had found on the net that looked really good.  We found the turning in the road and went up it and parked the car in a lay by just down from Harrington Nature Reserve.

First impressions as you walk by the big fenced off area to where the gate is situated is "there's not much water here and it looks like waste land".  Not a good start.  Before we went through the gate we looked at the map and it looks like there is quite a lot here.  We went down the path and onto a bridge and the kids played pooh sticks - they love this simple game!

We followed the path round to the right and the river just stops as it goes under the road, so we followed the very wet and muddy path round a piece of grassland and came back to the main "rezzer" which again had very little water in it, only a few ducks and lots of dead trees and plants and rubbish!  I don't mean drink bottles and crisp packets but tires and road cones and broken things.

Sadly this walk was a big disappointment to us as the Harrington Nature Reserve website makes it look so much better than it actually is.  I would like to think that it is in the process of being tidied up the fact trees have been cut etc, it is a great site and has the potential to be a very nice place to visit.

Here are a few pics that I did take there.

After we left here we headed 2mins up the road to the Salterbeck "rezzer" which again didn't have much so we took a short walk up to the sea - most of the cliff top didn't seem very safe and you could see where a lot of it had collapsed down to the beach.  I'm not sure if it used to be a coal pit/mine or something else but it was definately buildings of some sort.

We nipped to Harrington Marina on the way home and some of the waves were huge, not as big as I have seen but big considering its not very strong winds.

The kids did enjoy being out of the house for a bit, just a shame the initial place we went wasn't as good as it looks on the net.  But never mind.

February 15th 2015 - Parton Rock pools

February 15th 2015 - Parton Rock pools

Today's pin is from the places I want to go to board, and was Parton.  This is a place that we visit regularly as its only a couple of miles up the road from where we live.  It is a sort of cove area on the coast and the beach is all rocks from tiny pebbles upto huge boulders.  Some of these huge boulders have been worn away by the sea and  therefore the sea gathers in them making rock pools.

My boys love going there to see if we can find anything in the rock pools, and usually 1 of them ends up wet for whatever reason - falling into a rock pool, walking in the sea, standing in a rock pool, being splashed by his brother etc.  Today we were lucky no-one got wet but we wern't there very long as my eldest decided to be stupid and climb the wall that has a train track above it!!!

We did collect some shells whilst we were there but I don't think there is enough for the lady at the community centre's summer craft session.  So will have to get some more on another visit.

Here are a few pics taken at parton last year: