21st February, 2015.....Out-and-about at half-term!

Half-term holiday has slipped through our fingers like quicksilver....but it was an excellent time to catch up with family and friends, and reflect on happenings in the next few months. February weather is, at best, unpredictable, but it has been quiet and a bit flat lately.

 

 

 

My 'blog' look....I'm now being recognised in 'pie shops'!! Frankie is not fully fit at the moment...he seems to have the 'bug' that many Barrow folk have succumbed to....cough, earache, sinus pain and general tiredness, so we have to fortify him with snacks from Jackie's Abbey Mill if we walk down here at all at the moment!

 

 

We've had reason to visit Ulverston, Windermere and Kendal this week, and as usual, the Steve Hillman camera (and nana!) accompanied us!!

 

 

I think it was a 'thumbs up' for afternoon tea at Gillam's (I'm sure the owner did some drumming workshops in our school back in the day!). They serve a lovely pot of 'real' tea there, and a mean scone!!

 

 

Met up with a friend and colleague here....I used to come through to this shop from Barrow, in my teens, because it sold 'ethnic' Indian print clothing, cheesecloth kurtas and 'thong' sandals!! The shop is mainly gifts and gadgets now, but I'm sure there are many fifty somethings of my era who remember how we fought over 'hippy' clothing back then! And it wasn't even the swinging sixties....it was just a backlash against the early eighties New Romantic boys we hung around with!!! 

 

 

Some lovely little quirky shops in Ulverston though!

 

 

 

We had to check out Kendal Dry Ski slope for a visit we are planning there, so Kendal was next on the agenda.....

 

 

 

 

.....and Frankie found his 'heaven', here on Earth! Lovely stained-glass window in....Booth's would you believe!

 

 

 

And a quick trip to Lakeland Plastics, just for the fun of it!!! Very modern and futuristic inside now!

 

 

 

 

We have always had superb support for our school from the local Neighbourhood Management team, with their wardens supporting us on trips, providing training for our kids and generally getting us involved with local events. Sadly, their functioning has been paired back to the bone, with only a small team remaining, and a move from their own office on Dalton Road to an office within Barrow Town Hall. However, we will be happy to continue working with them, as they have provided us with really valuable input over the years, and I know most of the local community would agree with me on this (and anyway, they are a lovely group of people who are hilarious to work with!!). Rant over!!

 

 

Here's Paul, helping with one of our trips last year!! He was great!!

 

 

 

 

There are a few early signs of spring in Abbot's Wood at the moment.......

 

 

....and a lone flowering gorse bush on the hillside! As thoughts turn to spring, the Steve Hillman Website has been updated to fit in with all the new brides he has photographed over the past twelve months....check it out.....

http://www.shphotographer.co.uk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

15th February, 2015......Early spring sunshine and Valentine's Day romance.....!

Well, we made it to half-term, but the Hillman cameras are never at rest! Both father and daughter had to shoot Valentine's Day weddings, and they could have sold the date at least five times....well, it has been many, many years since Valentine's Day has been on a Saturday! Both the brides looked lovely and I've seen previews of some stunning photography!

 

Busy down at Furness Abbey today, I mean REALLY busy...we couldn't get a table at Abbey Mill! It was a lovely, sunny afternoon though, and registering 8 degrees celsius on the thermometer, which we haven't had for ages!

 

 

 

 

Yes, I think Frank is pretty much matching me in terms of height...though he's still only TWELVE!

 

 

 

 

 

Lots of bird life on show today....coal tits, the woodpecker, buzzards and jays, but not the elusive heron...! And kids camping!!!

 

 

 

We did laugh at this indignant sheep who refused to move from her patch in the warm sun as we passed! I was interested to read about the next new housing development planned for the old Thorncliffe School site....it does seem even dafter that the Manor Farm development...houses from 350K to 450K, bought off plan but ready for late 2015.....who's got that sort of money in this town at the moment? And the site is at this stage now.....who is doing market research for this I wonder?

 

 

 

So, we headed out to Roa Island to maybe get a cup of tea at The Bosun's Locker...alas...that was full to bursting too! We did watch this gyrocopter (?) messing about on the Piel Sands, with a perfect view of it from the stunning new ferry landing pier...when did that happen??

 

 

 

 

Bird watching again! It's that same oyster catcher that landed on our house the other day!

 

 

The RNLI Lifeboat station is a show-stopping building too!

 

 

Now, the Steve Hillman Photographer tells me he has found a lovely new place to buy gifts for me....and he did surprise me on Valentine's Day.....

 

 

 

 

...... Yew Tree Barn....it does look like my kind of place.....

 

 

 

...but, amongst the photos he took, was THIS ONE.....

 

 

...which he insists was someone else's breakfast and he just photographed it! I think you know he's lying!!! The place looked really photogenic......

 

 

 

.......it won't beat our number one favourite though.....!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

8th February, 2015....February Mega-Blog!

No Steve Hillman weddings, and beautiful late winter weather can mean only one thing.....a whole weekend of being 'out and about' in our small slice of Furness!

 

We did pay a sneaky visit to Furness Abbey whilst everyone else was sleeping this morning.....and the eerie, drippy fog photos tell their own story!

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was 8am.....and it never really cleared today.....and I didn't get my customary text from Mr. W downtown to say the weather was different there, so I'm assuming the fog lingered in the town centre today too!

 

 

It was a lovely, sunny Saturday though, so we headed to Abbey Mill for a late breakfast, and had a good chat with the Herbie family who were also down here providing a bit of entertainment for their grandson!

 

 

And poor Jackie had to be interviewed by JG from the Evening Mail over some stolen picnic benches...here she is trying out her 'I'm really cross' pose! Not easy when a camera is being pointed at you!

 

 

My 'Reactolite' lenses are now labelling me as an 'uncool' person, according to my son (and he's the 'king of cool')!

 

 

 

Bird watching's not 'cool' either according to him, but we did laugh at this cheeky Jay who follows us now, looking for scraps!

 

 

We walk past this house on the way home from our jaunts....we have done for seventeen years now, since we've lived up here, and I've always admired it....now it's FOR SALE....arghhhh...I need to win the lottery....teaching doesn't pay anywhere near enough to secure it!

 

 

We met up with an old friend of ours on Friday, whom we knew from the days when he was working on placements for getting in to teacher training....so pleased to find out that he is now a fully trained and highly respected science teacher in this town....GO BUPE!!! He's a truly lovely guy!

 

 

Great views for the school's balcony too!

 

 

So....nana came walking and blogging with us today...she's a mobile 'weather forecasting' unit, and as she predicted, the misty fog didn't lift very much!

 

 

 

And she, like Frankie, did NOT like walking across the railway lines...the trains always honk out a warning but they both still panic!

 

 

 

Always time for a quick Abbey Mill latte though! Yesterday evening, with three cameras and the binoculars, we headed up to How Tun Woods because we could see from our office window that some strange weather was afoot......

 

 

......and we were right! The sun came out from beneath a layer of cloud, but above the mist that was rolling in from the Irish Sea, and this was the result!

 

 

 

 

Superb, but rather surreal!!

 

 

I'm reading a rather good book at the moment....those of you who know me know I was left with a chronic pain syndrome a few years ago, which I have managed to largely heal myself, so imagine my surprise when I discovered that so have many other people, using similar techniques linked to brain plasticity, and that there is actually a science behind it....a book to share with my good friend Wedgie!!