19th October, 2014...Charity gigs and Zombies!

This was one of those weeks that we just had to get through, but weirdly it ended on a high note!! It was very windy when we got down to Furness Abbey today, and...yes....I am as shattered as I look in this photo!

 

We're that disorganised at the moment, we couldn't even cobble together enough for a cup of tea at Abbey Mill when we got down here!!

 

 

 

It is looking rather autumnal and muted down here at the moment! On the 'cup of tea' front, we headed up to Dalton to visit Mr.Hillman senior, who is recovering from a rather serious operation...but not to weak to offer us that cup of tea, which was great. Here he is earlier on this year after his Land Rover jaunt.

 

 

After the Monday morning operation for Raymond here,the week continued with some separate but sad news, and our thoughts are with that family, then our good friend Wedge had her operation cancelled...this was all before mid day Monday. It has definitely been a week for 'tea and sympathy'!

 

 

 

 

The beck is filling up again, further along it's journey, but up by Manor Farm it seems to have been blocked off?

 

 

Here's our daughter playing at the Ulverston Canal Group fundraising gig on Friday...what you can't see here is that she'd had to down a Southern Comfort and lemonade to steady her nerves, even though she's done this sort of things loads of times before...she said she was a 'bit rusty'... I say she was spot on!!! And talking of 'charity gigs'.......

 

 

 

......if you were in Dalton Road on Saturday afternoon, you will know what this was all about!!

 

 

 

And Greengate were in the thick of it, as always!

 

 

 

The 'Flash mob' was organised by the National Autistic Society, Furness Branch, and Greengate knows how much support they give to children and families, so we had to get involved. It was great fun, and a real 'coup' for Barrow!

 

 

The SteveHillmanCamera has been out on one of it's jolly jaunts again this week...this was taken on the way up to Brockhole on Thursday...Ulverston looking lovely as he passed so he couldn't resist....here's one of the Lakeland Low Fells taken whilst he was up there too!

 

 

Actually, it's no wonder we are shattered by the weekend!! Roll on half-term! Oh, and here's one for our friend Wedgie, continuing the 'tea and sympathy' theme.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

12th October, 2014.....Kit Wright and the Daffodil!

Terrible weather earlier this week....Greengate 'little ones' didn't make it to Furness Abbey on Monday, or to HayBridge Nature reserve, but by Wednesday the sun had come out and our older kids were heading to Grasmere. We had the opportunity to listen to a reading by the poet Kit Wright and to visit Dove Cottage and the museum, so off we went.

 

'Out at the edge of town
where black trees
crack their fingers
in the icy wind
and hedges freeze
on their shadows
and the breath of cattle,
still as boulders,
hangs in rags
under the rolling moon,
a man is walking
alone:'

 

 

 

Kids loved it....and we got to eat our lunch on the patio of the Daffodil Hotel too, which was lovely!

 

 

Talking of lovely hotels, the SteveHillman camera was at Broadoaks in Troutbeck yesterday.....that is a nice venue....we seem to be spending a lot of time up in the Lake District lately!

 

 

 

We even managed a day off today, and headed to Abbey Mill for some lunch, only to find that because of the lovely weather every man and his dog had arrived there before us and taken our seats!!

 

 

Drat!!! We had a lovely walk though!

 

 

 

Beautiful autumnal colour here at the moment....I used some Furness Abbey photos in our Harvest Assembly on Friday. Our parents were very generous as usual, and we listened to some lovely poems about autumn from our children.

 

 

 

A nice way to end the week! One of my jobs this weekend has been to write the 'Christmas Play' letters and suddenly I panicked.....how did we get to this point again...it seems like only five minutes ago that we brought the old year six children down to Furness Abbey for their last day out, in July....now we're talking Christmas!!

 

 

I could see a jay in the trees but it wouldn't come down....happily, the beck is filling up again!

 

 

Frankie's Dalton mates having been talking about Poaka Beck and he had no idea where it was...we drove from Colony Candles to Ireleth today to show him...it is lovely up on the fells by Marton!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

5th October, 2014....Harvest Festival and Furness General!

A tiny bit of rain has finally fallen, and very nice it was too....I'd forgotten how clean things smelled after a rain shower! The beck at Furness Abbey has a small amount of water in it at last.

 

The skies seem heavy with rain, but none of it is falling yet...? Greengate little ones invade Abbot's Wood tomorrow so lets hope the rain holds off until after that!

 

 

Lovely sunrise from our bedroom window this morning, and the SteveHillman camera went to a new venue yesterday...the church at Penny Bridge and then Rusland Pool! Don't think I've ever been to either before, though an old friend of ours did OWN the Rusland Pool for a while.

 

 

 

He thought the hotel was a really good venue for a wedding, and it's not far from Barrow if you don't want to pay a fortune for wedding cars!

 

 

 

 

Tested my new Jack Wolfskin boots out down at the amphitheatre today......they were perfect......a cross between hiking boots and wellies!

 

 

Frank decided to give his Berghaus walking boots a test too....now he's worried he'll have caught leptospirosis from the water, so he's having a lie down!! We were all having a quiet morning, pottering, reading papers, drinking tea etc when the phone rang. It was Rosie saying she'd come off her bike on Birkrigg Common and was lying in a heap. We got in the car and threw in the first aid kit and a couple of tea towels for good measure, and headed up there. Land Rover to the rescue again!

We did go to Furness General Accident and Emergency because she had smashed her head on the road, but luckily the helmet took the full force of the impact and she's escaped with cuts and scrapes and a head ache.

 

 

Furness general were very good though....she saw a triage nurse within ten minutes and then was seen by a doctor within the hour, so well done to them, they were very thorough. They have obviously pulled themselves up by the boot straps......I ended up in there a couple of years ago after something nasty, and they were rubbish....slung me out with the most ridiculously dangerous pain killers that I could have sold for massive money on the streets.....and I'd never even taken paracetamol! I binned them and suffered! Happily, things seemed to have improved there now!

 

 

Just got across the train lines in time....wonder if Mr. Woodcock is heading back to London to his day job!! My boss went to one of his mobile (!) surgeries on Friday.....I haven't asked her how it went yet.....hopefully there

 

will be some good news for Central Ward. In the mean time, I've noticed many local schools are donating their Harvest produce to the Barrow Food Bank, as we will be doing after our Harvest Festival on Friday. We do split it with Ostley House too, as that is a very worthwhile, and sometimes overlooked, local charity.

 

 

Greengate Junior parents are always so generous! This was last year!

 

 

 

 

It's looking lovely down here at the moment! I was talking to an old sparring partner the other day, who cannot understand why I put heart and soul into my job, when the pay is rubbish compared to his managerial salary, for half the effort. Here's the answer.......

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

28th September, 2014...Autumn drought and the Great Hillman bake Off!

More beautiful autumnal weather, but the local streams and becks are looking worryingly empty!

 

 

Yes, that is the dried up beck....and it's like that as far back as you can follow. Really dry down here at the moment.

 

 

You've got to wonder how much prolonged rainfall it will take to get this filled again. Last week's short spell of rain obviously had no effect...no chance of spotting a kingfisher or heron with no food available...?

 

 

And yet another old tree fallen into the beck further up...there is nothing but dry soil for the roots on the banks of the river now and things are sliding in. We found a wasps nest fallen on to the river bed near Bow Bridge...nothing holding it in place now.

 

 

We spotted Barbra Dunn from  British Heart Foundation putting out markers down here yesterday, and there were lots of walkers today, so I guess BHF had a charity walk...we did our bit for charity on Friday, with a Macmillan Coffee Morning, our first event of the new school year, and raised £160.

 

 

 

Mad coffee ladies!!

 

 

Parents at our school are so kind and supportive! We had a 'bake off' of our own this morning....we got so fed up of eating rubbish food last week because we were busy, we decided to cook five complete meals from scratch and freeze everything to keep us going at least this week (and some bonus mince pies were made from left over pastry so that can't be bad!). We do this 'now and again'!!!!! Can't sustain it though!

 

 

 

 

So, this lovely weather....Late September is a very popular time to get married, and the Steve Hillman camera has been very busy...

 

 

 

 

 

 

.....and congratulations to all the happy couples past, present and future! There is only one photographer you would choose (but I'm biased obviously!).

 

 

Frankie is growing ever larger...I'm always shocked when I see him in these photos by Abbey Mill Café....their sausage buns are just too good! Well, I've purchased my Jack Wolfskin snow boots, but I kind of think we will still be in shirt sleeves in December this year, though the weather in the latest book I'm reading is making me shudder.....

 

 

 

 

.....even their eyes freeze if they step outside for a few minutes!!! Bring it on!!!