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!!