Hooters

I find that my chances of getting a quality photo for my blip increase exponentially when I actually leave the house, nay, the town, I live in.

It had been a while since the children and I had actually “done” something on a weekend at home with illness and truly shocking weather putting paid to anything outdoors-led. Today however, the weather was absolutely beautiful, so having dropped The Eldest at work we carried on out west to Muncaster Castle.

We walked the trails, had a picnic, played on the playground (them)/had a restorative cup of tea (me), marvelled at the octagonal (I think) library in the castle itself and spent some time in the bird hide before sitting down for 45 minutes or so as a variety of beautiful owls flew over our heads as part of the onsite show.

The children’s favourite was “Mole” (extra); a burrowing owl, who forages food from the floor and walked through number of tunnels for our entertainment. My favourite was the great grey owl; Ash, who looked to be so big that it was a wonder he could fly. Apparently, he weighs the same as a bag of sugar.

No day would be complete without needing to give one of them a bollocking stern talking to for being mean to his sister, and the other a bollocking equally stern talking to for sulking because a) she couldn’t get an overpriced teddy from the gift store and b) in a beautiful irony, we couldn’t find our way into the maze (which I’m pretty sure wasn’t there anyway).

We were collecting The Eldest and some cakes from the lovely café she works in, but were a little early and so wandered around Ulverston where we happened upon a bunch of stuff outside a shop with a sign saying “Everything is free! ” and so we scored some free arty prints, before getting the band back together and headed home for battered sausage and chips.

Going out is the new staying in.