living and learning: A lovely week away

On the Wednesday we stayed the night near Preston, because Thursday we had plans to meet up with my friend S and her four children, J, T, B and G. At her suggestion we met at Rufford Old Hall, a National Trust property that they'd been to a couple of times before. We had a lovely time, playing giant Jenga and giant Connect Four to start with, then we moved round the side of the house and found the croquet set, which was really good fun.

Croquet at Rufford Old Hall.

After a very good picnic lunch, provided by S, we had a walk around the grounds, looked at some bugs that we caught in the bug viewer that we'd given them as a present, watching some teens play a game of giant chess and climbing trees. After a quick look inside the house, as J wanted to show K & M the armour, in particular the helmet for a horse, it was time for S and company to head off, as they needed to get themselves sorted for S's brother's wedding the following day. We stayed a bit longer and had another, very close, game of croquet and a go at swing ball, as well as a drink in the cafe.

We stopped for a meal, over which we discussed things ranging from Shakespeare quotes (we'd been listening to the cd of Shakespeare Without the Boring Bits, including, for the first time ever, Romeo and Juliet), to life from conception through birth to death and beyond. Then we arrived at the very nice guest house that we had splashed out for a night in, to which the girls would very much like to return for a bit longer in the not too distant future and it has occurred to me that it would be the ideal location for a bit of star gazing (one of the 50 Things that we have yet to do), being really rather out in the middle of nowhere. Friday we headed for another National Trust place, Fountains Abbey, which A remembered visiting as a child and wanted to return. It was a good plan and we had a lovely day. We started off with a brief visit to the playground.

Swinging Daddy!

Then we explored the Abbey and talked briefly about the Reformation, but mostly about how the ruins would make be a really good place to play the 'ruin game' (as played in the first, I think, Charlie Bone book). In the book the children have to go into the ruins of a castle at night, and compete to find a medal hidden there and get out again within an hour, the winner being exempt from detention for the whole year.

Fountains Abbey

More of the Abbey

Exploring the Abbey

As well as exploring the Abbey, we had a walk around the water gardens, had lunch and a very good ice cream and explored more of the very extensive grounds. Since K & M were very keen to play the Ruin game, we returned to the Abbey and played our own version of it. As there were quite a lot of other people around and we didn't have a medal anyway, we used A as the medal. He had an extremely good hiding place and it took about half an hour before M finally found him!

A's hiding place

M found him - eventually

We didn't have much time left after our game, just enough to have a look at the mill, where A & M made some flour. And M found the final clue for the activity that she had decided to do (it was supposedly one of the 50 Things - 'use a map & compass' to find clues, but frankly if the compass is drawn onto the map I really don't think that counts!).

Making flour.

From Fountains Abbey, we headed to Durham where we were staying with R, a college friend of A's, and his wife, also R and their boys B, who's coming up to 5 and H, 18 months. R and B were still at the cricket when we arrived, but got home soon after we got there. The girls got on really well with B and they played really well together (well mostly anyway!), mostly football with the dads but also on the trampoline (always a favourite with my girls).

On the Saturday A & R were going to the cricket (the second day of the fourth Ashes match for those who are interested in such things), so I had arranged to meet up with one of my 'computer mummy friends', Me, and her family. (I had asked R if she and the boys would like to join us, but they had things to do). We had met Me, S, E & B last time we'd been up in Durham rather briefly, so it was good spend a bit more time together. Me's suggestion to go to the Sedgefield Country Show sounded like a good one, so we met there. Initially, at least in M's opinion it was not such a good idea, but she warmed up after a while. There were rides to go on, all four girls liked the bouncy slides, lots of different animals to see and plenty going on in the big arena to watch.

We all learned something about goats. We saw the goat below, with an enormous belly that we were absolutely convinced much be pregnant and not far off giving birth. It looked for all the world as though there was a baby in there moving around, and we heard several other people saying the same. However, on talking to a lady in there, we learned that none of the goats in the tent were pregnant and the movement we could see was the rumen, part of the stomach, where the food goes after being swallowed for the first time, before it is regurgitated as cud, which is the chewed before being swallowed a second time. (I found some more info here).

An interesting goat.

We didn't see any sheepdogs, we did however see goose- and duckdogs! When working the ducks, children were invited to go and stand in groups for the dogs to weave the ducks in and out of and M and B with S, joined in.