South Lakeland 2015

South Lakeland Leisure Village

(near Carnforth)

June 2015

Having booked Ribby Hall for April and Aberfeldy for August, we were looking to fill the gap with another holiday in early June. Dr Hosie generously offered the chance to stay at his lakeside lodge near Carnforth (part of the South Lakeland Leisure Village). We headed out mid-morning (about the earliest we can mobilise when we're packing for whilst looking after two small children) on Sunday 31st May, arriving there in just over an hour at around lunchtime. These super short holiday travel times are very handy.

We actually arrived in cloudy, windy conditions - it was quite chilly and we quickly put the heating on - this photo was taken a few days later in much better weather. We stayed at number 8, which made it easy to remember.

It wasn't long through our stay before Daisy had helped herself to Lynne's make-up, adding an interesting, pink (naturally!) flourish to her eyebrows.

Meanwhile, young Gregory was making himself at home on the master bed.

We wasted no time in seeing what the area had to offer, popping down the road to Greenlands Farm Village where this goat was either eager to greet us or eager to escape.

As I wandered round with Gregory, the girls popped into the nursery centre where Daisy petted a small hamster.

A little lamb wondered what fate would befall him/her. Little would he/she know...

There were a couple of ostriches walking free and loose, which led to a slightly odd situation as they were walking past Gregory as he was stood still, oblivious. I moved into a position whereby I was between the birds and the boy and they carried on sauntering, but it was all very odd. There was a third ostrich in this barn which kept making loud noises, triggering Daisy to run around a little like this (although I think in this shot she is just mischievously trying to make it tricky for to photograph her).

Daisy keeps her Jersey on 'cos it's Friesian. (Sorry.)

Daisy ran off at one point and, having followed her, we ended up in a sheep barn. But then one of the staff asked if we would like to feed one of the lambs (perhaps the character in the previous shot) so we concurred. And here we are feeding the lamb. It took a little while to find the right angle - at first, we ended up spraying milk over the poor lamb's head - but we soon got the hang of it.

Of course, when I pointed out the nearby slide, there was no persuasion needed...

...although she does not quite appear to be much of daredevil here, slamming her eyes shut as she splashes down in the hay at the bottom.

Only 13 months old and Gregory is already perfecting his boy band looks. Whilst he has his hood on, the sun came out in the afternoon and it turned into a reasonably pleasant day, albeit remaining a little on the fresh side.

After the outdoor fun, we headed over to the farm shop, which stocked an impressive array of produce and various items (Daisy was attracted to the toys naturally). Amazingly, Lynne managed to resist the not-really-what-we-expected-to-see pick and mix (although not for the whole week, natch). We then headed over to the indoor play centre, the PlayBarn. Daisy went in the bigger bit but Gregory was confined to the toddlers' area, where he toddled to his heart's content. Actually, he kept wanting to climb out and started getting grumpy so I took him for a drive to get him to sleep.

We stopped off at Longlands Inn & Restaurant on the way back for some tea, as it was only across the road. Gregory, however, was getting a bit tetchy so I took him for a walk. I discovered what was described on that sign on the left as The Northern Reaches (of the Lancaster Canal), the restoration of which is "an ambitious multi-million pound project to re-open the most northerly 14 miles from Tewitfield to Canal Head in Kendal", it says here. I didn't venture further as it looked a bit off-road, and besides, it was beginning to rain.

Our plans to stay for a meal at Longlands were somewhat scuppered by Gregory's continued unrest, so we decided to quit while we were behind, order takeaway pizzas from the bar menu, and head back to the lodge. The rain continued to fall leading to the delightful sight of this rainbow, which looks to be continuing into the lake, and there seems to be the faint outline of another rainbow to the left of it.

But with a strong westerly the clouds were blown away, and things were much calmer a few hours later as the sun finally disappeared behind the horizon (this was about half-ten). As with our trip to Ribby Hall, the children had not settled well in their first night in a strange environment, and we were pretty tired (in every sense) when it got to this time.

Unfortunately, I was also to experience the other side of the night sooner than I would like, although it did enable me to take a nice shot of the sun peeping though the clouds at 5.30am. (The sun just doesn't want to sleep in June, does it.)

The sun was very much a presence the next morning, and with the wildlife coming close to the lodge I took a picture of a mallard...

...and a moorhen. Y'know, 'cos I could.

Later on the Monday morning, we headed over to the Lakeland Wildlife Oasis, which was just five minutes down the road. First stop was the Butterfly Hall, which featured these Leaf Cutter Ants making mincemeat (not literally) of this blood orange.

Daisy was intrigued and clearly wanted to mess about with them (she likes befriending insects), but we implored her not to. Having got their bounty, the ants clambered up the vertical rope and across to their alternative destination.

There were a few butterflies fluttering around, I suppose as you would expect in the Butterfly Hall. Daisy chased them around but didn't really get close enough, whilst I took a longer range shot with zoom through the vegetation.

The other half of the blood orange was designated to the crickets. They didn't seem quite as interested.

Say hello to Mr Tarantula, the daddy of the arachnid world.

There was not much of an aquarium, but here is some of it featuring chunky-sized fish, as Daisy enters stage right.

As I wandered into the next section, a gentleman was backing towards me looking up (I think with his camera). He turned round and exclaimed "there are bats!". And he was right. They didn't fly particularly low and so weren't about to crash into us or anything. In fact, they mostly hung around, a little like this.

It's just galling when they feel that they can laugh at you through the window without fear of reproach. So childish.

These mice (or perhaps small rats) had plenty of space but all chose to sit on this log, requiring others to crawl over them in order to get anywhere. It was a curious sight.

Having seen everything indoors, we headed outside to see what else there was. Daisy was very enthusiastic (or perhaps impatient) and wandered quickly ahead, ignoring the mixture of wildlife to the left.

Aha, a quest for something to interest her led to the natural conclusion: a slide.

With Daisy entertaining herself as above, I managed to grab a picture of this snow leopard (with his mate behind), which was trickier that it might have been as they were behind a wire mesh fence.

Lynne and Daisy couldn't resist getting in with the animals in this authentic shot.

Back to the playground and Daisy is keen these days on climbing, demonstrating her new-found skills here.

Always good value to get a meerkat stood up on its hind legs.

This looks a bit like a capybara.

As we wandered back into the building, a bright-coloured bird helped himself to some midday snacks, wearing the latest in charity band accessories.

We then got surprised by a crazy half-giraffe, half-person in the gift shop. Genuinely frightening.

And so it became time for luncheon, whereupon Lynne treated herself to a frothy coffee with marshmallow dunkers, which intrigued Daisy muchly.

As so often when we eat out, Daisy busied herself with some colouring action. In the background, you can see that Gregory didn't quite make it, having fallen asleep as I pushed him around. A little like a light bulb he moaned the loudest just before dropping off.

Back at the lodge in the afternoon and the sleep had done him good. He was certainly very chuffed with himself to have discovered how to stick the Helly Kitty character pieces he so loves onto the window.

As we moved into the evening, the weather turned pretty grim, and we were gobsmacked to see some crazy people swimming in the lake with kayakers on standby in case something went wrong. But the rain poured and the wind blew, and I cannot imagine for one second that it was in any way enjoyable.

Gregory bothered not about the mad fish-people; there was a big cushion/bean-bag thing to clamber onto and look angelic from.

Here's a shot to try to demonstrate just how wet it was. Answer: very.

To read about what we did next, please continue to page two.

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