We have been mainly.....

this week we have been doing a variety of things and keeping busy as always.

We started the week with our usual trip into the local town for food shopping and a visit to the library.  I picked up a ball of yarn this week too, to knit a scarf for a Christmas present.  I needed a small knitting project to take camping over the weekend.  One of my current projects is from a 1kg cone which is not very portable!  We picked up a great story sack from the library on caterpillars.  It had some lovely books in it and a great game that my youngest and I played many times during the course of the week.

On Tuesday we joined our friends for our regular playdate.  My youngest once again spent most of our time there on the trampoline.  I did not see my eldest much during the day until he asked me late on if one of his friends could come home with us for supper.  We returned home with an extra child for a few hours they played upstairs with Lego coming down only to eat supper before returning to their play.

We joined friends again the next day at their house for shared lunch and play.  The afternoon disappeared really quickly and the house looked like a whirlwind had been through it.  We helped to tidy up before we left as we had helped to create the mess. After a really early start to the day, my youngest woke me at 5.30am and I could not get back to sleep, I was hoping to get to bed early.  It was not to be, I needed to get to grips with a route card that I had been sent for a Duke of Edinburgh Award expedition.  I had suspected at first glance a few days ago that it would not meet the requirements and it did not, it took me a long time to go through it all and make notes to explain to the group what they needed to do.

We spent most of the next two days at home preparing for a weekend away.  We had to go out and food shop again to pick up extra food.  I baked two big cakes, made 36 bread rolls and some mini pizzas in the afternoon!  I also had to make a phone call regarding the route card.  I ended up having to write an email, as I did not want to leave along and garbled message.  A busy day lightened by my wonderful youngest child.

On Friday afternoon we all headed south in a minibus with two friends and eight explorer scouts for a weekend climbing.  We stopped for supper on the way, by the time we got to the campsite it was getting dark.  We have never put our tent up in the dark it was a interesting experience but we managed it.  Over the weekend we spent the whole of Saturday and part of Sunday at Stanage a popular gritstone climbing crag near Sheffield.  I spent two years as a student in Sheffield nearly twenty years ago, it was weird to be back there again after so long.   I did not manage to climb over the weekend which was a shame but I am sure there will be time for this at some point.  I spent the days assisting at the bottom and taking the children on walks nearby.  There is a lot to see and explore  around these crags including gritstone grinding wheels for mills that have been made, but abandoned near the crag.  We had lovely weather over the weekend warm, but not too hot, as we got into the minibus to come home the rain poured, great timing.  Climbing in the rain on gritstone is no fun at all!