Stockley Farm

It was my niece Felix's 3rd birthday party on Saturday and we decided we would travel down for it and start our Lakes holiday off with a bang. The party was held at Stockley Farm as it was deemed an easy location and was relatively cheap for a whole day. By pure coincidence, its also incredibly dog friendly - there was an old trip adviser review stating that dogs weren't allowed most places, so I emailed the place who informed me the policy had since changed and they were welcome everywhere so long as they were well behaved.

I would add photos of the birthday girl, but alas, my sister (the mum) doesn't particularly like the idea of said child appearing online, which is fair enough, so I will just spam you all with more photos of my (fur)baby!

It was a great day out - there was meet the ponies, a great big indoor bouncy castle and sand area, and a great big outdoor play area too. We found a pig who was desperately trying to escape, a goat with a bucket on its head and a lovely nature trail handily marked with very large red triangles - perfect to let a three year old think they're leading the way for us all! At this point we squeezed in a picnic and sung happy birthday and Felix got to blow out her candles.

The only thing that wasn't dog friendly was the owl show. The woman running the event came over and was very good about the fact that Missy would upset the owls and pointed out a screened area where the hubby could still watch the show and the owls would be happy. It was a very scaled back show that was really more of a 'here's a barn owl, line up kids and maybe you can hold one' kind of affair and unfortunately my niece is minuscule for three years of age and wasn't keen on pushing in on the press of excited children!

The little red rocket!

By this point the birthday girl was fairly tuckered out, so we finished the day with the sheep racing. You could bid on a sheep to win (you bought a numbered badge for 50p) and in order to ensure both family's won something, the hubby bought all the badges for both races (8 in all) and divided it up. By great coincidence, the birthday girl herself won and so did I - although I decided Missy suited the rosette far more than I did! All in all, a great day had by all!

Little Baby Plecos

Hiya

Well, In addition to Missy I keep fish - currently just the one tropical tank (I had to downscale having previously run two) and its a 240L, which unless I can get something custom made, is the biggest I can have in the house!

A few weeks ago I noticed that my bristlenose plecs were acting pretty weird, but decided to leave them be as they looked healthy and it was fun to watch them digging and burrowing about all the bog wood. Then the hubby spotted one of these:

A teeny tiny baby! Less than 5mm long.

And then I spotted all of these!:

Yes, all those yellow things are eggs, and Daddy is guarding them!

And now they've all hatched. They're too small to take out into a nursery tank, so we've had to leave them to fend for themselves. We'd always set the tank up to be as anti baby as possible - plecs and corries to eat the eggs, congo tetras and butterfly fish to eat any small offspring. The plan backfired when the plecs guard their eggs, and then, since they are plecs, they never leave the bottom of the tank, the other fish haven't really eaten them...

Currently I can spot usually 8-10 babies at any one time, last night I got 16, so goodness knows how many there are going to be! The plan is to hand them into the local aquatic store once they get big enough to fish out (no pun intended), but I will keep you all updated on plec-gate!

In other news, we're all heading down to the lakes for a week - Missy never likes us packing so she has been regarding the whole thing with great suspicion. I'm sure I'll get some nice photos to post up once we're back (at least, if the weather is fair! Its been horrific the last few days!)

One of the reasons we're going down that way is that its my nieces birthday weekend, and she is perhaps the greatest receiver of sewn goods from me, so here is a few bits I'm taking down for her!

    

The cloak is because she wants to be a vampire when she grows up! It matches a little waistcoat I made her earlier in the year (But alas, have no photos of!). The little dungarees are adorable but I think its going to be the red lucky cat pinny dress that goes down the best with my sister!

Till next time!

Blackness Castle

Its another one for the Scottish Heritage pass! Desperately trying to make sure we get our moneys worth out of these...

So, Blackness Castle - the boat that never floated....

Seriously, from the pier it looks like a ship - its the strangest little castle you can imagine! And of course its dog friendly, so Missy has been continuing with her history lessons. This one boasts a prison tower, a great hall, a large courtyard and even allows you to walk around most of the curtain wall. We bumped into lots of other pooches who were enjoying their lessons as well, so it seems a local favourite for a nice afternoon.

This was a good castle for the dog as, despite the winding staircases (she's just about mastered them now without towing one of us to out imminent deaths) it was really quite open, and the grounds included a nice stroll along the beach which had plenty of rabbits in the long grass for shaking off any history-induced-cobwebs.

Missy is admiring her kingdom

In addition to trawling the local area for castles and other unusual and fun places to take the dog, I've been getting on with a lot of sewing projects. Whilst I enjoy dressing Missy up in silly hats and coats, the hubby prefers a more practical look for the dog (Missy, her wagging tail reliably informs me that she really doesn't care, so long as there is treats at the end of it all!) And so I present to you all (courtesy of Simplicty Pattern 1578) a doggy bathrobe! Perfect for little doggies like mine who absolutely hate being dried down (really, the way she acts when you try to dry her paws would have you thinking you were wielding a rusty saw at the dog!)

I also do sewing for humans too - mostly little ones like my nieces and nephew, but sometimes I do manage to make something a bit more grown up sized. I might do a wee post sometime soon with a wee sewing round up, but until then, cheerio!

Cairnpapple

Long time no type, and my apologies for that.

I've been a bit lost as to the general direction I want to take this blog, and think a less formal approach is perhaps more needed, as well as something that encompasses a bit more of my general life. So, here's to another try!

For our birthdays the hubby and I got Historic Scotland passes and we were pleased to realise that a lot of the sites allow dogs. The general rule of thumb seems to be that if there is no roof, then the dogs welcome, which is great news for Missy!

We decided to christen the passes with what is technically the nearest site to us - Cairnpapple. Its basically one of the highest natural hills in the area and was used as a ritual site by various peoples in time. Originally hosting a henge (of the wooden sort, although the size of the holes that supported the timbers are huge, so it would still have been impressive in its day) it was then used as bronze age burial mound and then again in the early Christian age.

We all really enjoyed the site, the hubby won himself a sticker filling in the kids quiz (on Missys behalf, of course!) and I managed to get a few nice photos. I'm hoping for a really crisp clear day soon, the view is terrific and would love to get some more photos of it.

In other news, I've been playing about with the up-cycling trend (good for both the environment and the pocket!). Missy is unsure of wether she approves of this!

Windermere Lake Cruises

Windermere Lake Cruises

Place Name: Windermere Lake Cruises

Location: Various around Lake Windermere

Cost: Varies depending on cruise type

Parking: various pay and display car parks - information is well provided on website

Time Required: 45 minutes to all day

Restrictions: Dogs to be kept on leads and not allowed on the furniture.

Refreshments: There is a small bar on most boats that does tea/coffee and alcoholic drinks

Website:  https://www.windermere-lakecruises.co.uk/

As you can expect with a name like Windermere Cruises, the attraction here was going out on either a launch boat or a steam boat on the lake. The company offers a variety of packages depending on where you sail from, how long you want to stay on the boat and whether you want to do a walk around Wray Castle as part of their seasonal walking cruise. The larger trips use the steamer, the smaller ones use the wooden launch boats.

The plan from day one had been to do one of the cruises on the lake, but like all great plans, other things came up and instead of a full day on the lake we only had time to fit in the 45minute Island Tour. With Missy being prone to the odd bout of travel sickness, it also made sense to just do a small ride just in case. The Island tour sails in and out of the Bowness harbour every half hour. The location allows for plenty of ice cream, duck feeding and strolls along the shore line before going onto the tour, and if you're up for it, more of the same once your back off the boat.

Once we'd bought our ticket (dogs go on free) we simply strolled onto the boat. The staff made no complaint to us sitting downstairs in the shelter on the nice soft chairs (Missy on the carpet) and had no problem with us all going onto the more exposed top level during the tour. The weather was fortunate enough that we stayed up top most of the time, but it's good to know that had the elements turned against us, we could all huddle downstairs together.

The boat set off and we had a guided tour of the different islands - it was interesting to see that one had simply eroded down to a single tree whilst others had been the film set to Swallows and Amazons whilst the largest was privately owned with its own house and everything! The only real complaint to be had was that the information was quite brief and the guidebook we had purchased covered all the tours so the information on just the islands was a touch sparse.

Missy stole the show as usual and we got a lot of compliments on how well behaved she was - truth be told not a lot phases her and she really does take new and odd surroundings in her stride. She thankfully didn't suffer any travel sickness and strolled quite calmly off the boat with us.

And yes, we did go back and have a second ice cream on our stroll along the shore line!

Overall rating : 4.5/5 - Timetables and maps were a touch confusing to figure out, but the staff were great with us. Great fun and a novel way to get about if you have a whole day to do it.

That's the last of the Lake District reviews for now, we hope to get back down again soon, but in the meantime please feel free to let me know any recommendations in the Scotland area!

attraction, Cumbria, dog, dog friendly, Dog walking, England, Windermere lake cruises, Lake District, missy, pet

Keswick - Pencil Museum and Puzzling Place

Place Name: Pencil Museum

Location: Keswick, England, CA12 5NG

Cost: Adults £4.50, Kids £3.50

Parking: Pay and display carpark to rear of building; £4 for all day

Time needed: hour to hour and a half

Restrictions: Must be on lead. If there is a demonstration on, dogs are not permitted in the cafe area but there is spaces to eat outside.

Refreshments: Cafe inside the gift shop area

Website:  http://www.pencilmuseum.co.uk/

The Pencil Museum was originally on the to-do list as a bit of a joke. One of the first places we found that allowed dogs inside, we simply had to take Missy and find out just how ridiculously twee the place would be...

The Pencil museum is well sign posted and easy to find. The car park gives you all day parking for £4, and that comes with a £1.50 off entry voucher, so we didn't begrudge that, especially as we'd already made plans to be spending the day in Keswick so the parking suited.  We had decided that we were going to stop for lunch first, so were a little caught out that due to the demonstration, Missy wasn't allowed into the cafe area (there's a small additional room that they are normally allowed in). There was plenty of outside sitting, so we braved the chill and ate out, though in hindsight there was a million dog friendly cafes and pubs barely five minutes away, so we should have just looked elsewhere.

We were pleasantly surprised within the museum - if anything, if wasn't big enough! There was a history on pencils and graphite in general, a section about the spy pencils from WW2, machinery and videos explaining how pencils are made and even tiny pencil lead sculptures! The floors were all carpeted so Missy was quite happy to lie down whilst we watched the videos.

The strangest thing for us was that no one batted an eyelid with having Missy in with us! She had a tremendous fuss made over her by the staff in the gift shop, bu other than that we were left to our own devices.

Overall rating : 5/5 - Surprisingly interesting and informative, staff were absolutely brilliant and really pleased to see us.

I now have a sausage dog!

Puzzling Place

Place Name: Puzzling Place

Location: Keswick, England, CA12 5DZ

Cost: Adults £3.75, Kids £2.90

Parking: A short walk from the Pencil Museum car park (£4 all day pay and display)

Time Required: 1 hour

Restrictions: None.

Refreshments: None.

Website:  http://www.puzzlingplace.co.uk/

This was a quick stop for after the Pencil Museum and the hubby particularly likes his puzzles and optical illusions. It was a short walk from where we'd parked which was ideal for us and was relatively well sign posted.

Up a flight of stairs and we entered a small shop before paying to go into the main attraction. For less than £4 it had a good mix of optical illusion posters, holograms and some very clever camera mounted sets that made it look like you were walking on the wall and things. Some of the holograms were a little worse for wear, but other than that it was well laid out, clean and very enjoyable.

Getting Missy to pose with the illusions was a little tricky, but other than that, we all had a good time!

Overall rating : 3/5 - A nice cheap way to kill an hour, but the low price does reflect on the exhibits.

Whinlatter Forest

Place Name:  Whinlatter Forest

Location: Lake District, England, CA12 5TW

Cost: Free

Parking: Plenty, pay and display

Walking distance: Variable, 1 hour to all day

Restrictions: Dogs are not allowed into the visitors centre, shop or cafe

Refreshments: Cafe by visitors centre (dogs allowed in outside seating area)

Website:  http://www.forestry.gov.uk/whinlatter

Whinlatter is the big brother of Grizedale which I reviewed previously. On that note, I will quickly start on their similarities and differences which are worth bearing in mind.

The parking is again pay and display, though more sensibly broken into hour blocks. I was more prepared this time and had plenty of change! A Go Ape is located within the forest, though this one felt more discretely placed to one side and tons of mountain bike trails. Missy, as I said previously, is on fairly strict lead walks because of her claw, so the odd bike whizzing by wasn't a problem, but should be noted for those who let their dogs free range, especially as the year warms up.

More carvings to find!

The one major difference that did surprise me is that the cafe in this one is not dog friendly (well, they can sit out under a shelter on a porch) and the prices are a touch more expensive - but you expect that when one place uses teabags and the other serves you loose tea leaves, a strainer and a menagerie of pots for it all!

Without sounding snobbish about trees, this forest is part of the forestry commission for felling and is a wave of evergreens. It is predominantly firs and pines with the odd lone birch tree making a spindly break for it. However, the forest still retains a natural feel, unlike the eerie endless rows of some forests and is well populated with birds and such. It is also huge. With the parking meter ever ticking in the back of my mind, we didn't stray off the marked routes (we did two walks, the yellow short walk and the blue medium walk) but there was plenty of 'off road' stuff to explore should you be a frequent visitor or decide to do a whole day.

Its difficult to really get the full scale of the place

We did have time for a little look at the playgrounds. Yes, plural. Whoever came up with splitting a play park into little bite sized pieces and spreading it across a walk was probably a genius. The areas we looked at were well made and designed, and we may have indulged in a go at what was effectively a giant sand pit toy but with pea gravel. The website also promises the Gruffalo (a statue of a children's book character) who we failed to find, but I suspect that he was tucked away on a separate little path rather than on a main one.

Overall rating : 4/5 - The parking (again) and the fact that the cafe didn't allow dogs whilst the sister site did pulled the score down. However, the paths are well kept, facilities were great and overall a great place to visit that could either be a tremendous morning walk or an all day thing.

Is that rabbit I smell on the wind?