Trekking Up and Down the UK

 

Its been a pretty busy couple of weeks! On top of the usual day to day life and drama, we've managed to fit in some very busy weekends.

First of all it was Open doors Day on the 23rd and we went out to the Lothian Buses depo. Open Door Day encourages businesses to allow the public in for a behind the scenes look and has been going on for years. This was the first time however that I was made aware of a dog friendly day, so of course I had to take the chance and go along with Missy.

It was a good day, we got to sit on an open top tour bus and have a drive around the depo, hearing about the history of the building before going onto another bus (with a roof!) to go through the bus wash. There was lots of vintage buses to have a wander about and plenty of volunteers ready to chat with us.

Sunday was a quick dash to Keswick and back to see my niece for her birthday. It was my brothers idea, so him, my mum, the two dogs and myself made the journey all together. We first had lunch where I got to catch up with my niece and nephew and then it was a revisit to the pencil museum owing to poor weather. Here I took Maisie and accompanied my brother as he filled in the quiz - after all his mocking of the idea of a Pencil Museum, he actually really enjoyed the day!

Then it was a full week of work.

Then Saturday was a Halloween photoshoot before getting the house in tip top condition for a very special VIPet, Ren. Rens pawrents are away to Oz for two weeks and, owing to difficult circumstances on their end, we agreed to have Ren. Its not the best two weeks for us owing to other commitments, but he's a very easy going dog, so we'll make it work.

Then yesterday was a quick trip up to Stirling with the eldest neice to practice her photography and also fit in a Howl-o-ween dog show. Ren isn't one for dressing up, so in honour of his folks going to Oz, I made him a little Steve Irwin outfit and Missy donned her pirate one. Both were beaten by a poodle dressed as Audrey 2 from little shop of horrors, and it was a well deserved win for Storm.

And then it was a nice walk about Stirling to enjoy the last of the autumn sunshine and each others company before heading back home and getting organised for another week of work. I've been paired up as a buddy to a new start who joined the team today - he seems lovely, but it's gonna be a very busy run of things I can tell! 

Until next time, embrace the spooky season! 

(Missys photoshoot will be shared later in the month, I promise its worth the wait!) 

Lake District

So that's us not long back from our week away in the  - I've posted before about how wonderfully dog friendly the area is and we were not disappointed a second time!

I wont witter away for too long, so here are the highlights!

Our first port of call was in Ulverston (about 40 minutes from where we were staying) to the Laurel and Hardy Museum. Its completely dog friendly and goes over the life of Stan Laurel who was born in the village. There is a little bit about Hardy too and there is a cinema screen constantly playing the movies. The chap who runs the place (his grandfather founded it) was very chatty and full of interesting facts. A definite recommend! 

We then went to the nearby Buddhist temple and took Missy on a nice walk along the 'beach'. We had planned on stopping at the Stott Bobbin Mill, but fortunately I noticed when putting in the postcode that as it was off-season, it happened to be shut the Tuesday.

Wednesday we did a cruise with Windermere Lake Cruises and did the green walkers route, which picked us up at Brockhole, took us to Ambleside (we found an amazing pet shop there and got Missy a new collar and a lovely tea shop) and then to Wray Castle. We had planned on walking out to the newly built view point but hadn't realised it would be a 6 mile round walk (next time we'll do it!). We had a theatre show booked for the evening, so instead did a 3 mile walk to a lovely old barn house that was another viewpoint. 

The show that we saw was "Meeting Mrs Bea" at the recently built Old Laundry House theatre. It was about Beatrix Potters later years as Mrs Helis when she had become an accomplished sheep farmer and had given up on writing stories - I wont say more than that, but if it tours by, or you can find the original radio play its based on, its well worth a watch.

Thursday was a busy day! We started out by hunting down the locally infamous orange sheep and enjoying a walk around Troutbeck which is were we were based for the holiday. The sheep did not disappoint and are much more orange in real life than either photo or video shows!

We then took Missy out on a row boat and, whilst unsure at first, she quickly settled into it all, even risking a damp nose and peeking into the water a few times! Whilst Missy is an incredibly strong swimmer, she stoically makes a beeline to shore and does not enjoy the experience in the slightest , so we had no worry or concern that she would jump into the lake (living by a river that flows very strongly after rain, we did test that she could in fact swim not long after getting her, whilst she would allow me to carry her into the water, she did not venture in on her own free will!).

Our last day was going home through Keswick. The Pencil Museum was sadly closed for refurbishment, but we found some nice shops and a lovely little cafe to enjoy our last day in.

Its now Sunday and Missy is still quite tired from her adventures, and we're already planning the next one! Till next time!

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?