What's going on at the cottages?     -  The Sunnybank Blog!    2012         

   
May 16 Our friends Roy and Jean Parfrey have spent the week in Cobbleholes. Roy arrived with additions for the Coniston railway - two coal staithes and a coal lorry. By the end of the week, Roy now featured on the layout as the new coal depot has a sign naming him as the local coal and log merchant. Here, "little Roy" is shovelling coal to fill his sacks!
May 2 Despite the news that the rest of the country is semi-submerged, we continue with fine, mild weather - ideal walking weather , neither too hot nor too cold.
Apr 28-30

 

Combining a family birthday party in Stoke and collecting friends from Manchester Airport, we have taken a two day break in the Peak District. We arrived in a monsoon but Monday was lovely so we took the cable car to the Heights of Abraham in Matlock Bath, where we explored a natural cavern. It made a relaxing break and saved some fuel by not driving the M6 twice in two days!

Apr 5

 

 

 

Megan and Jessica met Daisy today when Caroline took them to Ben and Alison's for the day.

Jessica is holding Daisy who seems quite unphased by the event!

Mar 30 A quiet day!!! I calculate that since Feb 23 we have travelled at least 2224 miles between Ambleside and the London / Reading area!
Mar 28

 

 

 

As Daisy and Alison returned to the ward too late to see her last night, we had our first chance to see her at 3pm today.

Later we drove back home (with 10 more new fish for the pond - who all survived the 4 hour journey)

Mar 27

 

 

 

 

 

Daisy Attenborough has arrived - Ben and Alison's first child and our third grand-daughter.

Mar 26 Drove back down to Reading to await the arrival of Alison's baby (due April 1st but now definitely "on the way").
Mar 23

 

Drove back from Reading (with 12 fish from Shinfield to start replacing the fish slaughtered by the wild mink last year.)

This picture shows four of them (silver ghost carp).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mar 19

 

 

 

 

 

Megan (left) and Jessica (right) do a bit of tree hugging in the park!

 

 

 

 

 

The birthday girls pose amongst the daffs on the way to their favourite playground.

Mar 18 Drove down to London and celebrated the twins' birthday and then transferred to Winnersh (Reading) to spend some time in Ben and Alison's new home. As the day of arrival for the new baby grew closer we helped settle them into their new home.
Mar 9 - 12 Took the train to London and then on to Wokingham for a surprise baby shower for Alison. The twins and Caroline came too but later Caroline, Jill and the twins went to join Rich and Ben at the new house where operation "fish tank start up" was in progress. Megan and Jessica played happily in the garden, rearranging the stones around the edge of the pond.
Mar 6

Finally ventrured out to the village and Boots Chemist!

Rich's longstanding order for a diesel unit has arrived and it has a Cumbrian favour, as can be seen!

Mar 5 Had to summon up the energy to go into the field and unblock the culvert as our garden had developed a medium sized lake caused by the culvert overflowing in the field and then using our garden as a new route to the sea!
Feb 23 -27

Spent a few days in London seeing the twins and helping Ben and Alison make the move from Streatham to the Wokingham area. This included moving a tank of tropical fish (not still in the tank of course) and later helping to paint two rooms in their old flat which is to be rented out.

Unfortunately, we both returned with what was probably flu and have spent over a week either in bed or walking around like zombies!

Feb 14
Evening at Coniston shed As the twilight fades and the lights go on - the work at Coniston shed goes on!
Coniston shed After two days of Richard lying half inside a cupboard under the layout, the turntable at Coniston (on Rich's railway) is finally complete. At the touch of a button locos swing around and stop opposite the track they will depart on.
Feb 14 With the temperature up to 7C all the snow has gone.
Feb 11 The end of the cold snap is in sight. Today the temperature reached the dizzy heights of 1.3C !
Feb 5

Just around the corner we saw the reason why..... a Land Rover had smashed into the wall as it descended the road

and demolished the wall before sliding to a halt across the road.....The police decided it was unsafe to get a tow truck up the road to move it so they simply closed the road and the car remained here until Monday afternoon!

Feb 5

 

 

At Edinboro, we came across this "Road Closed" sign .....

Feb 5

Beautiful snowy scenes on Kirkstone Road looking towards Fairfield

Feb 4

 

 

The forcast said snow from 1pm and almost on the dot it started. By 5.15pm when this picture was taken by the webcam, we had four inches and still snowing steadily.

Jan 4

Since the jackdaws and crows tend to arrive en masse and eat all the bird seed from the feeder on our fence, we have invested in a mini cage which now sits on a platform on the fence (not like this publicity shot!)

The ordinary birds arrived and went through the slots quite happily but the pigeons, crows and jackdaws arrived and took one look and gave up! Success!

The birds will need all the help they can when the snow comes.

 
Jan 31 Today we had a professional bath restorer from Preston to re-enamel the bath in Sheepgates. After a thorough preparation, Nigel has masked off all the tiles and taps and is almost ready to start spraying the various layers to make the bath like new. He worked through from 8.10am until 4.50pm! The result is a "new" bath.
Jan 27 Our third mole has been caught by Allan's traps! The mole hills seem to have stopped appearing so perhaps we have seen the last of them?? Time will tell.
Jan 25

 

The joiner has found a 16 feet long piece of timber to replace the old one and now the work is underway to replace the slates and to replace the one which blew off and smashed before Christmas. Ian Creighton's men are working well.

Jan 20

 

 

 

 

 

 

After only a two week wait the scaffolding has finally gone up on Sheepgates' gable end to allow the soffit board to be replaced!

The first 3-4 tiles have been removed from the gutter upwards and the old (1815) soffit removed.

Jan 16 After a couple of visits to check the traps, Allan finally had a success in the secret garden where a large male mole (a boar) had been caught - but the one in our garden is a wily little chap. He keeps filling the traps with soil and making a bypass!
Jan 13
A mole has decided to invade our lawn
Overnight a line of mole hills have appeared. Another mole (or perhaps the same one) has also invaded the "secret" garden near the car park. Time to call in the mole catcher - Allan Nicholson, who arrived later. He excavated the tunnels in a few places and inserted a series of traps
Jan 3 Severe gales and 20mm of rain between 3am and 6am. I was planning to remove the Christmas tree from the small garden by the coal houses but nature has done it for me. Despite being secured by numerous wedges into a concreted fence post socket, the tree was launched into the air and across the back of the cottages, trailing fairy lights behind it!
Jan 2

Winter is returning! Awoke to snow and sleet showers and a slightly whitened Wansfell.

Jan 1 00:05hrs

Click here to see a clip of the fireworks

A Happy New Year to all our visitors and blog readers.

Jan 1 As all the family have now departed after their Christmas visits, we decided to see the new year in a different way. At 11.40pm we drove down to Waterhead promenade and waited for the fireworks to herald the midnight hour.