Real Familly Holiday

This year we went down to Millport, on the island of Cumbrae, for our summer holidays and as with our holiday last year we stayed at the Field Studies Councils Centre (FSC Millport). The FSC Real Family Holidays are becoming our go to yearly family holidays and for good reason. There reasonably priced, all inclusive and there are always a number of other friendly families there to chat and play with. Of course the other big draw is all the activities that they do there for the kids, from mini-beast hunts to treasure hunts to shelter building. Each centre is different and while there were some elements at this years holiday centre that were not as good as last years, there were also somethings that were better but overall I couldn't tell you which one was better. The kids enjoyed both holidays and we're planning on going back next summer. 

Millport accommodation and centre (from FSC website) 

One of the highlights of the trip was going hunting for wildlife, as part of the mini-beast hunt. We set some traps overnight to see what we could catch and two people were lucky enough to catch something. I've only got a picture of one of the mice below as the other mouse made a (successful) break for freedom as soon at the trap was opened. The kids were super excited by the sight of the mouse bouncing this way and that as it made its way back in to the  bushes. 

The field mouse (the one that didn't escape)

There were lots of other activities from team games and orienteering to rock pooling and beach art and with there being an aquarium onsite, there was also a guided tour of that. Probably one of the other highlights for the kids was the camp fire. These seem to be a hit at each place we go, although I suspect its more to do with the food on offer that the camp fire, last year it was toasted marshmallows and cinnamon sugared apply slices (toasted to melt the sugar) and this year it was popcorn, popped on the open fire in a proper popcorn popper thing. The only downside is that they keep on insisting on stupid camp fire games, I hated these things when I was a scout and I still hate them now!

Handeling starfish on the guided tour of the aquarium

The great thing about the Real Family Holidays though, is that you don't need to take part in any of these things if you don't want to, its completely up to you. We have know people who have just used the centre as a base for their own holidays, joining us for breakfast and dinner and disappearing out during the day with their pack lunches. When you have young kids its a great way of holidaying, as you don't have to worry about getting home each night and cooking dinner or shopping for food, or worrying about where your going to eat or whether the pub you've chosen will do something the kids will eat. Plus, when you want a little quiet time, you can just send the kids off to the games room or the TV room with the other kids and have a nice relaxing cup of tea from one of the numerous tea station that are around.

If anyone is interested in the Rear Family Holidays, you can find all the information you need here;

http://www.real-family-holidays.org/

and the FSC info here

http://www.field-studies-council.org/

Construction projects

Well, it looks like the little man is starting his career already! The during the holidays there were a number of events at the local park and games hall for the bairns, mini football and rugby, tennis, volleyball and badminton, plus mini diggers and tractors, giant jenga and connect four, that sort of stuff. One week though it was raining and so they moved inside and got out the softplay stuff at one end of the hall and the football stuff the other end. While we played for a while, the little man spent quite a while building this:

Its a pretty good den, his just putting on the chimney here, not sure why it needed a chimney but apparently it did. Ill admit to helping a bit, the roof was made of mats that folded in the middle and he kept trying to put them o the wrong way up and they kept folding in the middle and collapsing, easily solved by flipping them over.

I was quite impressed with his construction skill while he was building it, although it lasted a lot less time finished than emit took to build it! But hey, that's kids for you!

More cats

Another quick post about the cats, as I was amused by spot the other day. Of all the places in the house she could have curled up to go to sleep, she chose to sleep on the tray containing the kenitic sand! 

Not sure how comfy it must have been but she slept there for quite a while and slowly turned green as well, as all the sand attached itself to her fur! Silly cat!

Also, herds a picture of the little man sleeping. I'm not sure whose maneuvered around who? Have the cats moved around the little man or has the little man moved around the cats?

Fire!

So, after a long, long time, I have finally finished the front room! it only took about 18 months and the last piece was the fire. It was supposed to be sorted for last winter, but that didn't happen, but it is ready for this winter!

I dong have any pictures of the first part of the work, as it involved me up on a set of roof ladders, manhandling a six flexible flue liner down the chimney, which is only about 7 inches wide and not overly straight. As you can imagine, trying to get 6 meters of liner down the chimney and not fall off the roof took all my effort and photos were pretty much the last thing on my mind. The wife helped out as well and I would have loved to get a picture of her standing at the bottom of the ladder, with hard hat with attached ear muffs! She was worried I would kick a tile or something down. But no, I survived, didn't break any roof tiles and managed to get the liner down and the chimney pot in place, although there was a point about a meter from the end where I thought it was all going to go horribly wrong. The liner stuck solid and I had to try for several minutes to try and jiggle it around, moving it up and down as best i could. All that seemed to happen was that it stretched and compressed rather than actually moved and I was getting quite worn out by all the physical effort. You couldn't grab it from the bottom either as it was just to far up the chimney to grab by hand, lucky though all the jiggling worked and the liner shifted and slid the last meter or so in to place. 

Above is the liner fitted to the stove pipe with register plate in. The liner is untrimmed from its original length, my calculations were a little off, I was planning on it reaching down to the bottom of the picture and then trimming it to length. As it happens its actually exactly the right length for what I wanted, which was great! If it had been shorter I dong quite know what I would have done as we ordered it about a year ago and I'm not sure they would take it back!

In order to get the plate in I had to channel out the sides of the chimney, using a couple of sds chisel bits. I went to jewson's to get them originally, but at over a tenner for one I decided against it but as I left I noticed the local shop next door (its a big local shop, bigger then the jewson's ) and they had makita bits for less than 3 quid each! Excellent, point and half inch chisels bought for just over 6 quid including vat! They made mince meat out of the chimney breast.

There is now a straight section and angle (135?) with door section installed beneath the plate. The door in the angle section should allow me to sweep the chimney with out having to worry about getting the front room dirty. Ill need to buy an new brush head for the rods and I will have to install some sort of access in to the garage, but as the hole needs bricking up anyway, that shouldn't be a problem.

Before anyone asks, the stuff around the pipe at the bottom is glass wool, a inert mineral wool that won't burn at all and is a good insulator. I know it went burn as its the stuff that i recovered when I took the last fire out and while some of its a bit discolored, its not burnt at all.

Ready to rock and roll

I have only had the fire on once so far, just to test the flue and joins and also to "fire" them or set them, as per the instructions. The fire cement around the register plate didn't quite get fired, it didn't get hot enough, but being as its in the position it is and its a inset fire I dong think it ever will get as hot as its supposed to, as the only heat is comming from the radiated heat given out by the flue, which was roasting.

I would add that I did smoke test the fire before I did the first burn and we have carbon monoxide alarms in the room, so it want a completely blind test of its integrity.

Fire in full swing

There will be some experimenting with the fire over the next few weeks, as I play around with the settings to find out where it burns best abc gives off the beat amount of heat. As were burning spare wood and off cuts, the quality and type of wood will vary, so it will be interesting to see how this effects the fire and heat output. There are several lumps of aged oak and what looks like mahogany in the pile as well, so they will be interesting to burn! Either way, were finally ready for winter!

Nature day

The other week, the RSPB held a nature day in the local flower gardens. The day was about the nature around the flowers and all the flying creepy crawlies. Now, the little man had great fun running around with a net trying to catch stuff, which mostly included other children and flowers, not so many bugs. However, he got a little bit obsessed with butterflies. 

There was the distinct possibility of tears at one point as we couldn't find any butterflies around anywhere, that was until this little beauty showed up.

I cant remember the name of the thing, but it is apparently the only butterfly to breed up here and didn't actually arrive here until the second world war, when it hitched a lift in a bunch of cabbages. I'm assuming it was the caterpillar that hitched a ride and not the butterfly, but still, technically its an invader and the gardeners aren't really to happy about it, especially the old ones. There were a few storied being told by the parents of pocket money earned by catching the caterpillars/butterflies.

A little walk up the hill

Just a short post, the other day during the nice weather we took a trip up the hill behind where we live. We went up with friends,  4 kids, aged 2 to 7, up a rather big hill but the view at the top was worth it.

What you see there, is pretty much every part of where we live, there's some bits off to the left (the commercial estate) and right (Tesco's), but that's the vast majority of it!