The bouncing tree in Gummers How carpark only no David Webster to bounce it!

Half way up Gummers How.

I think this is the girls' favourite 'mountain' as they love to scramble up the rocks!

Fantastic weather!

Ella's Special Assembly.

Ella and Philipa were the narrators for a farmyard story, all of which was amazingly done from memory with no prompting!

The boys were the animals.....

Ella wandering across a freshly cut field near Gleaston, Cumbria. 

Proof that it doesn't rain all of the time!!

Ella showing off in Avoriaz then back home, relaxing in the boot of the car after route finding for Grizedale Mountain Bike Challenge 2008! Come on, if a five year old can do it....!

Mountain Biking in the Linderat valley after taking the Super Morzine lift!

The girls did extremely well as the path was quite slippery and muddy until we reached this fantastic waterfall where we stayed for a couple of hours in the sun. We then rode some 10km back down into Morzine, all downhill thankfully!

On top of Europe! 

What a fantastic day we had for a trip up the Aiguille du Midi.

The picture of Richard with Holly, Ella and friend Imogen has the Grandes Jorasses in the back ground.

The beautiful snowy mountain is of course Mont Blanc. Wow!!

This was our home for two weeks in Morzine! A huge chalet right in the town centre so within easy reach of everything from lifts to swimming!

The weather was fantastic as well, the complete opposite to the very wet UK, thankfully!

A collection of images from around Morzine. I think this was actually Holly's birthday! Not a bad way to spend it! Finally some sunshine as well with memories of the car fading...

Another car, another breakdown, this time terminal! Will we ever have any luck with cars? This time round a piston blew in the engine at 120kph on the A40 outside Bourg en Bresse. The village we ended up at was very pretty though!
Our transport for at least a week! A beat up old Citroen MPV. Did the job though and the girls loved it! We finally arrived at the chalet in Morzine only an hour or so later than predicted thanks to Tracy's broken French and persistence in getting a hire car!

Another weekend away this time on Helvellyn. You just can't get a signal when you really need one! Had to bail out near the top as the wind was sooooo strong!
Through the summer, what summer (!), we started to go camping on Saturday evening somewhere up in the Lakes so we had all of Sunday to explore! This is the River Brathay above Skelwith Bridge in full force. The path then continues to Elterwater where of course we had ice cream!

This photo goes back to 23rd May 2008 and Year 2 Special Assembly. The whole class had done extremely well!

Holly, Ella and Jess having fun dressing-up!

On Sunday 15th June I decided to take part in an Enduro in Grizedale. There were 4 distances to choose from, 25, 50, 75 and 100km. I  opted for the 50km as this is the nearest to Grizedale Challenge which I have been involved in organising since 2001! I also wanted to try a get a different perspective on putting an event on in the forest and hopefully get some fresh ideas.

The first major difference was this event was run on a 'lap' format instead of one big loop. I felt this worked well for 25/50k events but the lap was too short for the 75/100k. 

Survived to the end in a respectable time of 3hrs 28mins and came away with some ideas for Grizedale Mountain Bike Challenge.

Richard

May half term was spent in Scotland by the shores of Loch Long which is where the picture on the left was taken.

This is Holly and Ella looking for any kind of creature in the water or on the beach!

The weather was reasonably kind although the midges weren't quite so accommodating!

The campsite at Ardgarten where we stayed was right on the side of the Loch, facilities were very clean and pleasant enough, the girls certainly enjoyed the playground!

It's an interesting area and less than an hour from Glasgow, it has the feel of the Highlands without the long drive. 

From Scotland we headed down to Keswick for a couple of days and got some fantastic canoeing in on Derwent Water, going from one island to the next, watching the hoards of people snaking their way up Catbells!

Richard