So, most of you who follow my blog know about my winter trip to The
Lake District in England, UK last week and I'm finally ready to show you
the places we visited. I took so many photos that I've had to split it
into six parts to cover each day, so please bear with me! It was
freezing cold the first few days especially down by the lakes themselves
with the chill wind but the trip was mostly dry so I'm very happy!
***I have been shocked and horrified to see all the lovely places we
visited a few weeks ago under water or in the case of beautiful Pooley
Bridge, destroyed due to Storm Desmond. It has been upsetting to watch
the TV footage and know that the people there are suffering so badly. I
have decided to continue with my holiday posts to show you how beautiful
this part of the UK is and to encourage people to help either by
donation, sympathy or booking a future holiday there yourself. Areas of
beauty and history need protecting from disasters like this. My
thoughts are with everyone in Cumbria and Lancashire***
DAY FIVE: DERWENT WATER
It was back to the Lakes today, taking a trip past Windermere, Ambleside, Grassmere, Thirlmere, Keswick, Ashness Bridge, Derwent Water, Bassenthwaite and Cockermouth. A long trip but the weather was good again and it was quite mild now that the cold snap is gone.
This was our first proper stop at the beautiful Thirlmere.
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We went through Keswick which was quite pretty, but didn't stop as we were in search of the steep hill leading to the lookout point. We found the turn off easily and found the stunning Ashness Bridge, one of the most popular bridges for photographers in the Lake District. The hill is steep and it's difficult to stop at but well worth it.
We continued up the hill to a car park for lunch and enjoyed the wonderful view of Derwent Water from Surprise View. Quincy and Otis weren't keen to get close to the edge!
Will Grayson meets Will
Grayson. One cold night, in a most unlikely corner of Chicago, two
strangers are about to cross paths. From that moment on, their world
will collide and Iives intertwine.
It's not that far from
Evanston to Naperville, but Chiacago suburbanites Will Grayson and Will
Grayson might as well live on different planets. When fate delivers them
both to the same surprising crossroads, the Will Graysons find their
lives overlapping and hurtling in new and unexpected directions. With a
push from friends new and old - including the massive, and massively
fabulous, Tiny Cooper, offensive lineman and musical theater auteur
extraordinaire - Will and Will begin building toward respective romantic
turns-of-heart and the epic production of history's most awesome high
school musical.
My Review:
I'm
so glad that I didn't spend extra money getting this on paperback when I
had the chance as I really didn't enjoy it at all. This is the second
book by the author that I've read and it was a massive let down. The
idea of two people with the same name meeting sounds mildly interesting
in theory but it didn't work on any level for me.
Will Grayson #1
is a moron. He hangs out with people he doesn't like and is forever
bitching about how horrible they are and how he hates spending time with
them. He has no personality, he is not interesting in any way and I
don't like him. He is just there to be used by Tiny. His 'romance' with Jane is a joke seeing that the characters have nothing in common, no chemistry or attraction and don't even seem to LIKE each other or have anything to say to each other! It was quite pathetic and didn't work at all and felt like a waste of time.t seems and that
got boring very quickly. What is really the point of Will? Nothing that I
could see.
Will Grayson #2 is a rude, obnoxious piece of human
filth who treats his poor mother like dirt for no real reason that I can
see. He is a self obsessed cretin with no redeeming features who thinks
the world owes him a living and that he can treat people whatever way
he wants. He is horrible and I found myself hoping that he might get hit
by a bus at some point but no such luck. I didn't even want to read the
chapters that he stars in because he got on my nerves so badly.
And
then we have Tiny. The so called star of the book and the worst of the
lot. This was the worst character of the lot. He is a self obsessed,
loudmouthed, self centered, moronic show off who has to be the centre of
attention. He is all 'Me Me Me' and has no interest in his friends
other than what part he can make them play in the latest drama that he
decides to have. For example, when he loudly delares in class to Will
that he is in love, everyone assumes he loves Will, who is then
ridiculed all day about it and is humiliated. But does Tiny try to set
things right? NO he revels in the extra attention he gets and Will's
feelings don't matter. Who needs 'friends' like this? The fact that the
book was obviously going to centre around more of Tiny's dramas meant it
was a pretty easy decision to stop reading.
There is nothing
worse than having a dreadful character that wrecks the story. Actually, I
revise that statement. This was worse because every character was
dreadful and there seemed to be no story except these horrible idiots
making each other's lives even more miserable than they already are. I
hated everything about this book and I never even want to think about it
again.
So, most of you who follow my blog know about my winter trip to The
Lake District in England, UK last week and I'm finally ready to show you
the places we visited. I took so many photos that I've had to split it
into six parts to cover each day, so please bear with me! It was
freezing cold the first few days especially down by the lakes themselves
with the chill wind but the trip was mostly dry so I'm very happy!
***I have been shocked and horrified to see all the lovely places we visited a few weeks ago under water or in the case of beautiful Pooley Bridge, destroyed due to Storm Desmond. It has been upsetting to watch the TV footage and know that the people there are suffering so badly. I have decided to continue with my holiday posts to show you how beautiful this part of the UK is and to encourage people to help either by donation, sympathy or booking a future holiday there yourself. Areas of beauty and history need protecting from disasters like this. My thoughts are with everyone in Cumbria and Lancashire***
DAY FOUR: LAKELAND MOTOR MUSEUM, NEWBY BRIDGE
I have always been fascinated watching the documentaries about Malcolm and Donald Campbell and their speed record attempts so when I read a leaflet about this museum displaying replicas of their vehicles, I just had to visit! It was raining that day so being inside a nice warm museum was ideal and we had another great day.
Firstly, we went round the main exhibit which had an incredible display of vintage cars, bikes, motorbikes, vintage toys and big displays. It was a great museum and the amount of things on display were staggering. This is outside the museum where there is a river and it is very scenic. You can see the effects of all the rain from the storms already so I dread to think what it looked liked after the terrible Storm Desmond came through.
We went into the exhibit and bought a guidebook to take round and then we went in. Here are a few examples of the exhibits we saw.
There were also a few special cars that caught my interest which I'm also featuring. This is the 1937 Bentley owned by Donald Campbell, painted the same blue as his record breaking Bluebird vehicles.
The Al Capone car-I liked the gangster dummy at the exhibit!
I'm sure Back to the Future fans will recognise this car model!
After buying a couple of Donald Campbell books in the gift shop we headed over to the Campbell exhibit which is in another building. You can watch video footage of his exploits and tragic death and the wall displays tell the family story.
Fascinating place! We spent a few hours going round the place until the batteries on my camera packed in and we took the drive back to the lodge via Tesco for supplies.
So, most of you who follow my blog know about my winter trip to The
Lake District in England, UK last week and I'm finally ready to show you
the places we visited. I took so many photos that I've had to split it
into six parts to cover each day, so please bear with me! It was
freezing cold the first few days especially down by the lakes themselves
with the chill wind but the trip was mostly dry so I'm very happy!
DAY THREE: RSPB LEIGHTON MOSS
This was really a day for my dad to go and see some nature as he is a big birdwatching fan. It was quite a dull and overcast day with a few spits of rain in the air but at leat it stayed dry mostly. It was still a bit cold though. So parts of the reserve were flooded which meant we had to stay close to the lodge but getting to hand feed cute robins and having tame pheasants coming right up to sit with you was pretty cool!
It was pretty frosty at our lodge when I was having breakfast. It was a bit nippy to be out there so I just grabbed a quick photo!
Then we got out to the RSPB where we spent a few hours wandering around the reserve. It was so dull that very few of our photos came out so a few of these are a bit fuzzy I'm afraid.
We drove on down to the coast at Silverdale where it was cold and dull so not a great set of pictures at the bay.
As we start to countdown to the end of the year, I've been thinking hard about my blog and what I have on it. This year has been tough due to bouts of illness, fatigue, depression and a bit of lazyness at times and I hope things are better next year and that my blog gets updated more regularly! So I've been thinking about my aims and what features I plan to keep.
What's on Chuckle TV:
This will be back again but I hope to have more time to watch TV series and films than I had this year. Hopefully there will be more of these posts next year!
Reading with Chuckles:
I will continue to update what I've read in the last week along with updates on any reading challenges I'm doing and what the state is of my poor tbr!
Stacking the Shelves:
My favourite book meme will still be featured every week, showing off the books I have bought, won, borrowed or traded.
Book Reviews:
These are the bane of my life as I hate writing them! I am determined that next year I will clear the backlog of reviews from the last few years and then get the books reviewed as I read them. Well that's the plan anyway!
Travels with Chuckles:
I grabbed a new camera in the Amazon sales and I hope to be out and about more in Scotland to show off the scenery that my country has to offer. I hope to also show places that I've been to by uploading the photos to the computer.
Chuckles Rants:
These posts will be about the everyday things that drive you mental and make you want to tear your hair out. It is a good excuse to moan and complain! This will feature my grumpy frog, Alfie!
Cover Love:
I'll be bringing this back to show off beautiful book covers. I did this feature for a while but I lost time for it so will have to bring it back again.
Chats with Chuckles:
I hope to start doing discussion posts about all things books to get some interesting conversations going on the blog!
Chuckles Presents:
This will be where I highlight things that have been on the news, trending on social media, funny videos, anything of interest I want to share an opinion on.
I might also take part in another meme or two online. I found Top Ten Tuesday too time consuming and not all the topics suited me so I'll look at the memes others are hosting and maybe join in with a couple if I see something quick and interesting.
I also hope to get back into tour hosting this year if I manage my time a bit better. I felt too rushed and stressed this year to take part but I hope to do that and more author promotion next year. I also plan to do more book recommendations on the blog. There are other ideas that I'm thinking about so other new stuff might be happening.
Hopefully the blog will be more interesting to visit next year!
