All play and no work

 The fact that we chose the same week that vast portions of the Sahara desert chose to go on vacation made no odds to us, this was our first week away from Rock HQ since 2006, hence the reason why to Swiss Chalet Style Kennel Block needed to be operational by the dead line of the 27th. Our chosen destination, County Durham, an area of outstanding natural beauty, and thanks to the sand pollution mix, an area that kept its natural beauty well hidden for our entire week. The journey there took over 10 hours thanks to 18 miles of road works so we arrived in the dark, and fog.

 We chose wisely in our place to stay, Bowlees Farm Cottages, high on a hill (in the fog) with all the mod cons needed for a family holiday

 plus a couple of extras just to clinch the deal. The pool/hot tub/sauna and snooker room were brilliant and used every day. Day one saw us head off for provisions, a minor navigation error on my part saw us not far from Penrith and miles from Bowlees and any supermarket which led to a 50 mile retracing of tarmac to Asda

 where the apprentice smallholder chose to ignore time honoured parental advice of "Don't run!" and ran into a trolley. He being soft fleshy organic material came off worse and indicated the fact by spilling vast amounts of blood everywhere. Staff at Asda rallied round and after we threw the contents on two first aid kits across the cheese and dairy aisle we managed to stop the toddler leaking and they took us to casualty. Casualty were brilliant and soon had him glued back together and smiling. Asda gave him a chocolate Thomas the Tank Engine egg as a reward and loaded with supplies we carried on with our holiday.

 Due to head injury the apprentice was banned from swimming, however rug rat MkII made full use of the facilities.

 Mothering Sunday saw a change of location and we met up with the Northern Contingent of the Dolyhir Clan and had a fantastic time on the sun drenched beach (typo, sorry that should read foggy windswept) and the dogs ran about with Rocky and Reba finding their inner puppy.

 The clan met up the following day in some woodland where strange creatures lurked. There were also foxes and jaguar hahahaha.

 The last day of my 40's was spent trying to prove that the years have not caught up with me and I took to my bike and set off with the route firmly in my head. after 20 miles, the majority up hill, I convinced myself that I liked cycling in the rain/fog/wind/hail and pressed on until I completed an 85 mile circuit. Back at the ranch I looked at the map the find out why I had not found the reservoir I was headed for, perhaps it was lost in the fog, but a simpler explanation was found, yours truly had been on a completely different road the whole time than the one planned in my head.

Still that mattered little, the actual target was to get some big miles in and some of the hills in the North Penines are mental steep so I had earned every calorie of my surprise cookie when I got back. Note wet feet. 

 All this enjoying yourself makes you a very tired boy and despite his protests little t who spent ages trying to convince us he wasnt at all tired fell asleep on our way to High Force Falls.

 Little t wasn't too impressed with the waterfall at High Force Falls, he thought it would be bigger.

 This was my birthday outing and when we found the real deal it lived up to the hype, its the UK's Niagara, massive. Birthday treat galore as we went to meet the Northern Contingent of the Dolyhir Clan at a restaurant where death by mixed grill was attempted and failed.

One place we were keen to see was a small port of Staithes which is the location of one of little t's favorite TV shows, Old Jack's Boat, so here we are outside Old Jack's house for the obligatory photo.

We also found a souvenir hat for rug rat MkII and the most impressive fish and chips of the week at the Cod and Lobster which only just beat The Almighty Cod at Seaton Carew.

Staithes also had the first Butlins holiday camp. Actually thats a lie, its an original WW2 army camp thats now for sale and is a luxury bed and breakfast complex. Really.

Back in Durham there was an interesting gargoyle door knocker

which rug rat MkII did a creditable impression of.

Durham Cathedral is currently having a rebuild, in Lego. Its going to take 300,000 bricks to make and they plan to sell each brick for a £1. You buy the piece and fit it, according to the plan, no room for free styling here. The cost of the bricks was £15,000 which Lego made them pay! Tight.

This is what it will look like when finished, only smaller, cleaner and no fog.

Eventually all good things come to an end, so we packed up the cars, Gerry and Miranda were needed to shift all the essentials needed by a family of four, plus two, plus two K9's and we called in at Hadrian's wall on the way back.

Little t thought it would have been bigger. 

This is Mile Castle 42

and this is the puddle created by the Roman's as they took the stone out of the ground to make that part of the wall.

We pressed on home, stopping for lunch in the Lake District (note fog) and got back to the land of sunshine by 8pm. All was well at HQ, the nice lady who volunteered to look after HQ while we were away left in tears, she must have really enjoyed herself, and the dogs gave us a welcome only Bernese Mountain Dogs know how to give.
We had a fantastic time, a big thank you to those that helped us make this possible. It was a real treat and a great holiday.

More pics etc of this epic trip can be seen on the dog blog and training blog when I get time to update them both.