At the end of the rainbow

Thanks for your lovely comments about my last food post.  Those take a while to put together, so it's nice to hear they're being read and appreciated.  I'm going to aim for about one of those per week to keep the flow of recipes and culinary encouragement going.

My family and I went on a camping holiday in the Peak District over the weekend.  We camped in Buxton, which is in Derbyshire (pronounced Darbyshire - silly me, I spent months thinking Derbyshire and Darbyshire were two different places!), about halfway between Manchester and Sheffield.  This was our first camping holiday as a family and we all rated it a big success.  I would have loved to spend one more night away, but that's the only thing I'd change for next time.  Here are a few pictures from the weekend:


Double rainbow

When we saw the double rainbow out the car window as we headed toward the campsite, we knew we were in for a good trip.  The weather was mostly good, but the nights were quite chilly.  You can't have it all!

All aboard the miniature railway!

On Saturday, we went to a large Victorian park in Buxton and met up with a family I know from elsewhere on the internet.  There were eight of us together - four adults and four kids - and we had a great time.  The park had so much going for it: well-tended grounds, an indoor swimming pool, several duck ponds, two play areas and, best of all, a miniature railway!  My husband and I just had to accompany the kids on their train journey (you know...to make sure they behaved).  What fun!  I wish we had a miniature railway in our local park.


Super campsite

For the most part, we were very pleased with our campsite.  We had to move on the second night because a drunken party atmosphere had set in while we were at the park. Moving was a bit of a hassle, but our effort was richly rewarded by a much quieter corner of the campsite.


The Three Stooges

Another perk of our new location was a visit from some friendly fowl.  This trio came right up to the door of our tent and posed for this photo.


Stalac-tastic

What family camping trip is complete without a visit to some spectacular caverns?   Certainly not ours.  On the way out of town, we stopped at Poole's Cavern and took a tour of the caves there.  I love caves!  I might even love them more than I love miniature trains.  Following a super cave tour, we had a picnic lunch before getting back in the car for the big drive up north.  On the way back home, we stopped at Old Trafford, the stadium of Manchester United, so a certain eight-year-old stepson of mine could see it with his own eyes.  He was asleep as we approached the stadium, so it must have felt literally dreamlike for him to finally be seeing a place so iconic to him.  What a great trip all around!

When we got back home, I sadly discovered that "Reading Rainbow" has been taken off the air after 26 years.  I'm not sure about any of you, but I grew up watching "Reading Rainbow" in the '80s and I used to dream of being on the show one day and talking about my favorite books.  One of the PBS guys in the article said that the beauty of "Reading Rainbow" is not that it taught kids how to read, but why to read and and how to truly enjoy reading.  That's exactly what I took away from the show.  So goodbye, "Reading Rainbow."  Here's the opening sequence.  Watch it with me for a bit of nostalgia:



One good piece of bookish news I received on returning home is that I won La Belle Mere's book giveaway! As the winner, I'll receive a copy of Izzy Rose's book, "The Package Deal: My (not so) Glamorous Transition from Single Gal to Instant Mom." I am so excited to read this book because it seems like it's closer to my actual story than any of the other stepmom books I've seen out there. Watch this quick video to see what I mean:



What a long post! There certainly was a lot to catch up on. I hope you all had a good weekend and that you're enjoying better weather than we are right now. That's all for now!