High Jinks

So, over Easter, we stayed at Grandpappy J and P's house in the Lake District.  Although, as I mentioned in my previous post, he wasn't there.  No, he's currently swanning about in Western Australia.  Causing mayhem.

Not only did he lose his passport somewhere between the airport and his first hotel in Perth but he's been falling off bicycles - no harm done, thank goodness.  He's also been sleeping rough out in the bush.  Yup, he was walking a small part of the Bibbulum Track (a long distance walk trail of almost 1000 km), armed only with some water and a tin of cooked lentils.  He got lost and didn't find the campsite he was aiming for and ended up sleeping in the middle of the bush for the night.  Eeek!

The silly old fool also managed to lock himself out of his hotel bedroom wearing only a small towel around his middle.  I'm not sure what sort of accommodation he was staying in but there was no one around to help him.  To quote the old codger "For a quarter of an hour, I walked around trying all the doors which were locked and then I looked around to see if there were any spare sheets or blankets in accessible cupboards, but not a thing.  I considered spending the night in a bath (what?) which I could have topped up with extra hot water from time to time but I wasn't quite sure what it would do to my skin."  (OMG!).  Fortunately, he was saved from this ridiculous predicament by someone called Wally, who was some sort of night watchman.  Wally managed to climb through the window of one of the other rooms and let Grandpappy have that room for the night.  Hip hip hoorah for Wally is what I say.

While Grandpappy J and P wreaked havoc down under, we managed to do a fair bit of havoc wreaking in the Lake District.  Mr J and P, his bro and eldest nephew went on a 34 mile walk (yes, 34 miles) over 2 days while me and my SIL plus Little Miss J and P and youngest nephew spent the time charity shopping (more of that in another post) and walking around a lake or two.

Later in the week, Little Miss and youngest nephew decided to climb a mountain.  On their own.  It was supposed to be a lovely relaxing day playing, reading and picnicking by a stream as Mr J and P was feeling a bit achey after their 34 mile walk and Mr J and P's bro had done his knee in.  All was blissfully relaxing until Little Miss and youngest nephew went off and started to ascend said mountain.  We watched them go higher and higher, all the while thinking they'll turn around and come back down any minute.  They didn't.  They got to the top and disappeared out of sight.

Now, I'm not a mountain climber.  Not by any stretch.  I prefer terra firma.  The more firma the better if you ask me.  In a fit of madness, I agreed to climb up the mountain with Mr J and P to find the two little buggers.  At least I had proper walking boots on; Mr J and P was wearing Birkenstock sandals on his sainted little tootsies.  Despite this handicap, he managed to race up the slope while I huffed and puffed behind. 

Bloody children reappeared sometime later on crags way above us - both shouting that they were stuck and couldn't get down.  Mr J and P shouted to them to go back up and return the way they'd come up.  Which they did.  Eventually.  And do you know what the most galling thing was?  After they managed to get down from the craggy bit, they skipped gaily down the mountain in minutes while Mr J and P and me (well mainly me) struggled for a further 40 minutes picking our way down very slowly  and shuffling down on one's bottom (ummmm that was me).

What a caper!

If that wasn't bad enough, we had the police, fire-fighters, ambulance service, cliff rescue team, coastguards and the local life boat out to rescue our eldest nephew who got stuck climbing a rocky outcrop on a local beach.  It made the front pages of two of the local papers, the BBC news and the Daily Mail news website.

I kid you not, dear readers.

Here are some photos courtesy of the Daily Mail:

One of the rescue team abseiling down the cliff face to eldest nephew's rescue

Hoorah!

Cripes, it the lifeboat.

What a palaver eh?

Here's hoping you had a more restful time. xx