Graham Chastney's Blessings

Friday evening was another fun one. In the Chastney household Friday’s are normally quite bitty with Jonathan and Emily in and out to dancing and Ignition (youth club at church) so Sue and I spend much of the evening being a taxi. This week though, there wasn’t any Ignition and Emily’s dancing finishes reasonably early. So this week we decided to have a bit of an adventure, break free and do something different. We are the type of people who revel in the simple things of life, so for us our adventure was to drive North of Preston to a little village called Scorton. In Scorton the little village shop is normally open quite late and serves home made Ice Cream. They really are fabulous. And the nice thing about Scorton is that it’s right on the edge of the Trough of Bowland where you can get some fabulous views of Morecombe Bay and the Lake District.

So we all pile into the car and go, take the 15 minute drive up to Scorton, arrive in the village centre, but oh dear, no, the village shop is shut. what are we going to do, we are all psyched up for a nice ice cream and the shop is shut. Well we couldn’t go without an ice cream could we. So we jump back into the car and continue North towards Lancaster. Eventually we find a little shop that is open and buy or long waited for ice cream. It wasn’t as good as the ones at Scorton but it was nice all the same. But what to do about a walk.

Well the nice thing about Lancaster is that it has a fabulous park for walking in, Williamson Park. It’s right on the top of a hill and has all sorts of places to discover. So off we set. We met friends from Garstang Free Methodist Church doing orienteering and chuckled a little at the ladies at a wedding reception who were struggling to walk in very high stilleto heals across some cobbles between the memorial and the toilets.

After a little while we discovered a rope swing. Brilliant. Being the master of the household it was my job to try it out first, safe enough. And then off Jonathan went, he’s a Scout so has seen it all before. And then it came to be Emily’s turn. Emily is a really plucky kid, but couldn’t hang onto the bar because the place where her hands needed to be was all sharp, but she was desperate, so what do we do. I thought about changing the stick that you hang on, but there didn’t seem a very sensible way of doing that. How about covering it up with a jumper or something, but again that didn’t work to well either. Eventually we hit on the idea that Emily could ride the rope swing on my back. It worked a treat. She got the buzz of riding the rope swing, and I got the buzz of riding it with her.

After all that excitement we were hungry again (not really but it’s a good excuse). Almost at the entrance to the park there is a little Chip Shop which was still open. So with a couple of bags of chips in hand we set off into the Trough of Bowland and find a fabulous place to park, with the wind blowing, young lambs in the field and a glorious view across Morecombe Bay.

For us, that is what adventure is all about; making memories that last a lifetime.

I have a bone to pick with those people over at wordsmith.org what are they trying to say to me. Yesterday it was ‘effete’; today it’s ‘scut’. Are they just trying to arm us all with insults or are they trying to tell us something?

I may have been feeling effete the other day, but I’m definitely not a scut.

last night Jonathan and I went out for a little bit of a walk. I had been away early for a day trip down to Aldershot (on a plane thankfully) and needed to get a bit of fresh air. Sue was out leading a Network course and Emily was at the music festival, leaving Jonathan and myself. Of course we couldn’t leave straight away because there are always a few little jobs to do aren’t there. But having finished them we jumped into the car and drove up onto the Longridge Fells, hopefully to watch the sunset. Unfortunately we had to leave before it really got going because we need to be back in time for Emily.

In the car on the way back I put on a Cold Play CD (of all things) and the two of us sang along. It was great. me and my boy singing along together. It was a real time of bonding. It wasn’t all gushey, it was just two people who love each other doing something together. Jonathan is such a great kid.