Today we went over to the other side of the country, the Lake District, to visit Fiona's mother something we do every month. It is a two hour trip over the back of the Pennines past the Howgills and then into the South Lakes area which is at the Southern end of the Lake District. The scenery is amazing and I get to see some little bits of geology by the roadside which I never tire of looking at such as huge arches of rock set in the cliffside called anticlines. Well it keeps me interested and stops me from falling asleep at the wheel! When we got to Ulverston we walked up a 500 foot high small hill with Hoads Monument on top which has amazing views of the whole of the lake District, part of the Pennines and of course the Howgills. There is also the big expanse of Morecambe Bay to look at as well. What amazes me, is that on the information board which gave the names of all of the peaks that you could see you can see right through the middle of the Lake District up to the northern end of it to Keswick and a peak called Blencathra. It must be at least 30 miles if not more. Whilst the Lake District feels big when you can see so much of it in one eyeful so to speak it is in fact quite a small area.

Veronica, Fiona's Mum was well and cheerful as usual and very pleased to see her grandchildren and Fiona and me. She looked at a lots of photos on the netbook and found that very enjoyable. It is really good that modern technology can bring so much pleasure to an older person's life. We will see her again next month and I'm really looking forward to it. Whilst visiting relatives is a mixture of duty and pleasure once I get into it I realize it is a pleasure and a pleasure. Family unity, understanding and truthfulness to each other is something which gives me an extraordinary amount of joy and always makes me feel that I have done something right. I know, because I've asked them, that our children feel the same way about this but to a much lesser degree after all they are very young people with a different perspective on life.

The only disappointing thing about today was not seeing any buzzards and we have not seen many of them for the last few months. They really do migrate over big areas. Once going past a local village we saw six or more buzzards in a group which was obviously a family or maybe even two families but that was three years ago and we have never seen such a big concentration of buzzards again. Whilst I really enjoy the predictability of nature especially geology I also love the randomness and chance which just stuns you with its interest and beauty. A good day.