Joining in with Abi’s super simple meme today and I’ve just realised how appropriate my title is.
On the beautifully clean beach at Ayr. Paddling in the water. Enjoying the sunshine. Was it really two weeks ago?
Into our first full week at school here. All was well with the time table. Just as expected. Thanks to those that asked and sent good wishes for my boy.
Can it really be September already? It’s that second fresh start of the year and my favourite month of all. Back to reality today. A class to prepare for tomorrow and the last few days of freedom for the children before Back to School on Thursday.
It was a 6am harbour wall walking, sunrise capturing*, farewell to Maidens waving.
Eight hours of motorway driving, wind farm admiring (yes, I love them), holdall unpacking, washing machine loading/unloading (more than once), pizza eating, loom band weaving (late to the party here) and just chillin’ sort of weekend.
How was yours?
Joining in with Sian today.
* a contender for #13: a sunrise in the Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt
We’re back from our week in Scotland. It would seem we had the better end of the deal with the weather. Glorious sunshine every day, except yesterday. We arrived home this afternoon, unloaded the car and put the kettle on, ready to catch up with the first of the new series of Doctor Who.
Imagine our surprise when they turned up in Glasgow at the end of the episode. I think they left something behind! This is a contender for #10 in the Scavenger Hunt: A photo bomb. The definition given is a lurker in the background and this chap walked right into the front of the shot. It was still a surprise.
We discovered later why the Doctor was there. This dalek may get a little Rusty.
Feedly appears to have had a bit of a makeover, while I’ve been away and there are an alarming number of unread posts. I’ll be having a catch up with all of you over the next couple of days. Have a great weekend.
I’m joining in with Rinda’s brilliant Photo Scavenger Hunt again this year. It will be my third time. Although it’s been up and running since early June, I chose to save it for the Summer holidays. We’re a week into them now and I’ve taken my first shot.
20. A bus with a picture painted on its sides.
Strictly speaking (so The Mechanic informs me) this is a coach, but hey, I’ll settle for it.
I do have another, taken before the start of the Summer holidays and I’ve shared it on my blog before, but I just love this shot so forgive me.
21. A photograph of you with something representing the season.
Daisies in a Summer meadow lawn.
I’m off the starting blocks with the last two on the list. Although I will be taking another #21, that includes more than my feet! Looking forward to seeing what everyone else has come up with so far.
If you were popping in for a coffee, this is how you would find Me on Monday. See what I did there? I couldn’t decide whether to join in with Abi or Sian so you’ve got two for the price of one. I’ve been removing the buttons from worn out school shirts this morning, before sending them for recycling. Do you do that?
It was an old uniform sorting, school work filing, second hand chest of drawers buying, bedroom reorganising, out the front gravelling, shrub trimming, grass cutting, midday heat avoiding, home made 99* eating kind of weekend.
A couple more squares have arrived this month, to add to my growing collection, for the Friendship Quilt. Have a look. Aren’t they all beautiful? Each time a new one turns up, I get them all out and try to visualise how I will put them together. There are a lot of blues and greens in there and that will be my starting point I think. Of course I may throw that idea out of the window, once I have the full set! Time will tell. If you’re joining in, and have all or most of your squares, do you have an idea for your quilt top yet? Maybe you’re thinking of turning them into a cushion cover, or some other smaller project, instead. The best bit? I still have more to come.
I have to tell you about our little adventure a week or so ago. We met up with a National Trust ranger, and a group of other intrepid bug hunters, to go on a glow worm walk. The sun had not quite disappeared at 9.30pm, when we set off, but as darkness descended, on Fontmell Downs, we were rewarded with this amazing sight. With a bit of jiggery pokery, involving a small LED torch and my phone, I managed to capture this one ‘on film’. It was a magical experience and I hope a special memory for the children to look back on one day. Have you ever seen a glow worm**?
Thanks for visiting. Now I really must get back to the pile of clothes that I’m dividing up for passing on to a friend, memory quilt making/repurposing and charity shop donating. Some of them are tough choices! Enjoy the rest of your day.
* An ice cream cone with a flake added to it. Traditionally the soft Mr Whippy kind, but we prefer proper dairy ice cream here. It occurs to me, that in explaining 99’s for those uninitiated, I am quite possibly throwing out more terms, which mean nothing to my friends from overseas. Wikipedia is so very handy at times like this.
** You might know them as lightning bugs or fire flies. All varieties of beetles making use of bioluminescence to attract a mate.
Here I am with a second set of shots taken for Rinda’s scavenger hunt.
8. A tower….
….fit for Rapunzel.
9. Someone or something out of place.
A sofa beside the River Avon.
10. A bench that is outside.
A memorial for unknown seafarers in Bristol.
11. An animal in a zoo, aquarium or nature preserve.
A ‘dog fish’ at Bristol Aquarium.
12. That pesky cloud still eludes me!
13. A fence…
….around Vincent Van Gromit.
14. A stained glass object or a mosaic.
Golden Gromit at the Victoria Rooms.
15. A fire truck or police car.
A hybrid?
Still two to find and only a week left now. I’d better get a move on.
Abi from Creating Paper Dreams challenged her readers to tell the story of a photo in twenty words. Here’s my attempt.
“Press the button.”
“What will happen?”
“I don’t know.”
“You press it.”
One doesn’t like surprises, the other likes reassurance.
It’s trickier than it looks! Why not have a go yourself. I’ll be back tomorrow with another round up of shots for Rinda’s Summertime Photo Scavenger Hunt.
PS In case you are wondering. They did eventually press the button and the result was music composed by Jools Holland.
Over the next three Saturdays I’ll share my final shots for Rinda’s brilliant Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt. Some you will have seen before, but there are a few new ones and some alternatives.
1.Open Air Market
St. Nicholas’ Market. The oldest market in Bristol established in 1743 in the streets surrounding the Corn Exchange.
2. Theatre for performing arts
3. City hall, Capitol or similar civic building.
Shaftesbury Town Hall
4. Airplane
Blue Finch. A ‘Flying Flea’ built by Bristol engineer, Harry Dolman.
5. A sunset
Taken during our exam results celebration picnic. Stonehenge was behind me.
6. Someone or something taking a nap
A mallard by the lake at Stourhead.
7. A sign that is intentionally or unintentionally funny
Hot dogs, Wallace and Gromit style.
It occurred to me (too late!) that I probably could have taken all 21 shots, during the course of our Gromit hunts, in Bristol and the surrounding areas. I have two more things to find, including that pesky cloud and a self portrait to take, which I’m leaving until last. Then I’m done. How about you?
The first Sunday of September falls on the first day of the month this year. There is something nice and neat about that. I’m joining up with Sian at From High in the Sky and all the other tellers of tales. Big and small. The tales not the tellers.
Mine is of the small kind this month. The objects and their story. These three pebbles sit stacked on my kitchen window sill. They were collected from the beach at Broadchurch West Bay. I’ll look at them, when I’m standing at the sink washing dishes, in the coming months, and remember all the fun we had this Summer.
It’s not quite over yet. We’re off Gromit hunting again today. I’ll be looking forward to reading a few more stories this evening, when I get home.
….with Abi from Creating Paper Dreams.
Where to start? It’s been such a busy month and I have so much news to share with you. We had a chilled out first few days of the school holiday. My girl was so happy to finally have some relaxing time at home, after a busy term, and join her brother, who had finished school at the end of his exams, in the middle of June.
And yes, we do all have the same shoes!
During the first full week of the holidays we planned some more constructive activities. I wanted to get my girl more comfortable with the sewing machine, after her textile lessons at school had left her feeling wary. She tackled the first project with ease and ended up with a lovely new head band cut from an old school dress.
My boy likes to get out and about, but hay fever had other ideas and he was cooped up, with the air purifier going full blast, during the early part of August. He enjoyed spending time skyping and online gaming with his friends, painting a succession of Warhammer figures and having fun with his sister’s collection of Hama beads.
Last Thursday was GCSE results day, one anxiously awaited by 16 year olds all over the country. I can’t begin to tell you how proud I am of my boy. His results are good by anyone’s standards, but even more so when you know that he is on the autistic spectrum. The school environment is such a challenge for him every single day and he has done amazingly well, in spite of all that life has dealt him. So proud.
We celebrated by taking a trip to Stonehenge. We walked around the stone circle and I had a few attempts at capturing sun flare. Something I love to see in other’s photos. We parked the car nearby and enjoyed a picnic as the sun went down.
On Friday we went to Bristol and spent a good few hours hunting Gromits. This one, aptly named ‘A Close Shave’, was in the Tourist Information Centre. They closed 5 minutes before we arrived and I had to content myself with snapping him through the window. The most tantalising thing was the sight of the passport franking gadget on the table at the back of the room. You can just see it top right in the photo. We tracked down 31 of the 80 on display all over the city and surrounding areas. I don’t think we’ll have a chance to visit the one on display at Paddington Station.
Yesterday we went to visit magnificent Montacute House and I had another attempt at capturing sun flare! We admired the architecture, played croquet on the Cedar Lawn, took a tour of the house and spent an hour among the past Kings and Queens of England, in the portrait gallery at the top of the house.
It was interesting to stand in front of the painting of Richard III and think of the actor who played that part in the recent dramatisation of The White Queen. Did you watch it? What did you think? I enjoyed it, but felt they tried to pack a bit too much history into the series. It was well acted and I like the witchcraft element, which made it a bit different.
There’s not been much time for TV this month, although I did manage to catch Top of the Lake, on the iplayer, which I enjoyed immensely. The acting was superb and it was beautifully shot among the mountains and lakes of New Zealand. A dark story set in a rural community. It reminded me a lot of the Red Riding trilogy, which co-incidentally also starred Peter Mullan. He plays damaged characters so well.
We’ve also been to the beach and the bowling alley, caught Monsters University at the cinema and celebrated my inlaws’ Golden Wedding Anniversary, with a big family party that lasted all day and well into the next one!
The Mechanic has gone back to work today and will probably be glad of the rest. I always let the housework slide during the holidays, because I’d much rather spend time with my children, but there are some things that still need to be done. It’s a catch up day for me today and now that my coffee is drunk and I have rambled on quite long enough, I’d better get back to those chores.
Thanks for dropping by. I’m looking forward to reading what everyone else has been up to, but that will have to wait until lunch time and perhaps afternoon tea as well.
I’ll be back with my desk tomorrow.
PS That lovely swing, big enough for me and my girl, is at Montacute House and sadly not in our garden.
Last week it was Studio Ghibli characters in felt….
….this week we’ve moved on to Hama beads….
….and Pokemon characters….
….among others. I think they may have been a little over zealous with the iron!
Pop on over to Julia’s place to see what everyone else has been creating this week.
Hello from a rather damp Dorset today. The school holidays are a week old now and we have been enjoying glorious sunshine for the most part. The change in the weather gives us a chance to spend some time indoors being creative.
My girl chose textiles as one of her design taster subjects last year. She went in full of enthusiasm and came out feeling very frustrated. I’m aiming to redress the balance over the next few weeks. We started with a headband cut from an old dress.
She did a great job of sewing the slightly curved seams and turning it inside out. When it came to adding the elastic we didn’t have the right width (isn’t that always the way!) so we moved onto a bit of hand sewing. She drew out a pattern onto card, before cutting the felt. Anyone recognise the Studio Ghibli character?
I made the most of having the sewing machine out, to sew up the pieces of my purse. Just the scary gluing part to do now. More on this project another day.
I’m off to Julia’s Place to link up and see what everyone has been doing this week. Care to join us?
A couple of weeks ago, one of the lovely ladies who comes to my craft class, was telling us all about the play food she had been making for her grandson. She had found lots of ideas and inspiration online, although no actual instructions. When I got home, I had a look around to see what I could find.
A nice variety at Lemonwood Clock, from eggs and bacon to bread slices with peanut butter and jam/jelly filling. There are two printable PDFs, giving templates for everything shown in the picture including little trees broccoli and carrots. If you want something relatively quick and simple then these are the patterns for you.
Polly at Helping Little Hands hosted a Felt Food Cook-A-Long a couple of years ago and she has over two dozen different tutorials available, many with printable patterns. These are a little more complicated than the previous ones, but well worth the effort for the finished results. Lots of the items can be mixed and matched.
This picture shows what All Twisted Up calls Infinity Bread. It can be used flat with added pizza toppings, or rolled up to make wraps and fajitas. Scroll down on the link to find some inspirational photos. Instructions to make something very similar to the Infinity bread, can be found among the tutorials on my previous link.
With a bit of imagination and some felt, of course, you could make just about any kind of food. What I like most is being able to have a variety of ‘ingredients’ which can be put together to make lots of different meals. Much more exciting than the plastic food my own children had. They often substituted lego, which they had built their own food creations from! I know they would have loved this.
I had a post all prepared for the August Month in Numbers and when my laptop went down I never got to hit publish. I also took part in Rinda’s Photo Scavenger Hunt during the Summer and missed the deadline for that for the same reason.
I’m sharing a few photos from each today.
Seven nights spent sleeping under the stars in a cosy yurt…..
…..with these guys/gals for neighbours.
Enjoying beautiful houses like those at Biddulph Grange Garden…..
…..and Lyme Park.
Making the most of the sunshine…..
…..and laughing off the rain (on Alexa’s bridge).
Exploring deep underground…..
…..and high on hilltops.
Stopping to smell the roses…..
…..and being grateful for that woodburner!
Thankyou Derbyshire for a wonderful week, despite all the weather threw at us.
