crafting lovelies

I fell in love with this necklace made by happylovesrosie when it first appeared in her shop. When she had a sale a few weeks back this happily co-incided with my mum giving me some money for my birthday.



I don't think I've shown this before. I made it one evening from felt and an old pillowcase. I had a couple of compliments about it when I wore it on a jacket to my book club.

Last, but my no means least, is a lovely poinsettia bracelet modelled here by S, a gift from Diane, along with 2 candy canes, sent to be used as decorations on my stockings. Thanks again Diane.

2 years

Miss you. Every. Single. Day.
Love you. Always.
My Dad. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

ouch

A quieter week so far as there has only been S at home with me. T has been staying with Grandma for a few days and is due home today.

S and I have done some baking, been cutting, sticking and colouring with liberal amounts of glitter, danced, played in our secret den (under the duvet on my bed), shopped for school uniform and each morning she is having a 45 minute swimming lesson. Yesterday afternoon I took her to an indoor soft play centre. We'd only been there for just over an hour when I heard her crying very loudly. She had trodden on a bee and been stung on her big toe. Ouch!

photo source

Cosy

We've been having a bit of a change around here at home.
Pieces of furniture have been moved from one room to another, been taken upstairs, bought back downstairs and gone upstairs again, much to G's annoyance as he's been the one doing most of the lifting and shifting!
Our home is a little 3 bedroomed terrace built just over 100 years ago. There isn't much in the way of storage space and so what furniture we have needs to made the most of.
One thing I have yearned for for ages is a small sofa in our dining room.
What I would actually like is a huge farmhouse style kitchen/dining room that has room for comfy squashy sofas, but as that is not an option G and I chatted about what we could try to do.

Once decided and out on our first joint shopping trip to look for the new furniture we found EXACTLY what we wanted! I couldn't believe our luck. In a second hand furniture store was this green sofa, perfect in measurements and colour.
Complete with a fabulous crochet blanket, I bought in the charity shop I volunteer in for 25p, it has proved in just a couple of short weeks to be a popular spot with the cats, perfect for G to relax on when he comes in from home and chat with me whilst I cook



and a great spot for magazine reading with a hot drink and a cake. This is a museli cake from a batch I made yesterday, not a success and not one I'll be making again.

Not a great photo as I needed to be quick but talking of cosy, just how snuggled does Melvin look in his new favourite spot outside. Nestled in the clematis that trials over from next door to our garden on a piece of trellis G put up.

So cute.

National Trust

On Sunday we took the train to Mottisfont Abbey and gardens. It was a lovely destination for a family day out.
S made us laugh whilst on the way when she asked us to close our eye as she had a surprise for us. She decided her piggy backpack would look good in her purple specs!



As we arrived at mid day we decided the first stop should be eating our picnic so we chose a spot next to the stream

which had a perfect view across to the house too.

Once suitable refreshed (and with emptier backpacks!) we made our way round to the gardens. The colours in this cutting garden were stunning.

Old wooden doors set into brickwalls always look inviting.

The smell of lavender in this garden was wonderful and it was alive with insects.

A good spot to sit and soak up the sun.

There were a few reasons for visiting Mottisfont this month. One is it's always interesting to go somewhere new, another it's accessible by public transport, a big plus is this month there is no admission cost forchildren and 2 more reasons (for me in any case) was the Mr McGregor garden they have built and an exhibition of some of Beatrix Potter's orignial artwork.

Mr McGregor's shed

with the gardener snozzing inside!

Lots of healthy produce being grown.

There were lots of places to sit and pose for family photos around the different gardens.

G says it looks like he is being photographed with a strange fly, becuase of the my large sunglasses in case you were wondering!

My 2 boys looking handsome.

General silliness.

An added bonus to the day was meeting the resident cat who was very happy to be tickled behind the ear by T.

And who leapt into action a few minutes later when a mouse scurried from one border to the next!

There were some lovely country scenes to soak in as we walked by the riverside

before we stopped off at the tea shop for a quick refresher before heading home again.

sparkles

It was too cloudy last night for us to be able to see the meteor shower shooting stars but when I popped up to T's room just after 7 o'clock to pop some bits and pieces into his room the sun was streaming in through the window and hit the glitter ball hanging from his lampshade at just the right angle to send loads of tiny reflections across the walls, ceiling and floor.



So sparkly!

Things that have made me smile today

Coming downstairs this morning to find Melvin asleep on the new (to us) sofa in our dining room.



One of my birthday cards sat waiting for me to buy it a frame as it's too pretty not to be displayed.

Finding this book, which was one of my all time childhood favourites, at a car boot sale for 10p.

T spent an hpour this afternoon taking part in a sponsored cycle. As it has been drizzling with rain more or less all day by the time we went out there were plenty of puddles for S to jump in. After a particularly big splash in one she looked at the pattern the water had made on the ground and said 'Look mum I've made fireworks!' What a fab way to describe it.

Seaside

Whilst away we spent a few hours in

This place holds lots of, mostly fond, memories for G as this is where his grandparents lived and so he spent many holidays here.
T, G and me visited for few days a couple of years ago and made some happy family memories of our own too.
Of course in more recent times there was the awful fire on the pier but the new building work is nearing completion and there are lots of changes happening around the sea front.

One change, which S in particular enjoyed, is this very newly opened children's play area and water park. It's really well done with a great variety of play equipment.

Of course some big people couldn't resist having a play too.

Harbourside

Whilst in Bristol we stayed just across the road from the huge Harbourside development.
As we walked across the square I spied this statue and immediately recognised the super suave and handsome Mr Cary Grant. I would love to have met him in his Hollywood heyday.


A few feet away from him is William Tyndale who is well known for something so completely different to film star adoration.

If we go back for another visit with T's brother and the weather isn't so kind to us then at-bristol would be the perfect venue, there seems to be a huge amount on offer there

including a planetarium in this fabulous looking shiny ball.

Happy faces!

Bristol has a lot of water features which had a magnetic like attraction for the children, they had to put their hands in them each time. If you're reading this Sue, do you recognise S's backpack?

The final part of the square I want to share is the vibrant and jolly art work on the designed by Hannah Broadway which are very recent additionsand are covering ugly wooden hoardings.

I love them each for different reasons.

My favourite bit on this one are the different fabrics used for the trees

Polka-dots, who doesn't love polka dots?

Bunting!

This is a close up of the corner which I couldn't photograph because of a street lamp.

2 things I like to do. Plus I would like to be the person in the jeans and red jacket and shoes.

More polka dots.

I think they sum up summer and Bristol really well.