Now, where was I?

Aah yes, I was going to show you some pictures of my little jaunt to Wells and Exeter. I'm afraid that despite my dad's love of photography, I haven't inherited his skill and it would appear (according to hubby) that I took the pictures with the indoor lighting mode on, hence the blue tinge to the first few pictures!

Anyway, without further ado:

Some lovely little houses by Wells cathedral. I loved the fact that there was a gate in the wall like the entrance to a secret garden and beyond the gate, the houses and gardens looked as if they were stopped in time.



Wells cathedral



Some of the carvings at the front


Exeter Custom House


One of the antique shops on the Quay


The House that Moved. Apparently, it was in the way of a new road, so it was moved to where it is now!


I loved the look of this alley, loved the pattern that the steps and cobbles made.


And how gorgeous is this building?


Here's a close-up. I love the pattern the tiles make.


There were some great shops in Exeter too and I've just discovered that one of my favourite ones has a blog. Knowing this could be costly!

Gosh, it's been a long time.

I hadn't intended to leave the blog for so long. Actually, I hadn't intended to leave it at all, but my pc started playing up and I was offline for about a month, then life got busy and I got out of the habit of blogging.

So, I'll just jump right back in with both feet and tell you what I've been doing lately.

Like, learning to crochet. I bought just 3 balls of Debbie Bliss' cashmerino wool a few months ago, and finally got around to sitting down with wool, hook and instructions just over a week ago.
The resulting scarf is almost finished, I'm just adding a picot edging. I've been really enjoying doing this. It's great to have something I can do whilst sitting watching TV with hubby.

Of course, now I've almost finished that, I have another project planned. With a few ebay wins of some more wool (cotton angora this time) I have enough to make a ripple blanket. Can't wait to get started on that!

Another first for me was making marmalade. One of the books that hubby got me for Christmas had an easy recipe for marmalade, so when seville oranges were in season, I had a go. And it was a success! Yummy homemade marmalade! The original recipe said it made about 23lbs but that the amounts could be halved. I didn't think that I would be able to get through that much marmalade, so I halved the recipe. Should have made the full amount because I'm now down to my last two jars!
I'll have a go at jam next-strawberry season is nearly here.


This weekend (weather permitting, which of course with it being a bank holiday weekend, the weather will probably be wet and windy!) I'm hoping to go to my favourite car boot fair. There is an indoor all year round one near us, but it seems to be mostly people selling their baby stuff and kids toys, so we don't go there very often. Our favourite one is in a great location with views across the Bristol Channel to Somerset and Devon, and there are loads and loads of stalls selling all kinds of wonderful items. It was where I got those bolts of fabric and the old sewing box amongst other things.
Oh, I hope the weather is good!

Anyway, it's good to be back. I'll get some photos to upload tomorrow when it's not dark.

Nice Weekend

We had a lovely day Saturday. It started off quite lazily. I read a few blogs, did some window shopping on ebay and a couple of loads of washing, while hubby played Command and Conquer. Then we decided to go out to St Fagans again, as there was a craft fair on this weekend and I knew that Samantha had a stall there and had told her I'd try to pop by to see her.

I was a bit disappointed by the number of stalls there. When I lived in London I always went to the craft fairs organised by Four Seasons at Morden Hall and Hampton Court, which were massive themed fairs, usually medieval with falconry displays, wandering minstrels and the like and 4 or 5 large marquees packed full of stalls, so the fairs I go to now are always a disappointment to me! But what wasn't a disappointment was meeting Samantha. She's as lovely as she sounds in her blog and I could have chatted for ages. I didn't want to come away empty handed and could have bought loads of things from her, but wanted to conserve my pennies so I bought a pinny for my washing up liquid bottle!



After St Fagans, we went on to Penarth to browse the charity shops, and I picked up a lovely Boden top and a skirt and hubby got a couple more books.

On the way home we stopped off at the chinese to pick up a take away as hubby had a craving for chinese food!

On Sunday I got my sewing machine out. We'd bought our nieces a mug and chocolate bunny for Easter, but I felt they looked a bit boring in their cellophane wrapping, so decided to make the girls little tote bags to put the Easter gifts in. I've never made bags before, and totally winged it, not using a pattern or even measuring out the fabric, but just going by eye! I'm really pleased with the way they turned out and love the fabrics I used. Pretty aren't they?

Fish and Chips for Tea

One of the many things I love about living where I do, is the close proximity of the beach. It's only a 15 minute drive, so on nice evenings we get in the car and head off.

This is what we did last night, stopping en route to pick up some fish and chips. Fish and chips always taste better by the sea, it must be the salty tang in the air and the fresh breeze off the sea that compliments them so well.

We left home as the sun was getting low on the horizon, so by the time we got to the beach, it was almost setting. The sky was a gorgeous colour, all pink and orange, and there were pink and turquoise stripes reflected in the water. The tide was in and the sea was very still, just gently lapping on the rocks, and the gulls were high overhead winging there way towards the north Devon coast.

It was lovely.

Here's a photo hubby took of the sun setting on the beach last year.

Mothers Day

I know, I'm a tad late in talking about mothers day, but that's because I wasn't online much last week as my daughter had come to visit. She lives in Essex with my eldest son, and we don't get to see each other very often, so it was lovely to have her here for the week.

As it was mothers day when she came, she arrived bearing gifts....

Some fun things for the kitchen.



These gloves come complete with ring!



A garden organiser



And a sweet little snow globe



While she was here, we baked cakes.





These are vanilla cupcakes and we also made some blueberry muffins. We had so much icing left after decorating the cupcakes, that K decided to decorate the muffins too.

We also visited the Museum of Welsh Life. We had gone there last year and had a lovely day out, but by the time we got to the little shop it had closed, so she wanted to go there again to look in the shop!
While we were there, she also wanted to take some pictures.

Hubby and I.



Meandering stream with a willow.



Statues.



A gorgeous tree. It had one branch that had grown around each side of another branch.



I love the mossy rocks in this picture.


So, we had a lovely week together and that's why I was quiet.