Sunday Adventure

Yesterday we set off for a walk by the river and ended up on a little bit of an adventure.

It all started quite well. We followed the river







and i took a few photos along the way

I'm not a plant expert so I'm not even going to attempt to name any of these
























and there was also cuckoo spit. Now I know it isn't real actual spit from cuckoos but I have no idea what it is.







Flying Daisy dog who managed to snap her halti while we were out!






Look it's a snail orgy







I love this bridge for photos but omg what problems it caused a little later on







We carried on following the river for a while longer until it reached the golf course. The path was particularly bad in places and to be honest I don't really want to go that way again soon. Think deep ruts and mud!






This point is where it all went wrong. We knew where we were and walking across the car park would have brought us to the main road and a half hour walk home. There was a signpost for a public footpath saying 1 mile to the point where the donkeys were when we walked by the river at Easter. We decided to follow it and so far it was fine. We reached a train crossing via a stile which proved a problem for Daisy dog. She refused to climb and being somewhat on the tubby side couldn't squeeze underneath. Thankfully the fence at the side was a little easier for her to squeeze her ample belly through.







This led to a farmers field with a path through to the other side.







Once we got to the other side the path went to either side. We chose the wrong side and encountered several dead ends. Finding our way back to the right path we worked our way across and YIKES we were actually headed to the top of the aforementioned bridge. Map on the phone to the rescue and it told us what we didn't want to know - that the otherside of the bridge went for a long way without a road etc. Nothing else for it but to try and find a way down but obviously abseiling would be out of the question. We backtracked a bit and found a banking which was a bit of a nightmare and my son said Bear Grylls would have used a rope for lol. We got down and the dogdecided she was stopping in a ditch the wrong way round instead of jumping it.








Thankfully a little walk through some very soggy ground led us back to that bloody bridge and a flipping path down from where we were at the top of it.







3.5 hours to do what would usually take half that time and never more than a couple of miles from home (as the crow flies obviously). It was an adventure and I definitely saw parts of the local area I never knew existed. Best bit was that calories were burnt :)

Skywatch 26th May 2011

Giant Cupcake & Daisies

Last week I got one of those giant cupcake silicone baking tin thingies.  The kids couldn't wait to have a go with it.  This is the first attempt (there hasn't been a second yet!)

My middle son wanted to use black food colouring for some reason!!! It turned out grey and with the yellow sugar and white chocolate stars it didn't look too bad.  I used a 300g mix (300g flour, 300g sugar, 300g butter plus 5 eggs).  It was very greasy which could be from spraying the mould with cooking spray as recommended.  I have seen it done on youtube with flour instead so I might try sprinkling some inside next time to stop it sticking.  I will also invest in some piping bags for the icing next time aswell.

This is the inside

Last week was a crazy time of meetings, brownie stuff, school stuff, engineers visiting and appointments bunched in with all the usual day to day running of the house.

My dryer had blown two thermostats in six weeks.  The engineer gave me a lesson on overloading on tuesday when he came to fix it and then lo and behold it blew again on sunday with just a few school shirts in. Definitely not overloaded so I think there may be a different problem going on.  It lasted over two years on the very first stat and during that time it may have been overloaded on many different occasions lol. 

Tuesday also saw the tv engineer coming to do a digital switchover upgrade for my son.  He is the only one with a tv in his room and it is very old but they offered it for free so who was I to say no.  OH MY GOSH what a fiasco.  He had to take the wire from the front of the house to the back through two bedrooms but he didn't clip the wire to the wall he just left it loose apart from when it had to go round a door frame and then he did use clips.  He even had it pulled tight over the radiator pipes.  I hadn't seen what a mess he had made until he had gone. He was careful to just show me the room with the sat box in.  I was on the phone to the company who sent somebody else out a couple of days later.  He looked shocked at how it had been done and said he couldn't understand why the previous guy hadn't just taken the cable over the roof.  He ripped it all out and plugged the hole in the wall from the previous man and took it over the roof.

Are you still with me?  Bear with me on it

Anyways I left him to it and a few minutes later my phone rang.  It was the engineer stuck on the roof. He had lost his footing and the part he was on was very slippy so he wanted me to open the loft window to get back in.  Bless him he even took his shoes and socks off.

Job done and middle son now has his own little corner of technology.

He needs this little bit of chillout zone at the moment.  That autism fairy isn't being kind at the moment but enough said about that.

I'll leave you with some flowers from my pots which are being infested with bugs.

 

Please Can You Help A Good Cause?

Are you a crafty person? Do you want to have the chance to win a MASSIVE prize package?

If you do then head on over HERE for the chance to win loads of wonderful goodies for a worthwhile cause. It is one very close to my heart and will only cost you £2 for a ticket but please don't delay as the raffle is drawn on 24th May. 


This week the challenge on Punky Scraps is LAUGH

I used some photos of my youngest son to create a very simple layout of when he sat on what we thought was a bench but it was just a log and as soon as he sat on it it started rolling. His face was a picture and I'm glad I had the camera ready.

Skywatch

Last night I was sat in a horrendous traffic jam which saw me move a couple of miles in the best part of an hour.  The sky sprung a lovely surprise when the sun started to set so I took advantage of the car being stood still to snap a couple of phone pics.

Punky Scraps Sketchy Time

This week over on Punky Scraps we are working from the following sketch:

this is my take on it

I think the most used thing (apart from facebook lol) on my phone is Hipstamatic.  I was snapping away while my son was dodging the jets on a local fountain and must have hit something by mistake. It changed to the salvador lens which gives a sort of mirror image double exposure type picture so I ended up with these pictures that are different but I quite like them.

Skywatch

Digging into the archives this week as I haven't really been out and about anywhere interesting.

This one is Bridlington last May. I would absolutely love to be able to afford one of those houses on the top. Just imagine being able to walk out of your door and smell the sea air.  My dogs would love to have such a fun garden as the beach.

WIP Wednesday

It has been a while since I've done a Work In Progress Wednesday - it is Wednesday today isn't it?  I've been so confused with all the holidays going on recently.

This is a new project I started on monday from the mystery 220 group on Ravelry.  It is a celebratory project in honour of their being 1000 members of the group so uses 1000 yards rather than the usual 220.  I do actually know what the project is having done it before but I loved it so am relishing doing it again.

To see more WIPs this Wednesday head on over to Tamis Amis

Punky Scraps Challenge 15

This week we had a set recipe of items:

NO cardstock
paint
stamping
stitching
twine

Nat had sent me a lovely box of goodies and this shaped piece of patterned paper really took my eye especially as it is covered in french script.  That was my no cardstock.

 I never do know how to photograph a shaped layout.

I stamped my title with paint which covered two more criteria

and stitched on the photograph plus I made a flower with twine.

Skywatch

The Humber Bridge last Sunday on our way back from taking the eldest back to university.

Didn't She Look Beautiful?

Our future queen was faultless in her elegance.

The dress was absolutely amazing but I'm not sure about one thing tough (well two if you get what I mean). I don't if it was the lace or the fit or whether she just chose the wrong bra but she looked rather on the erm chilly side whilst walking down the aisle with her father if you catch my drift.  OK now I've said it so I will get ready for the guards to escort me to the tower where I shall stay forever more.

They are sure to have beautiful children who are our future history in the making.

Craft Garden May Challenge

This month the challenge is to take inspiration from this picture

Despite setting the challenge myself I ended up with a serious mojo loss when it came to actually doing the challenge.  I had intended to set myself doing something with knitting or crochet but when my son came back from Paris with a similar angled shot of the Eiffel Tower then I knew I just had to use that photograph.