Summer Holiday Days 8-16!

The title is a bit misleading!

Of course we actually lived days 8-15, but they were taken up with looking after the In-Laws, catching up with paperwork and a rough patch with The Hubs.....it was not an easy week!

By day 16 we found ourselves with a small person who needed to get out and about (as we did!)

As she is looking at 'Turrets & Tiaras' when she returns to school (and this is likely to involve King Henry VIII!), we thought we'd visit the stunningly beautiful Hever Castle, childhood home of Anne Boleyn.

Here it is in the distance......

..and up close.....

Beautiful with its moat full of Koi and these gorgeous houses.....

Of course, we had to photograph the all important portcullis.......

This is the other side of the moat (to the right of the front of the castle).....

Look at these amazing woven willow deer.....bet they'll look great through the mist on an Autumn morning....

There is a great kids adventure playground here, a couple of mazes, an open air theatre.  We had to stop for the obligatory ice cream....

Then Little Lady got hold of the camera, I have to say, she's rather good (she took the next 5 photos).....

..in the rose garden......

...with permission from one of the gardeners to walk on the grass and smell the roses......

...this was her favourite, called 'Nostalgia'....beautiful!

Love the magenta rose against the green.....I think she captured this one so well.....

Finally, just when she was getting tired....we lead her to the water maze!  Needless to say, she found a bit more energy!

There is a way to pass through the maze without getting wet....but that's just no fun, is it?

Good job Mummy had packed a towel and spare clothes!

Thoroughly recommend a visit here...The Hubs and I plan to return, just the 2 of us to take a tour of the castle....they have accommodation here too, so who knows!

More days out and fun planned, so until the next time....take care.

Love

Nora

xxx

Summer Holiday - Day 5, 6 & 7!

At kids club the children get me (real name Karen!) and Crafty Friend (Carol!) muddled up, so for a joke, she had these t-shirts printed.

We know some of the children can't read...but the ones who can thought it was hilarious and insisted on this photo!

Work became one VERY long day of cleaning (9 hours!!), clearing out the academic year, we reorganised the room too.....gets the kids thinking about where they can find things when they come back and they remember better then if we were to tell them!

The next day we undertook all the preparing for the next year!  Still not finished to be honest!

The in-laws came down for a short stay and during a trip into town, I managed to get this shot of my beautiful Teenage Daughter...she'll hate me for this!

On Sunday, I decided to get my head into a different space.  Having ordered some new jeans from H&M, who thankfully sell jeans by the waist and leg measurements, I can get a pair that actually fit without a gaping hole in the small of my back to fill with shopping!!

Hence my lovely old pair (that I had worn through at the knee!) became my cut-offs for playing and gardening!

I cut the jeans across the knee, just above the hole.  I chose some nice bright fabric and sliced it across the width at a 2" depth and ran it through my clover bias binding gadget to produce a nice binding...pinned it on like this..........

I whizzed round the binding with my sewing machine and then flipped the binding over and hand stitched it to the inside......

And ta-dah!...cut-offs!

I've left them long so that as they wear, I can just cut them shorter and shorter!

So , that was those few days.....the next week went in a whirlwind...so I'm not sure how much of that I can really show you in photos!

But after that we made some trips...those I will share!

Back soon!

Love 

Nora

xxxx

Summer Holiday - Day 4

Today was a funny one, Little Lady didn't really get into anything (too tired), so she plodged herself and beloved Minnie in front of the TV.....

It was quite fortunate that she needed this switch off time as it gave me time to prep dinner for Kids Club, bake and decorate a cake for them too and catch up on a bit of paperwork.

This afternoon (at kids club) we spatter painted and decorated biscuits along with the usual mix of dressing up and scooting.

She enjoyed her tea and I'm very much looking forward to Prawn Curry, lovingly cooked especially low fat by my talented hubby.

Not sure what she has planned for tomorrow, and I have work again in the afternoon.

See you tomorrow,
Love
Nora
xxxx

Summer Holidays - Day 3

Today we had an outing to the cinema!

Little Lady and her Tiniest Friend downed a bag of popcorn whilst watching......

It was great!

Nice little story and only about an hour long...perfect!

We returned Tiniest Friend home and headed into town with Crafty Friend to buy Playhouse Curtain Fabric.....

Little Lady's choice.  We haven't scheduled in when we will do this, but we have fabric for when we do.

Little Lady took herself off for a nap whilst Crafty Friend and I had a chinwag over a cuppa or 3.

We rounded the day off with a Prawn Stir Fry.  I was quite impressed with my saucy efforts which were:

Light Soy Sauce (about 6 tablespoons)

2 large finely chopped cloves of garlic

2 teaspoons of shaved (from a frozen piece) of ginger

2 teaspoons of dark brown sugar and

1 tablespoon of cornflour

1 tablespoon of Chinese Five Spice powder

I marinated the prawns in this before cooking....it makes a sort of Chinese Gravy! Yummy.

So now I've caught up with myself I think it's time for a Green Tea and bed.

Nite, nite

Love

Nora

xxxx

Summer Holidays - Day 2

So today was a home day I was expecting some deliveries for Kids Club.

Little Lady and I had breakfast in bed watching CBeebies and just as we had finished getting dressed my neighbour popped along with Tiniest Friend (who didn't want to go to town....Bless!), so she came to play instead.

Tiny Friend and Little Lady made more of the Shrinking Fairy Charms, here they are.....

Lovely, aren't they?

Next up for them was the garden playhouse with food, prams and lots of imagination.....

It didn't last long as it was so cold and windy!

So back in for dressing up.....

After lunch there was a bit of creativity in the form of.......

Bling rings......!

Plenty of snail petting, house building and fun throughout the day......

The inevitable 'selfie' with snail pal........

All rounded off with 3...yes THREE pieces of Cheese & Onion Quiche, salad and new potatoes with a frozen yoghurt lolly to seep into the cracks!

I think we can safely say it was another successful day!

What will tomorrow bring?

Until then, toodle-pip!

Love

Nora

xxxx

Summer Holidays - Day 1

Yep, that time of year again and ...yep...I know the holidays actually started last week BUT, with Kids Club to get up and running, I worked last Thursday and Friday whilst Little Lady went into Kids Club!

So, for us, holidays really only started today, and I will still be working for the next 2 Thursdays and Fridays too.

But as a little record (more for myself than anything), I thought I'd photograph (or at least try to remember to photograph!) our DO-ings for each day.  Can't promise I shall be successful!  But here is Day One......

Girls trip to the hairdressers, Little Lady is done and enjoying a hot chocolate and a biscuit whilst she waits for Teenage Daughter to finish.

After this we were due to picnic at the local play park...but it rained!

So we decided to picnic indoors instead!

After lunch we had company..... 

....for dressing up and snail home building!

This gave me a little time for a cuppa and a biscuit and.....

A little time with THE blanket working the Join-As-You-Go-Grannys.

The tiniest visitor got a bit left behind with the big girl play (which is unusual as she is sooooo switched on!), so she found one of Little Lady's craft kits.......

...and we made these Shrinking Fairy Charms by Galt (available at Argos, and I highly recommend them as a gift or Summer Project).  I have a proper heat gun from my paper-crafting days and Tiny Friend was mesmerised by the curling and distortion of her fairy until it came good again!

I got them treasure hunting.....

..for broad beans and peas.  A great conversation ensued about which bits are edible and which bits you wouldn't want to eat (the furry bit of the broad bean case!)  and the pea skins were munched and a few taken for the snail house!

We ate these this evening with our Mac Cheese and Garlic Bread, Little Lady had 3 portions of Mac Cheese and then downed a Jubbly and 4 pieces of watermelon!  Obviously worked up an appetite!

At the moment she's happily playing (or that should be thrashing!) Daddy on the Wii....great fun!

We have a home day tomorrow as we are awaiting some deliveries, so who knows what we might get up to!

Have you got small people to entertain?  What have you got planned?

Until tomorrow, byeee,

Love

Nora

xxxx

Blanket Update

How do!  It's been a while....and have I been busy.

I have a stack load of stuff to catch you up on and some fab piccies of events, makes and general pretti-ness!

So on to today's NOT ta-dah!

W-a-a-a-a-y back here and here and here I told you about a blanket inspiration, yarn purchase and progress.............

I've been scouring Pinterest deciding on a joining method.....I hadn't realised there were so many.

I thought I was settled on a flat braid.......

.....there's a great tutorial here for it.

But sometimes when you start things just don't hang together as you want, so, sadly, I tried it and it just didn't look right.

I took another look at the initial inspiration for my blanket over at Hopscotch Lane.  Becky had chosen Granny join as you go......

Gorgeous isn't it?

She also made this beautiful Spring Day Blanket......

Same Granny join as you go method.

So...I decided to join with Granny clusters.

Now for the best 'path' to take with a 12 x 10 blanket.

After much more searching I have settled on the Join As You Go - Continuous Method from Heather at Patchwork Heart.....

It is exactly the same pathway for more squares and is easily remembered.  It is also easy to remember the order of your squares as you work row by row.

I am excited to announce that (at L-A-s-T!) all 120 squares for my blanket are finished!

I want to say 'ta-dah' as this has been a mammoth crochet task, but having the squares complete, whilst being a milestone for me, is only half the story.

Now to arrange them in some pleasing way and photograph (so I don't forget!).

Here they all are, every single one different!

So, on with the joining!  In White.

See you soon with more 'stuff', until then...

Cheerio,

Love

Nora

xxxx