Knit Camp update

Monday
Today Steve and I did the Darn Walk again, this time with a lovely lady Tricotonrideau (Danielle), on Ravelry, from Ottowa, We were supposed to meet with Modeknit, (Annie), but my messages didn't reach her in time! Danielle took this picture of me while we were on the walk.

I was smelling the flowers and didn't even know I had been snapped!

During the afternoon, I sat and knitted and knitted in the part of the Uni called the Atrium. I tried to catch as many paople as possible to sign a card for Jo.

No pictures of the tea party, I'm sorry, but Jo didn't want anyone to take any. She had had so much pressure from so many quarters and all sorts of things that I don't want to mention here had not gone according to plan! Steve took a pic of me with  Ewa Kuniczak, here is a link to her website

http://www.feltheadtotoe.com/ She is a lovely lady and SO full of fun!

Here is a picture of the finished lap throw for Jo, which was given to her at the Clapotea Party. Thank you to everyone who contributed! Jo was very touched by it.

I hope you all aprove of the way I finished it.

Tuesday

Today was the day I had enrolled to be with Liz Lovick all day for her Introduction to Fairisle workshop. What a lovely lady! If ever you get the chance to work with her...jump at it! She is a great teacher! She will put you at ease straight away! Whether she is teaching you a knitting or a spinning technique, she will teach you that it's ok to make mistakes, after all, as she says, with knitting, you can always put them right!
Here is the link to her website:

http://www.northernlace.co.uk/NIFA10.html

While we were busy having fun in a rather hot classroom, Steve took himself off on a train trip (such a chore for him!), to Perth. He spent the time having a look round. He said that Perth is a good shopping centre which still retains many of the smaller independant shops and has a brilliant toy shop!

Wednesday

Today began wet. We had planned to go up to Abbey Craig, but thought that the paths would be rather soggy. We therefore hopped on a train and went to Edinburgh. On arriving there, it was still raining, rather hard by that time and we weren't sure exactly what we wanted to do, so we hopped on a tour bus for a described ride all over the city. We learned where Robert Louis Stevenson had spent his time writing. How the streets of the city had got their names, and where the Irish had settled when they had migrated from their homes during the time of the Potato Famine, amongst many other facts. During the circuit, a Museum of Childhood was mentioned. I thought this might be interesting, with the added attraction of being free of charge. If ever you find yourself in Edinbourgh, do go! It amazing! There are four floors dedicated to toys!  Unfortunately Edward Murray, although a collector of childhood items, seemed not to have liked children very much, but you can read more about that on your visit. Here is a link to the museum, with it's address:

http://www.gnws.co.uk/edinburgh/childhood.htm

We arrived back at Anam Cara where we stayed, after a tea of scampy and chips at Allan Water Cafe. Here's the link:
http://www.allanwatercafe.co.uk/
The yogurt icecream is very good too!

Thursday

Today we once again chickened out of doing the walk we have been promising ourselves all week! It was wet again over night, so once again we took a trip out on the train. This time, it was to see the Falkirk Wheel.
This was my first ever attempt at video on Steve's camera! Hope you think it's ok!

Friday
During the morning Steve andI had a date with a dye pot! We had a morning clss booked with Debbie Tomkies, Debbiet on Ravelry. We had so much fun playng with colour!

                                                        My yarn ready for the microwave

                     So many ways to add colour to the yarn. Sport lidded bottles are very good!

Aren't these colours fantastic? This is just a selection of colours produced by our class.

Have we been together too long We didn't discuss the colours we were going to use, but here is the result. Mine at the top, Steve's beautiful randon yarn at the bottom!

We knew we would need to conserve energy for the evening, I will come to that later! But there was a very local walk that we had been planning all week but never got round to. Up behind the university, which used to be a country estate complete with loch and castle, there is a wall, now falling down in places, with many gateways to the mountains out from the uni, take one of the pathways through a gateway and you find yourself clibing steeply! We didn't go right to the top, but through a lovely piece of woodland until we found a road. The road led us back down to Bridge of Allan. We then walked to the station where we took a train to Stirling where we knew our card for the savings account would work.

A long train journey means great knitting time!..............

Steve and I caught the train out of Somerset at just after 9am and arrived in Bridge of Allan at 7pm. A long ride? Yes, but great for getting a good amount of knitting done! A bit more of Steve's hiking waistcoat mark2. One of the highlights of our journey was seeing a hare running across the fiedls shortly after leaving Edinburgh, the last time I saw one was when we first visited Mid Wales almost 30 years ago. What a privilage!

Last night we went for a walk round Stirling Uni campus. It really is as beautiful as the photos I have already seen! There was the added sound of the pipes, as there was a piping championship taking place somewhere. We also heard an owl which I think I have correctly identified as a Little Owl and saw many well fed rabbits. I'm not sure what the rabbits are fed with in Stirling, but I am sure it's more than just grass!

Today we did the Darn Walk, which starts at Allan Water and ends in Dunblaine. It was so peaceful! We heard several birds of prey, probably buzzards, and the tops of the trees were alive with long-tailed tits!
We walked to the end of the town of Bridge of Allan, towards the station and this is what we found:

Then we walked along by the river until we found the official beginning of the walk.

Any Craftlit podcast listeners might be interested. A little later we did indeed find the cave!

We continued to walk alongside the river until, suddenly, there was the cave.........

We couldn't help thinking of Ben Gunn! This was the view in the opposite direction..........

This sign was at the beginning of the walk, but later...........

All rather confusing really!

Along the waty, we smelt  the various scents of the pines, all beautiful. Breathed the almost neat oxygen thrown up by the riverand saw several birds we didn't recognise, heard what we thought were buzzards, but couldn't see them for the trees and caught this butterfly on camera:

We also felt the bounce of this bridge.

                                                  The sign tells horse riders to dismount!

The river was just beautiful!

A Not So Lazy Sunday Afternoon.....

This is a different type of entry to those I usually post here, but I thought you might like to see some of the things our church gets up to now and again. A Breezy day on Berrow Beach and Mr Goh is looking conserned because the Pastor has just loaded some lighter fuel under the cooking sausages,  he is worried that they will catch fire! You can't see the flames in this photo, but I assure you that they were there! My man looks on from a distance!

Happy 65th John! I hope you had a wonderful day! Here is our choice for the remake of Last of The Summer Wine (actually it was their idea!)

Gradually as he other men in the group saw what was happening, they came along and joined in!

What a great line up!

Seriously, a great time was had by all, even the smallest members of the group. There were icecreams, sausages and pieces of chicken, not necessarily in that order. A beautiful lurcher called Jasmine (who I am in love with), kite flying (Katie was just the best at flying one! Hope you aren't too stiff tomorrow Katie!).

It was great to have Alvin and Eather and family with us, hope you are settling in at Bath.

I am sure there will be more to follow sometimes.

Home and enjoying it!

Firstly I have to say here, at long last are the pics of the cooking I promised to post.

A friend sent me a little book of vegetarian recipes. Her Grandmother used to make Glamorgan sausages which she remembered being delicious. So they were the first things I made from the book.

They are relly easy, the breadcrumbs, Carphilly cheese, onion and egg I mixed in the food mixer. Then it was just a case of dipping them in egg and rolling in breadcrumbs before shallow frying them..........yum!

Here they are before cooking.

And here is the finished product, ready for eating!

We ate them with jacket potatoes and didn't need any snacks that evening!

Last weekend, we went to do some clothes shopping on Sunday. This is unheard of for Steve! He hates shopping with a passion! But needs must,and after all there is a holiday on the horizon! So off to Taunton we went.

You know the saying,'you never know what you're going to see when you're out'?
Well take a look at this; a Gamelan from Indonesia, outside The Brewhouse Theatre! I think the idea was for members of the public to have a go, but I would have loved to hear it being played!

 

Yesterday I made some six seed bread rolls and today I made cheesy carrot flan. I don't remember doing so much quality cooking since I started my present job! It is just so lovely to have the summer to my self and be around the home more.

Also yesterday, my friend Anita cmae over, she is Nita29 on Ravelry. She is a lovely lady. She spins and knits, but also machine knits. She very kindly brought her knitting machine over to give me a hand with something I needed in rather a hurry.

Today I have been with a new friend, who due to health problems which mean she cannot leave the house too often, I rode the trike over to visit. She is a lovely lady, Yarnspider1 on Ravelry, with a son who wasn't feeling too well (he had a bad cold),2 beautiful dogs and a husband who looks after them all. I am rather envious, as ahe has what many of us would put on their dream list, namely a craft cabin in the garden! Lovely! Full of looms, carders, a spinning wheel and all the other things you would expect to see in the presence of a finbry person! We only met today, yet it was as though we had known each other for ever by the time we said goodbye! Yarnspider is now an honorary member of Bridgy Craft Group! Other members of the group will be visiting you Yarnspider!

I am still working on The Crowprint Shawl that I want to take to Knit Camp. The days are going so fast, it won't be long before DH and I are on our way to Stirling! I am so excited!

We haven't been to look for the swans lately. The last time we went, it seemed they had disappeared. We think that they may have moved out into the more rural part of the canal. Maybe that would be a job for tomorrow or Saturday, to go and look for them again. I would love to know how many signets have survived.

More cooking! I have excelled myself lately, those who know me well will know what I'm saying, especially daughter #1! Here are some 6 Seed Bread Rolls I made on Wednesday.

They are yummy! I always freeze them so that they don't get eaten in one sitting!

A lazy Sunday afternoon!

We live in a beautiful place! Today we visited Netherstowey for a walk. The weather was beautiful, with a bit of a breeze blowing, just right to keep a person cool while walking uphill! This was a walk I downloaded from the net. Here is a link:

http://www.quantockonline.co.uk/tourism_leisure/activities/walks/circularwalks/netherstowey01.pdf

This was the very walk!
We started out at Cricketers Farm Shop and Cafe, where we had lunch, we often stop off there on a Sunday. Then we set off to find the Old School which is now the Library. Outside the Library, is now a carpark. We left the car and headed off with our downloaded instructions.

We walked up the hill to the site of the old castle. This is an ariel photo copied from an information board. You can see what is left of the castle just right of centre, the moat and the baily are fairly easy to see. We walked right up to the top, the view was amazing! But my photos do not really do it justice!

You can see where the moat would have been here.

Bill's 80th!

We were in Cornwall for the day today as it was my Father In Law's birthday. Arrived home pretty late tonight and am waiting on Janette's photos. So more when she has uploaded!

IAPM73: It’s about time

IAPM73: It’s about time

This is a podcast that i enjpy very much! Try it.....you'll like it!

First trip out for Bridgy Crochet and Knitters' Group

Saturday June 5th, was the first trip out for our group. We had a great time! The journey, and thank you Anita for driving, was smooth and comfortable! We arrived in style in the spacious people carrier. We were greeted at Get Knitted as soon as we arrived by Gail, shown where the important things were, like cake! We had a good look around, spent plenty of cash and then sat, knitted, crocheted and chatted!

We also want to welcome Mark to the group. He as been crocheting for about 6 months. He and Tequilla got on really well and they both spent time together comparing notes. We thought he was pretty brave to join all us ladies for the day! He has promised to come to next month's meeting and show us what he has made. We were sorry that there were some people who couldn't make Saturday, but we look forward to seeing everyone on Saturday July 3rd.For more details please email me:
carotrike@yahoo.com

Life Happens.............

Sorry I haven't posted here for a while. We had some shocking news lately, telling us that an aunt and uncle, my Mum's sister and her hubby, died within a few days of one another. I am not proud of the fact that although they, as do I, live in UK and we heard via another branch of the family via Australia! We have drifted into a scattered family who only communicate rarely and hardly ever meet. That said, we do visit one another if we are in the local area. I feel very ashamed that this has happened and the information came to us in this way!

On to happier things..........

Easter was a happy time for us. Dad came to stay and we went to the donkey sanctuary where his adopted donkey lives with his friends. It was a rather cold day and I was surprised to see so many people with their dogs. There was a couple there with thier family of golden retrievers.  wish I had taken a photo. The couple were having a snack in the yard and the dogs were obviously used to waiting for them. The ages ranges from about 15 years, to just a few weeks. All were excellantly behaved! They just lay cuddled up to one another.

A few weekends ago, we visited a little village on the outskirts of Exmoor. It fulfills the dream of those who would love to escape the rat race and exchange it for the peace and beauty of the countryside. It was so lovely that I recorded the birdsong and took some great spring colour photos. Here is the little church at the top of the carpark.

And this is the view from the church! Isn't it stunning?

We enjoyed ourselves so much that day; walking, looking at the natural world around us, eating cream tea and listening to the wonderful birdsongs, that we took DD#1 and her DH there just tow weeks later.

This is the small  and much photographed bridge and ford in the village of Allerford. There are one or two cream tea shops in the village, a Reading Room Club and an old school room that has been tirned into a very interesting museum ith a blacksmith's behind. Only a very small place, but so much to see!I have noticed the following pic on several calendars of The West Country, or Somerset.

The little packhorse bridge and ford in the village apears on many calendars illustrating South West England. The road comes sharply down hill, and then divides into an ajoining footpath/bridal way over the bridge. Just before the bridge, walkers pass under the little porch of the cottage.

Yet another church. Not far from the bridge, I wanted to add this pictur specially for any knitters out there. From this angle, it looks as though there are sheep in the churchyard! Yes, it really is that rural! Right nest door, cream teas are served. As we sat indoors (the weather had cooled slightly and there was a cool breeze), we watched the parrots on their perches and wathced several hawks and owls been taken to their respective places as the place doubles as a falconry centre.

What does this tell you about the goodness of a well made cream tea? DD#2 and I thought it was pretty good! And we're pretty tough crittics!

This picture gives you some idea of how the two little villages look. Selworthy is mainly owned by the National Trust and many of the cottages have thatched rooves. They still have their village green with the cottages looking as though they have been 'planted' around it. Just beautiful! Note the tall chimneys, all thatched homes have these to prevent sparks catching the thatch alight. The walls are about 3ft thick, providing a cozy home during the cold British winters.

That was our first visit.

Two weeks later, much warmer weather and in the company of DD# and her DH. He took this photo.

Reading left to right:DD#1, DD#3,DD#2,me andDH.

Just to bring everything up to date, we are into June. It hardly seems possible! Dad came over again and spent a few days here with little dog Billy. It was my half term, so we were able once again to spend some time together. We didn't go very far this time, but it was just good once again to be together. Dad spent much of his time reading a book just out by a friend of ours

Mike is a good friend of ours. Such a hard worker, as his his wife Jenny. They worked very hard when he had Newquay Zoo in Cornwall. He and Jenny always had time for a chat. DH and I, often took a special needs lad with us while D#3 had her Zoo Club meeting. We used to look forward to taking him and no matter how busy, Mike and Jenny always made hime feel special! Since then, Mike has been involced with many ventures, such as running Canonteign Falls in Devon and the charity for children, which was stated at the zoo, Marc's Ark. His book is full of pictures of the animals and people he has been involved with over the years.

Speaking of anmals,we are now following a family of swans on the local canal. We are so fortunate to have such a great resource so close to home, within walking distance! It  quite beatiful (once you get away from the rubbsh around the town).

Pictures of the swans to follow...

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HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE!

Here's a little present I knitted for a friend who keeps chickens! She needed cheering up so this little hen which she has named Bambam in honour of her son, who used to tap the top off his eggs and shout Bambam (he was a Flinstone fan!)

I thought she was a good way of wishing everyone a Happy Easter!

                   

Dad comes to stay tomorrow with his little dog Billy, the Jack Russell. The older we get, the better Dad and I get along! It is a joy to have him stay!


 
 
 
 

Billy is a rescue dog.

He was very badly beaten with a golf club by a previous owner and his back leg was badly broken! How cruel some people can be! He is lovely and in his way loves yarny goodness! Here he is trying to climb into my knitting bag to have a nap on a previous visit!

 

And so to Cornwall...........

Today we travelled to Cornwall to spend the day with Irene, my Mother-In-Law's 80th birthday. Steve, Em, Bec and her boyfriend Marcus, all travelled down, setting off at just before 8am From here in Somerset. We generally stop off near Oakhampton for a break and then travel on to St Austell.

Lunch was at 1pm at the Carclays. Usually there is a great view of the bay below, but today wasn't worth the photo! It was so hazy. Maybe next time!
 Our Great Nephew was there today and as no one seemed in a rush to leave after the meal, he sat in hs high chair and entertained us during conversational lulls! He began by getting his Dad's attention (His Mum couldn't join us a she had to work...) but he knew exactly how to play to his audience! First he kept throwing his toy cars on the floor. He would then say a cute little 'uh oh' and then smile endearingly at his Dad. Then he made out he was trying to undo the strap on his chair and made us all laugh with the funny faces he was pulling! He was really a very well behaved little person as he sat there from 1-3pm! He's not even 2 years old yet!

Irene had some great presents, although she hasn't opened them all yet, her birthday isn't until Wednesday. We all had a great time with everyone. Once again we didn't come home empty handed. Irene has always given the girls orange juice to bring home, ever since they were babies, today was no exception. Then there were the local papers and also some home baked cakes, one a fruit cake, was for Steve, the other, a banana cake was for Em.

A grand day out!
Thanks, great parents!

MOTHER'S DAY!

Today was a day of surprises! I was given a dear little basket of spring flowers, tiny daffodils, irises and hyacinths from my husband, a bunch of tulips and hyacinths from my eldest, a pair of earrings from daughter #2 and a bottle of wine from daughter #3! Thank you all so much! I love them all!

I think the greatest surprise of all, was a visit from Jan! She was hiding in the livingroom when we came back from church Great to see her again! I snapped this just as she was leaving. 

We went to a local garden centre for lunch and she bought some veg seeds for her garden. She is holding, amongst other things, a copy of  Hillier's Guide for the Ammature Gardener. This book was much prized by Steve, who was given it by someone who he use to garden for, back in his roundsman days.. He said wistfully that he misses the gardening on days such as today was. Spring feels as if it is really beginning to happen and the light is changing, no longer the weak sunny winter light, but the type of light that feels stronger adn has the promise of warmth about it..

Here are my lovely cards         

                                    

                        My Beautiful flower basket from my husband

My lovely fowers from Jan.

There was also a bottle of Blossom Hill wine from my youngest. Thank you everyone! Thank you also for lunch and the great walk along the canal afterwards! I had a brilliant day.