Thursday 27 July 2017

Growing Blueberries

Growing your own fruit is very satisfying.

I never thought in a million years that I would be able to say that. Both my Mam and Dad were blessed with green fingers, I on the other hand can kill off even artificial plants.

I decided to try to grow some fruits in large pots on the decking, i wanted to grow raspberries but the nice man in our local garden center advised me against growing them in pots but told me blueberries thrive in pots so a blueberry plant it was.

Ive talked to it and cared for it and today I ate my first home grown blueberry.

It has loads of berry to come and quite a few of them will soon be ready for the picking.

My Dad would have been proud and I can't wait to show my Mam.

It's looking quite healthy.

Monday 17 July 2017

The Art of Glass

Both Chris and I are fascinated by glass work, we spend most of our weekends watching a master at work, Davey Martin is a great friend and a glass blower at the National Glass Center in Sunderland, we could watch him all day.

If you havent yet been it is an absolute must, it is also free, you can get lunch in the cafe/restaurant, shop and watch live demonstrations, better still if you love the piece that is being demonstrated you can even buy that piece for yourself, we have several of pieces of Daves work and even a couple of my own from a 1 to 1 class.

This is a goblet that he made this weekend and I fell in love with it.

The shape and design are amazing.

 

We need to support this old craft and beautiful work and to watch it being crafted from start to finish is just mesmerising.

You can even book a workshop for yourself, one of the most popular is Christmas Baubles, I have a couple but may need to make a few more to fill a bowl that I have, mine can be seen in the bowl all year round as they are too beautiful to pack away.

I think you can see all of the shapes from these pictures, true craftsmanship don't you think?

Pop along and see for yourself, you wont be disappointed, its wheelchair friendly too.

 

Sunday 16 July 2017

Jack turns 8 years

Hard to believe our little man is 8 years old, time just flies by doesn't it?

I had to get creative and design him a card, nothing to babyish as he has out grown marvel characters and the likes.

So the only thing that would fit the bill was a football shirt in his favourite team colours (Sunderland)

So I set too creating a SVG cut file for my Silhouette Cameo and I have to say I was rather thrilled with the results.

I actually enjoyed the creating so much that I mad a good few in different styles for The perfect male cards.

Jack was thrilled with his card so a good result all round.

Happy Birthday Jack.

Monday 10 July 2017

14 Days of Goodness

Time is precious isn't it?

We are always told to use our time wisely and we did exactly that.

If you have been watching the drama The Loch you would have seen where We spent our first 7 days.

Fort Augustus is bang in the middle of Loch Ness.

It has an amazing Loch system and I could watch the boats getting through each of the gates all day.

Chris was like a pig in muck watching and I had to drag him away or we would have been there for the whole of our break.

We wern't blessed with the weather but we were certainly blessed with the scenery.

We had lodgings in a very remote part so peace and quiet was ours when we needed it, we had the most gorgeous Log Cabin which took 2 years to build.

It had everything we needed and attention to detail was amazing.

This was to be a cycling holiday and we took both of our bikes but unfortunately I collapsed with my back 2 days before we went so my bike never turned a wheel, I took lots of meds with me and Chris looked after me and we managed to get out each day with lots of rest between.

We only went out for dinner 1 day as the kitchen was so well equipped that we didn't need to go out.

We started every day with a full english breakfast which set us up for the day.

Above was our meal we had out at the local Pub.

We both enjoy cooking oh! And eating haha!

You can see just how beautiful it is.

It was lovely to have each others company, doing just what we wanted, when we wanted. Bliss!

We returned home for our 2nd week and had outings.

We also managed to fit in decorating the bathroom.

Back to the grind now, chris is back to work this morning and the heavens have opened to mark the occasion.