Friday 31 May 2013

Something for the weekend

This weekend I'm looking forward to:

  • Partying! - Attending a 21st birthday party on Saturday night. If you read my last 'Something for the weekend' post, you may remember that I was partying that weekend too. My social life isn't usually this busy!
  • Celebrating my nan's 80th birthday by visiting her tomorrow with cards and presents.
  • Packing - Although I won't be packing until Thursday, I put this as I will be sorting and washing my stuff ready for packing for my holiday. Again, if you read my last 'Something for the weekend' post, you will notice I have used the same photo of my suitcase. This is because I didn't want to get it out of the cupboard again to photo it!
Have a great weekend!

Monday 27 May 2013

A beautiful day

It's been a beautiful day, very sunny but also very windy. I have finally put the pots out into the garden from the greenhouse and I managed to take some photos earlier. We have quite a large garden so I will try to get some photos to show the whole garden for another post.

This is the rockery with the pots behind it, the tall flowers on the left of the photo started coming through last year. I've looked in my new wild flowers book and I think they are Columbine. The Lupins and Foxgloves aren't flowering yet but I noticed the slugs have been eating them so I hope they will still flower.

 
 

This is a Gazania Tiger Stripe flower, it's one of my favourites but I prefer the orange ones.

This tree is in our neighbours garden, I think it looks lovely now it's in flower.

And finally, I got a picture of a Red Kite but unfortunately it wasn't very close so I will endeavour to get a better one. I missed a good photo opportunity earlier, when two Red Kites glided past the window as I was looking out.

I have just watched Springwatch in the Afternoon and I'm looking forward to watching the new series of Springwatch, which starts at 8pm tonight on BBC2.

 

Saturday 25 May 2013

No crocheting this week

There hasn't been much activity here this week and I haven't really taken any blog worthy photos. I spent a day sorting through my nan's paperwork, she had kept some bills from 2003 and even had a few things from 1997! I've taken a lot of stuff out and I need to go through whats left, so that's a nice job for me to look forward to!

I wanted to do some crocheting this week but every time I thought I had time something came up. I will post a photo when I've made some progress.

I'm looking forward to my holiday in a couple of weeks, we are staying in a cottage so we will have the garden to sit in and I'm hoping to do some crocheting and reading. I love reading, it's a great escapism but unfortunately I haven't read a book for ages now. I have my Essentials magazine subscription too but I'm about two months behind on that as well!

I wanted to share this photo, taken on 6th January 2010 of the Weeping Willow tree covered in snow, in the garden. I came across it my old camera and really liked it!

Right, time to put the washing out. Whatever you're up to this bank holiday/half term, I hope you enjoy it!

 

Sunday 19 May 2013

New camera

It's been a tough few days in my world of being a carer. I care for a grandparent and there has been quite a bit of being moaned at, shouted at and having a go at. There is quite a lot of negativity here, I try to be positive but sometimes it's not easy. Sometimes I think about the things I've given up and it makes me sad - but more on that another time.

So, I treated myself to a new camera as it was reduced and I've recently had some money come through. I only usually use my phone camera because its always with me but also because I don't have a computer, I couldn't get the photos off of a camera - until now! As well as the camera, I bought a wire to connect the camera to the iPad and voilĂ , I just plug it in and up come the photos.

These are some of the photos I took yesterday to practice with my new camera. I really like the macro shots and the water drops on the flowers where I had just watered them. These pots are still in the greenhouse as we had frosts last week. Both of the Violas were reduced to 99p so were a bargain!


I also took these photos from underneath the water table. The one of the robin is using the zoom, although its ok I prefer not to zoom in but move closer to the subject.

You may be wondering how I make the collages of photos in my blog. Well, I use the PicCollage app for the iPad. Although it doesn't have that many different frames for the photos, it's ok for me.

I'm hoping to get some photos of Red Kites now I have a better camera, they sometimes come down quite low over the garden.

It's been a lovely sunny day here but not particularly warm, I have seen some butterflies in the garden, I think they are the Large White, I also saw a pair of Robins on the bird feeders.

Whatever you're up to this week, I hope you enjoy it!

 

Wednesday 15 May 2013

Miserable weather

Well, what miserable weather we're having, I don't mind the rain but it would be nice to have some warmer weather now! I'm hoping it's nicer when I go away and I've found a nice beach to visit at Sea Palling.

I haven't taken many photos this week but I did get one of these two tone tulips, which I love.


My granny stripe blanket is coming on nicely, I've nearly finished the second colour. I've just been doing a bit here and there when I get the chance.

I'm watching One Foot in the Grave while I'm waiting for a delivery, it's one of my favourite sitcoms.
 

 

Sunday 12 May 2013

Norfolk holiday

It was lovely to get away for a while, we went Monday to Friday and stayed at Cherry Tree holiday park near Great Yarmouth. We didn't plan on doing much, just relaxing. I didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked as I was helping out with the children. We had some rain on Wednesday AM but other than that it was dry and sunny but cold in the wind.

Monday was mainly spent travelling there, on Tuesday we went to Great Yarmouth and spent some time on the beach. It was virtually empty, just a few families there and the tide was quite far out so there was lots of sand for the children to play on. It was warm in the sun but the wind was quite nippy! On Wednesday we stayed on the park and went swimming in the morning and then played in the arcade. On Thursday we took the children to Adventure Island Play Park in Lowestoft, a soft play centre and stayed for about four hours, the children really enjoyed themselves and I even had a play too! Friday we played in the arcade before leaving then made our way back home.

Here are a few photos of Great Yarmouth beach. You can just see the wind farm in the distance and they have a Wind Farm Visitor Centre just off of the beach.

 

These are some photos that I took at the holiday park.
 

It's a shame to have to come back home, I love being by the sea but I only have four weeks to wait until I'm away again! I did have a look for Sea Glass and I found a few pieces that looked like it but wasn't. I had unpacked and done all of my washing within a couple of hours of getting back. I'm hoping to get on with some crocheting now that I'm back, I had trouble adding a new colour before I went away.

Today has been a mixed day, with lovely sunshine this morning then rain and feeling really cold this afternoon. At least I got some washing dried on the line earlier. It's lovely seeing the garden coming into bloom and the flowers coming out in the pots I planted up.

Here are my pots still in the greenhouse.

 

The rockery has started to come into bloom now aswell and the Weeping Willow tree looks good with some colour on it. I looked for a link for Weeping Willow but couldn't really find a good one so I took a photo from my book instead.
 
 

Here are some other flowers from the garden.
 

While I have been writing this I have seen wood pigeons, collard doves, blue tits and dunnocks on the bird feeder. I hope you've all had a great weekend!

 

Sunday 5 May 2013

Crochet update

Just a quick post today. I started my granny stripe blanket on Wednesday and have been doing a bit here and there, I'm not very quick at crocheting! I found the first two rows quite fiddly so it took a while to do. I'm following this pattern from Attic24. As I'm away next week I won't get any more done until I'm back.

I saw this blossom tree down my road, it's one tree but with two colours of blossom. I've never seen this before, has anyone else?

Well, I better get packing for my holiday!

 

Thursday 2 May 2013

Something for the weekend

I got this 'Something for the weekend' idea from the LuluLoves blog. I will put up a few things that I'm looking forward to doing at the weekend. I'm not sure how often I will do this type of blog, maybe once a month.

So, this weekend I'm looking forward to:

  • Partying! - Attending an 18th birthday party on Saturday night.
  • Flicking through my new copy of Essentials, I got a subscription for Christmas and have been reading it for a few years now.
  • Packing for my holiday next week, I'm not looking forward to the packing but I am looking forward to the holiday! I'm going to help with the children and we are going to Great Yarmouth. I hope we get to the beach at least one day, I would like to look for sea glass as I had never heard of it before last week when I read about it here, here and here.

After my last post and not being able to move down the post properly when there are more than a few photos, I've downloaded the app Blogsy. The photos in last post weren't positioned how I would have liked and so far Blogsy seems very good.

Whatever you have planned for the weekend, I hope you enjoy it!

 

Wednesday 1 May 2013

Birthday fun

We had fun at Legoland on Monday for my nieces birthday. It takes us about 40 minutes to get there, in good traffic. As its not the school holidays, there weren't that many people and the longest queue was about 10 minutes! We took a packed lunch this time as it can be expensive to buy lunch for everyone, most of the food places were closed and we sat at the picnic tables of one of them.

This is my kind of stop!

We saw these lovely flowers, I'm not sure what they are.


I managed to get all of my plants potted up over the weekend and yesterday. I've left them in the green house for now as we are still having some frosts. I also cleared part of the rockery and planted some lupins and foxgloves, I hope they will flower this year.


I saw this robin on the tree while planting in the rockery.

 


I put some washing out earlier and it's a beautiful day, clear blue sky and bright sunshine which is nice to see!

I've spent most of the morning composing this blog. I only have an iPad and every time I try to move to the end of the post it only goes down about halfway. It's so frustrating, any advice?