Like Pebbles on a Beach

Welcome to new Followers Amanda, Andrea and Mummyhen.

These are some of the beautiful pebbles I photographed this afternoon on Slapton Sands. It's strange that you do things you wouldn't normally do, when you have Visitors and our current guest likes train spotting and WWII memorabilia. This means we have been to "spot" a lovely steam train on its way past Dawlish on the way to Cornwall.

In addition, this afternoon saw us out Tank Spotting down at Slapton Sands. Sadly we couldn't find one, but the walk along the beach was wonderful.

It's not a sandy beach, but a shingly one and it wasn't hot today, but I can still smell the lovely sea salty fresh air.

It is just me or is anybody else inspired by these lovely beach pebble colours? These may have to become a crochet project at some time.

It's hard to tell but the grey pebble in the middle has a beautiful sparkle in it.

If anyone else is inspired by these colours ,in a make, please let me know and show us your results.

Lots of Love Arwedd xx

Bloggy Blanket Chain

Welcome to new Follower Rae.

Oh Boy, it was such a difficult decision as to which colour I should do my square in, to go with Mum's lovely hot pink, Nicky's gorgeous purple and Kate's sunny yellow. I went through my yarn stash, dithering over this colour and that, and eventually, nervously, decided on a zesty lime bamboo cotton. So I hope all the participants and recipient will like it.

After my first attempts at granny squares for the Bloggy Friends Bloggy Blanket, I thought I would push myself a little further and try a new square for this Blanket Chain. I found one I liked in the Encyclopedia book, and my contribution is therefore a circle in a square.

My ends are now sewn in and it is joined to the fabulous, but still rather small blanket, and it is winging it's way to Amanda in Spain.

If you'd like to join in and add a square, hop on over to Mum's blog page here, and let her know.

Hope the Air Mail is nice and quick Amanda. Looking forward to seeing what you add.

Lots of Love Arwedd xx

Lessons in Life

I have always enjoyed learning. I was one of those children who actually enjoyed being at school and was apparently inquisitive from a very early age. Now I'm not saying that I was, or am, particularly bright! After all I only got 8 GCE 'O' levels, when I was predicted to get 13 and I only got 2 out of my 4 'A' levels, but I did always like learning new things.

I still feel that 40 years later I have such a lot of things to learn, and instead of a normal 'bucket' list, mine should be a list of things I need to learn before I die.

Some things are quite practical:-

* learn to Crochet - started
* learn to Cook - started
* learn to Knit
* learn to Sew
* learn to Rollerblade, etc, etc

Some things are more etheral:-

* learn to accept that I am 'good enough'
* learn to "feel the fear and do it anyway"
* learn to speak up for myself
* learn to be more like Jesus

More often than not lessons in life come from the least expected places. Yesterday I had a lovely day with the gorgeous Fostermummy, in our favourite Church/Community Cafe. We did some card making and one of our other 'jobs' was to tackle my Crochet blanket #2, that I got so disheartened with at the beginning of the week. For all of you who are dying to know the solution, here it is.

Although, Fostermummy didn't think there was a real problem with the holes, as she explained the sides will always be different from the ends, knowing that I am somewhat anally retentive she helped me to embrace the holey-ness, (is that a word? not to be confused with Holiness!). The answer..............................

.............................create more 'holes' on the edges without holes.

 Now, this seems an extremely simple solution, but it took an experienced crocheter like FM to point it out to me. I just wouldn't have thought of it! So I have been adding chain spaces all around, and my blanket now pleases me much more. I am friends with it again and looking forward to my Tada moment in the not too distant future.

It felt very much like a metaphor for my life and I learnt that life will be Ok despite the holes in it. As Fostermummy says "all you need to do is make the holes part of the pattern". 

Embracing the holey-ness, lots of love Arwedd xx

Making Hay....

..... while the Sun Shines

My absence from my Blog has not been due to my disenchantment with my Crochet Blanket, although more about that in a later post, but the wonderful weather.

My lovely DH is self-employed and as you will know from my Blog I am currently unemployed. This can be very hard at times. Whilst being self-employed means you don't have to answer to a "Boss", something which may well have helped me in the past, it also means you don't get any Annual Leave or Sick Pay and at the moment things are very tight with very few orders coming in.

However, life is short and you have to take the positives out of this whenever you can, so we set off on Tuesday lunchtime for an afternoon out on our boat, while we still have it. The sunshine was so fabulous we ended up not coming home until Thursday teatime. Where did we get to?

Well not far from our home port, but M got a turn at driving the boat out of The Sound and round to our favourite beach, Bigbury-On-Sea.

It looked fairly busy, but as the tide went out more and more beach appeared between the mainland and Burgh island which holds the beautiful Art Deco hotel, loved by Agatha Christie.

We had all day there on Wednesday and whilst we may have missed our computers and mobiles, our anchorage off the beach for the night, made up for our lack of contact with modern technology.

On Thursday, we anchored off Mount Edgcumbe and had another lovely day in the sunshine, just "messing about on the water".

C's in charge, although he did give M a turn in the end.

M took to his Kayak with Dad's help!

Taking advantage of our few Summer days was very precious and I hope everyone else was as lucky.

Lots of Love Arwedd xx

Disappointed in Devon

I had been looking forward to my first Ta-Dah Moment for well over a month. I look at other folks completed projects and their final Ta-Dahs with envy and enjoyment.

Unfortunately, I now have a total downer on Crochet Blanket Number 2, which is so nearly reaching its conclusion. I'm not sure why now, but I was totally convinced that by doing a double crochet edge all around the blanket it would a) even up the uneven edges and b) fill in the horrible gaps left by the chain 3 turning chains on each row. Sadly it doesn't appear to be doing either and I can now see that it wouldn't do. I really don't know why I thought it would. Despite several people telling me how good my tension was for my first ever foray in crocheting, the end of the blanket I have just finished, is definitely wider than the foundation chain end I started with.

I am going to have to continue with the border as I reckon I have put over 100 hours into this blanket already. However, I am not sure if my perfectionist nature will ever allow me to give this to my friend as the Christmas present it was intended to be.

One nice straight edge, one with horrible holes!!

Despite the glorious sunshine and an otherwise nice day, I am feeling somewhat despondent. The holes are bugging me!!

Yours Disappointed in Devon (Arwedd) xxx

Picnic in the Park

Our village Carnival Committee holds a Picnic in the Park every year as part of a programme of different events. This year we almost lost our carnival completely due to lack of funding and a lack of community support. I guess that's the way the world is going. Thankfully some new members joined and have done their best to revive all the aspects of our traditional carnival.

Last night's Picnic in the Park was a great success and we owe a huge thank you to the organisers for a terrific event.

Some great music by local bands, plus a Hog Roast, Beer Tent and Cream Teas and plenty of our own drinks and snacks kept us there until after dark.

I trust if you have local events that you will go along and support them this Summer. It would be a great shame if these type of events died out.

A great evening and all for FREE!! but we did put money in the bucket as it all goes to support some worthy local charities. All the bands played for free.

Lots of Love Arwedd  xx

Water Sports r Us

In Years 7, 8 and 9 at C's school the last week of Summer Term is called Enrichment Week and there are a good range of activities that the kids can choose from. Much better than being in lessons whatever they are and a good start to the Summer school holidays. 

Last year C did Ski Week, which was his frist choice again this year,  but sadly he didn't get picked this time around. Instead he got his second choice, Water Sports R Us, so he has been commuting from school every day to here.

The group of around 46 kids were split into four groups and given a different activity every day.

So C has done Canadian Canoeing

picture from http://www.wccoutdooreducation.co.uk/families.htm

Kayaking

picture from http://www.fxu.org.uk/kayaking

Hawk Sailing

picture from http://ahoec.org/2012/01/canolfan-conway-centre/

 and Dinghy Sailing

picture from http://www.exelement.co.uk/rya-l1-dinghy-sailing-66

Oh and they also did a bit of climbing on a mock beach crag wall and abseiling!!

This morning he can't wake up!! 

This morning the pair of trainers he has worn into the water, got soaking wet and tried to dry each day, only to get dripping wet again the next, are absolutely reaking (very smelly). Thankfully the Sun has got his hat on, hip, hip, hip hooray. However, if they still stink when they are properly dry they may be for the bin!!

So I'm off to wash some very salty, musty clothes and sit in the sun watching them dry. Have a great weekend everyone and a good start to the Summer HOLS.

Lots of Love Arwedd xx

The Three Musketeers

M wanted his two best friends home for tea yesterday and for some mad reason I agreed. I think was feeling sorry for him that it would be his last chance for a while, as they don't get together so often in the school holidays.

These 3 are a real little band of brothers, just like the 3 Musketeers.

Apparently the hands on the hips was compulsory?!?

They have been together since they were at nursery and despite a few off days they have remained firm friends for years. I know they can be a bit silly, they are only 8 after all, and I normally only have 1 friend home for tea at a time as it saves the 3rd one being left out when they want to do something diffferent, but I agreed nonetheless. However, I was totally unprepared for the NOISE!!

Silliness seemed to have reached epic proportions aswell !!

They have definitely gone into holiday mode and had gone up about 10 decibels. I had to remind them about 3 times on the short walk home that they didn't need to shout as they were standing right next to each other.

Before we went to the local park for a kick around D'Artagnan showed up and then there were 4 Musketeers!!

2 in the playhouse

and 2 in the tree.

All of them had brought a nice treat home from school, as their class had won the school Cake Bake, so they were awarded this lovely book.

However, all they seemed to talk about was how in the school holidays they were going to bake the lovely cakes in the book with added dead frogs, dead shrews, dead bats etc, etc, etc. I'm hoping we can make a few in the holidays with just the suggested ingredients.

Don't think I'm complaining, I enjoyed it really. It was fun listening to their strange conversations both in the park and over the tea table, but boy did I need a rest to let my ears recover after they went home.

Lots of Love Arwedd xxx

Music of the Night

Fan -Tastic!

That's my only description. It was a brilliant night of musical entertainment, in the wonderful surroundings of the walled Citadel, which is currently home to 29 Commando Regiment.

The choir of at least 100, or so it seemed and the orchestra on stage throughout the night (except the interval) battled the wind blowing their music around, but thankfully it stayed dry for the whole evening, despite several black clouds nearby. Amazing !

Oooh look, it's the Military Wives !!

They sang the Obligatory "Sing" song by Gary Barlow and that other one they do, you know the one!! Do they only know those two songs?

We had numbers from Oliver,

Me and my Girl

as well as Miss Saigon, Les Miserables and other medleys.

Frugal Folk would have been very proud of us as we took our own snacks and drinks and a big thank you goes to MIL for the flask of hot Tomato soup for the interval. It was most welcome, despite all the layers we had put on. We not only saved ourselves a fortune at the concession stands but we also got what we wanted, as some came back from the break without anything as the queues had been so long!! Although one big bag of Wine Gums wasn't really enough!!

Our favourite every year is always the Military drummers and their precision performances, but this year, they excelled themselves as they were combined with the absolutely fantastic Seth Lakeman, for my most favourite ever highlight to a show.  Hope the video works and I'm allowed to post this?

The fireworks didn't start until 23:20, (really sorry Nearly Martha!) accompanied by the BIG guns!!

 The big band numbers, Rule Brittania, etc were accompanied by lots of flag waving

In fact I only have one complaint about the whole evening and it's not about the concert but the concert goers. I was absolutely disgusted by all those members of the audience who got up and started leaving about 4 or 5 music pieces from the end, and then stood blocking my not in-expensive view of the stage. The complete lack of respect for the fact that there were still performers on stage was appalling and some even walked out across in front of them. When my row started to file out I was literally pushed out of my seat into the aisle while I was still trying to enjoy the remainder of the concert. Those people should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves, but I doubt they are. Shocking !!!

This was just the start of the exodus, it got worse.

I wonder whether those same people would leave an indoor theatre in such a fashion while the performers were still singing on stage. Just because there were no physical curtains to come down it must have surely been obvious. As you can tell, I'm still cross!!!

However, it was a brilliant concert!!

Lots of Love Arwedd xx

Take your seats, please

Waiting in my seat to see the last ever performance of Music of the Night in the Plymouth Walled Citadel.

Photos to follow. Late finish so probably tomorrow!!!

Lots if Love Arwedd xx

Pretty in Pink

Well not me, obviously, but all the other wild and wonderful outfits, worn by a lovely group of women.

I felt my outfit was missing a pair of the hot pink leg warmers most ladies had on.

Thanks very much to the wonderful KT for accompanying me on my Walk for Life, (we weren't really racing!), today.

The Sun actually shone for the first time in about 2 weeks and it was really hot by the end. Where we had to go across the grass it was a bit slippy underfoot, but we completed it in 62 minutes, so the target is less than an hour next time. Ha, I'm already talking about next time!!

Wearing my Winners medal with pride.

Take that, Dr M, Zebra task 1 completed !!! (Explanation here)

My DH however, decided to end a great day on a slightly sadder note as he fell out of a front foor over the door step into a wall and has injured himself in five places, including:-

 a badly grazed side which won't clot because of his blood thinners!! and

a badly sprained ankle which he is now hobbling on......

.... and things were going so well today.

Hope you've had a good Sunday and maybe done something today to make you feel proud!!

Lots of Love Arwedd xx