The Fairies are Staying, Birthdays and Burglaries

 It's been a quiet week for us, Imogen was away for the week in the Peak District having fun with the NCS (national citizen service), which I heartily recommend for any teenagers who are 15 to 17. Adam and his family were also on holiday for the week near Great Yarmouth, so no babysitting duties for us either.

We had a lovely day out during the week, went for a drive to Scarborough. We visited the most enormous fabric shop, which left me feeling very spoilt and went for a lovely stroll to breath in all that good for you salty sea air. The views are amazing in both directions.

We passed this rather large gentleman on a bench looking out to sea.

Andy posing for scale

I tried to take a photo of the information next to him, but you have to enlarge it to read it. It tells you a little of who Freddie was, born in a mining village, went to war and how he went into Belsen concentration camp on his 21st birthday and saw horrors that we can't even imagine, how every year he cried on his birthday as he remembered those poor souls and grieved for their dreadful suffering.

It's also been a big week for our little grandson, not only on his first holiday, but he also celebrated his first birthday... gosh that went quickly! I embroidered a bib for him to wear while eating his birthday meals, but we saved his presents for when he came home so parents wouldn't have to take them all the way there and back in the already packed car.

Little Zack had no idea of course that it was his birthday, but had a wonderful day playing with mummy, daddy and his big sister and was exhausted by bed time.

Unfortunately on Friday morning before leaving to come home, my son had a phone call to say they'd been burgled during the night. We're so upset for them, they came home to the whole house being upside down from all the cupboards and drawers being emptied out. All their electrical goods were stolen, but the worse thing was Holly's jewellery. It's probably worthless as it's mainly costume jewellery, but it's priceless to Holly as it belonged to her beloved nana who sadly died last year. What an awful end to their lovely family break, but they're going to remember it as the holiday that Zack turned 1 rather than the holiday when they were burgled.

I've had time to spend in my craft room and made a little toadstool house for the fairies to come and stay in when they visit. After baking the clay, I glued it on a large stone from the beach. I did enjoy making it and definitely want to experiment and make more.

Also a little seahorse (I do love seahorses), just need to thread some of my gorgeous velvet blue ribbon through it so it can be worn as a pendant.

 I'm so glad the weather has cooled down a bit and we've even had some rain which we badly needed. It's been a funny summer, but a good one.


Take care
xxx

Firsts and Lasts

It was Father's Day last Sunday and it was our sons first one! I bought some light air drying clay during the week and managed to get Zackary to press his hand into it (the hard part was to then distract him with something else as he thought it looked like fun and wanted to play with it). When it was dry I popped some backing paper behind it, Zack's name and into a shadow picture frame it went.  Adam was very happy with it and Holly made sure he had some other lovely things too.

We decided to all go to the coast and had a lovely walk along the front followed by fish and chips sat on benches looking over the water, so no cooking and no washing up to be done, so both fathers (Adam and Andy) had a lovely day. I managed to get a quick picture of Holly holding Zackary, no one else stayed still long enough to get any more pictures.

I've been spending some time playing with my sewing machine. I think I've got the hang of using the inbuilt alphabet, I do need more practice though to learn how to change the sizes of the font and position on the fabric.

I really enjoyed playing with it, found it quite exciting, so many possibilities.

As well as Adam having his first Father's Day, Imogen had her last day at school. Exams are finished and she is now officially on holiday until September when she goes to sixth form. I'm going to find the photo of Imogen's first day at school and put it next to this one taken on her last day, what an amazing young woman she's grown into, it's gone so crazily fast!

Still my baby girl though, falling fast asleep in the car on the way home from the seaside on Sunday after all that fresh sea air.

Just to finish off, here are a few photos I took this afternoon when we drove to the coast again. Zackary was so tired and past himself, but just wouldn't or couldn't get to sleep, so we put him in the car and went for a drive, he ended up sleeping for an hour and a half and was full of smiles when he woke up.

Take care
xxx

Daffodils and The Deep

Thank you for all your lovely messages of support regarding my dad, they're very appreciated. When my son and his girlfriend (Holly) took Imogen to visit their grandparents last weekend, they took Andrew's old telescope with them. Andrew had upgraded to a different telescope and my dad was absolutely thrilled with it. Mum says he has perked up considerably and is enjoying tinkering with it, which is fantastic news as his mood was dipping.

As I've mentioned, Hull is the UK city of culture this year. There seems to be lots going on most of the time, but what caught my eye over Easter was a wonderful display of lego daffodils. These are some of the pictures from the internet (the ones I took were full of people).

Isn't this cute with a little bee settled on it

There were more than 1700 individual flowers there, all made from lego, how brilliant! When the display was over, the flowers were taken down and all of them were given out to people who queued up to have one, what a lovely idea.

Even a watering can to help keep the flowers fresh

Yesterday was the last day of the Easter holidays. We were looking Holly's little girl for the day as both Adam and Holly were working, so thought it would be nice to go out. We went to The Deep, a place that was as much fun for adults, a 14 year and 7 year old alike. There was so much to see as well as things to do, stroke the starfish and touch the sea anemones, follow the turtle trail and lots of interactive things to do.

the view from inside The Deep over the River Humber

some very large starfish

This pool was amazing, there was a member of staff walking through it feeding the fish, it was fantastic to watch

The corals in here were so colourful, so beautiful, I could have quite happily just sat and watched it

Sharks swimming with these fish

I wasn't very successful with this photo, it was a tank with lots of Clown fish (like Nemo) swimming amongst the sea anemone, oh and starfish.

These were strange little critters, water eels popping out of the sand, very odd looking swaying about... I wasn't too keen.

A very big fish

There were quite a few penguins, they were the sweetest things to watch, marching about with their flippers out to balance themselves. In another part you could watch them as they swam about and dived for their food.

More sharks...

Even a shark outside.

We were in there for a good couple of hours and all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. As an added bonus, we can use our entry tickets as often as we want to for a year, I think we shall definitely be going again especially as they have 2 new turtles which we didn't really see much of this visit.

As an extra treat we thought we'd take a drive out the seaside, Hornsea. We had fish and chips for our supper.

Andrew and I ate ours in the car looking out to sea while Imogen and her little charge ate theirs outside before having a good runaround and collecting some pretty stones.

It was a lovely end to the Easter holidays. Imogen is making the most of the weekend before going back to school on Monday.

Take care
xxx

Anne Bronte in Scarborough

Hello lovely people... is anyone still out there, I do hope so!

I want to tell you about our lovely day out on Sunday. We have a very good friend visiting from America, it was a glorious day so we drove up to Scarborough.

We went to see Anne Bronte's grave

It sits in a small graveyard across the road from St Mary's church. The graves there are very weathered and worn. I hadn't realised when we were going in there that the path was actually old graves that had worn smooth over time. I find it a bit sad, it's a reminder how little our time is, I hope the people whose lives they marked had good lives and were loved.

There's a plaque in front of Annes grave so you can read what the original said

She was so young, but has made such a mark in the world. It was so lovely to see the flowers that were placed on her grave.

Across a small road is the church of St Mary c1150

It's only just down the (very steep) road from Scarborough castle and has a fascinating history.

The highlights from the plaque:

c1150 - church of St Mary's built.

1201 - King John visited St Mary's

1400-1600s - 6 sieges against the castle, some which had disastrous consequences for St Mary's.

1645 - Parliamentarians gained access into the church with 2 canon to attack the castle. As a result of exchange of fire with the royalists in the castle "Great mischief was done to St Mary's".

These are what's left of the original walls

Inside the church were too lovely ladies selling refreshments, I had a very 'refreshing' cup of tea then a wander around to see Anne Bronte's corner. Her death certificate is in a frame

next to it is a small explanation

There's also some information about the Bronte family and Anne's death and connection to Scarborough.

It was all so interesting. Really recommend popping in to have a look if you're near the area. The sense of history alone (the castle up the road is 3000 years old) makes it a worthwhile visit and there's always the sandy beach as well as many other attractions to spend a day visiting.

Take care
xxx