100 of 10 - Day 22 - Yorkshire Moors

Had a little break from the 100 of 10 series (as well as all other blogging), so to start it up again, this was taken during a bikeride across the Yorkshire Moors. Beautiful wild moors, we love you so. :)  

100 of 10 - Day 21 - Familiar Views

A familiar sight from my childhood -  the view out of the window from my dad's house of the Greek chapel at the top of the hill. It's quite a romantic story that is behind it - apparently it was built as a monument to a Russian princess who died very young, in childbirth, while living in Wiesbaden (which was a a popular 19th century destination for Russian nobility because of its medicinal hot springs. The old casino in Wiesbaden was one of the places Dostoevski frequented and Wiesbaden later served as one of the inspirations for his famous novel 'The Gambler'.

100 of 10 - Day 20 - Above the Clouds

I'm in Germany right now, to visit my family there. Arrived last night, so had no chance to upload anything, so here you go - my view from above the clouds. I've not been on a plane for a long time, since the boys we usually tend to drive everywhere, so it all felt very strange. It also feels very strange to  be here, in the house I grew up in, by myself, without any kids. It's a bit too quiet, and I'm not used to all this down-time. I (almost) felt bored for a while there, earlier, so I went to chat to my dad. Because of all the chatting we forgot to start cooking early enough for all the people we had coming tonight, so there was a lot of rushing around and frantically chopping vegetables so it all felt a lot more normal then. ;) 

Clearly I've forgotten how to relax and do nothing!

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Friday Photo Journal

100 of 10 - Day 19 - Biking #2

The boys, with the help of some D and one of his biking mates, extended the mini-bike track in the  back garden. Hey, who needs lawn anyway? 

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Wordless or not so Wordless Wednesday

Picture Perfect Party Linky

100 of 10 - Day 16 - Leeds Urban Bike Park

Another day biking, another injury...

We went to the Leeds Urban Bike Park today. It's a brilliant place, full of mountain bike and BMX trails for different skill levels, with a little bike repair shop and a pretty nice cafe so you can treat yourself to bacon buns and nice cakes when you've exhausted yourself on the trails. 

We obviously had yet another injury - boy #1 had a pretty big crash on one of the downhill tracks, scraped his arm and bruised his side, but it was still a fun day out, and it's so good to see him able to actually do these things. Even seeing him be active enough to have accidents like this feels oddly right and normal after 2 years of enforced inactivity. I'm so hoping it will continue.

100 of 10 - Day 15 - Mess

Will you look at this messy still-life with cat? We are having a very lazy home-day, much needed after the past few days, which had quite a bit of activity, and were very sociable. The boys have mainly been lying on the sofa, playing on various devices, though this sloth-like existence was briefly interrupted earlier by a bit of playing in the pottery shed and some messy throwing on the pottery wheel. 

I suppose I should really not show all the mess we are living in today, it really doesn't make for a very pretty photograph, but it does reflect the theme of 'life' so perfectly at this particular moment in time. In addition, it does feature Molly, and we are so very happy that she is accepting that we are back. Every time we go on holiday Molly disappears and last time we were away she didn't come home for a full week after - we were walking up and down the roads in our village, hoping to hear her cry out because we were worried that she might be locked in someone's garage. After a week of fretting she just walked in, slightly grumpy and bossy as ever. 

With that past experience we were so glad to see her walk in a mere two days after our return from holiday. The first night she only stayed for a couple of hours before disappearing again, but the following evening she came back again, and since then she's been spending more time in the house. In her own very assertive and stubborn way she has been making her displeasure at our desertion felt by crying at us a lot and lying in the most impossible places - a few minutes after this picture was taken she stretched and in doing so pushed half the clutter on the table down onto the floor. Still, at least she's safe and home! :)

PS: Sorry for missing another day yesterday - it's hard work, this holiday thing!

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Little Things Thursday

100 of 10 - Day 12 - Sand Sculptures

We were travelling yesterday and arrived home today to a defrosted fridge and freezer, courtesy of a power cut so I'm a little behind with these posts. This is from yesterday, our very last day on the beautiful Noordwijk beach. The boys spent the morning making elaborate sand sculptures out of dripped sand. They looked strange and kind of magical - like fairy tale structures. 

Holiday prep...

We are off on holiday to the Netherlands in a few days time.

Well,  next Friday really, but this coming week is looking to be such an insanely busy week, with school stuff, and getting all the critters sorted, and boy #1's leavers celebrations (he is off to secondary school in September! Where has time gone!?), and then an unexpected hospital appointment for me next Wednesday, which will likely set me back a day or so in preparation, that I really have to get a move on with my holiday prep now or it won't get done in time. It feels weird to be quite this organised, but I'm going with it...

This does not mean, however, that I have my priorities completely in order. I have, for example, already spent an unreasonably long time contemplating what knitting projects I want to bring. Do you find that you spend far too long thinking about things like this?! Realistically, I probably won't get a lot of time to knit anyway, and yet I find myself weighing up different projects, WIPs, looking at more patterns. Insane, when I have so much to do!

I'm currently thinking of bringing my newest project, the Mohair cowl that I'm knitting with some stash yarn that I recently unearthed. I can't even remember where I got this stuff, but it's quite nice to knit with and will hopefully make a nice light but warm jumper with a generous cowl. There is lots of this yarn, so I'm not likely to run out no matter how generous I make it.

I'm also thinking of bringing my will-it-ever-get-finished Black Acer. This cardi has been on my needles so long it's unreal, but I find it so hard to work on it. It's not so much that the pattern is too difficult as that it takes my full concentration and I so rarely have a moment during the day when I can give it that. I tried knitting in the evening, but the black is awful to work with in artificial light. Perhaps the holiday will allow me to make some headway with this project? I'd really like to wear that cardi sometime before I retire...

I'm also thinking of perhaps bringing my parrot socks?  These are usually my handbag project and I tend to drag them all over the place because they are an easy no-thinking-required stockinette stitch and therefore ideal for quickly picking-up and setting-down as required.

Alternatively I could bring my red Hedgerow socks, again a project that's been on the needles far far too long. This might be the better option because the parrot socks will get finished one day anyway, because they live in my bag and come out whenever I have to wait anywhere for any length of time. The Hedgerow socks however are again somewhat more tricky, with a somewhat fiddly pattern to remember, and if I get distracted I tend to mess it up. Or should I rather take an easy project for the beach?! Decisions, decisions...

I'm also thinking of bringing some yarn to work on the larger version of the little crochet rat I made for boy #2. Boy #3 has been asking for a cuddly larger version for so long now...

I don't know... I have so many pattern ideas at the moment that I am finding it really hard to properly focus on a project. Should I instead bring something new and exciting?!

Or perhaps I should shelve these contemplations for a while and concentrate on packing things like trousers and underpants...

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A Year of Projects
Crafting On

A Weekend of Contrasts...

This is a bankholiday weekend here in the UK, and since it is also the second to last weekend before the boys are back at school we thought we ought to take the chance and DO something. 

The weather on Saturday was fair, if not particularly hot, and boy #2's homework is castles and dragons (we'll still have to build a castle. Oops. I guess there is always tomorrow to start that project...), so we decided to head up to the Yorkshire moors, to Pickering Castle.

What a fantastic day out it was! We like to go to the moors, and I love the fact that we have them more or less on our doorstep. We'd not, however, been to the castle before, and what a beautiful spot, it is! It's a ruin, but complete enough to still look like a castle, and to give an idea of what it might have looked like. It's managed by English Heritage, so there is a small entrance fee, but once you are in the grounds you can just walk around and explore. The boys loved it - the wide open spaces, the ruins, the two moats, and the hidden nooks and crannies ("is that a prison, mummy?"). 

We were enchanted too. There were probably only two or three other families in the castle while we were there, and the fairytale quality of the place really left an impression. 

On the way back we took a slight d-tour so we could enjoy the blooming heather on the moors. Doesn't it look beautiful?

We followed the pleace and tranquility of the moors with the industrial setting of Sheffield today, when we went to the Magna Science Centre. It's located in a huge old Steel Works and it's spectacular in a whole different way. We spent a day being wowed by science and by the bold, imposing architecture of the place. 

The boys loved the interactive nature of the exhibits. Organised into Fire, Water, Earth and Air, there are spaces where kids can experience and experiment with different elements or work with interactive screens or, as in the case of the fire devil below, watch, just separated by a railing. 

 

 

Old Steel Works industrial heritage meets the ultra-modern in the entrance hall:

We had a fabulous time.

I also love how nature sneakily finds little places to be, even in such an industrial space. :)