Caravanning in Broadway

Hi,

Just come back from a lovely few days staying at the Broadway Caravan Club Site in Worcestershire.  It was a great few days and time for a much needed rest.  The caravan site is situated on the edge of the popular village of Broadway, which is very much the traditional English village.

The village of Broadway is not far from the town of Evesham and the houses are built from the traditional Cotswold Limestone.  The village is known as "The Jewel of the Cotswolds" and it most certainly was a stunning place to visit.

Many of the houses date back to the 16th Century.

The village has a wonderful array of shops and art galleries to visit.

There was even a traditional ice cream seller with their ice cream wagon on the high street.

The village is only a ten minute walk from the caravan site and with plenty of cafes, pubs and hotels there are plenty of choices for a bite to eat.

If you are visiting this area it most certainly is worth a visit and we have already decided to return.  There are lots of places to visit locally including the Broadway Tower, Evesham and Country parks.  We, also, visited Worcester during our stay which I will tell you about in another post.

Bye For Now

Von xx

St Giles Hospice

Hi,

We went for a quick visit to our local hospice this week.  St Giles Hospice is based in Whittington near our home town and is extremely supportive to local families that are suffering with a family member through terminal illnesses.

We, unfortunately, lost my Mother in Law to Breast Cancer in 1994 and found the Hospice a great support during this time.  We regularly donate to the hospice through their lottery.  From this they emailed us with their recent campaign to plant a sunflower memorial for previous patients.  We took this opportunity and went to visit the memorial garden they had created for this month.

It was a little overwhelming to see the number of flower plaques in the garden but a really lovely gesture by the hospice.  We managed to find my Mother in Laws flower and all commented on how much she would have liked this idea. It was a lovely way to remember her and we will be able to collect the plaque to bring home in June.

We already have decided to place this in an area of the garden as a permanent memorial to her.  

Thank you St Giles Hospice.

Bye For Now

Von x

Spongebob Squarepants Cake

It is my sons 9th Birthday in May so I set about making him a SpongeBob Squarepants cake to celebrate the occasion.    I love seeing the children's reaction when they see their birthday cake and Joss's reaction to this one was lovely ... a huge smile and a nice big hug.   Aaaah what better reward for a mum.

 

There always seems to be a birthday in our family and what a better excuse to get together, celebrate and eat cake!!    The bonus is that even with eating cake last week I still managed to lose half a pound at Slimming World!! 

As part of the birthday boys celebrations we went on a visit to the Yorkshire Wildlife Park.   It was a fantastic day out and was so lovely to see the animals there in such huge enclosures and so well looked after.   Here are some pictures of one of the Tigers and one of the lovely Polar Bears ..

Would recommend a visit if you haven't been.   Definitely one of my favourite places we have visited.

Julie

xxx

 

St George's Day Celebrations and Blanket Progress

Hi,

It was very busy in our town of Tamworth last weekend.  There were St George celebrations in our Castle Grounds which really drew in the crowds as you can see.

They were re-enacting knights jousting which was great fun to watch.

Over the last few years these celebrations have developed from a group of stalls and activities relating to the times of knights and dragons to the big event it was last weekend.  We were very lucky with the weather and managed to avoid the rain.

I have been continuing my current blanket and have been working on the next round of Granny Squares.  I opted for a Puffy Flower square from my favourite crochet book "100 Bright & Colourful Granny Squares".  I have made these in two colours to add to the Ferris Wheels in the centre.

Next step is to get these sewn on to the centre squares.  I will post a picture when I am done.

Bye for  now

Von x

Expanding file

My daughter was the inspiration behind my latest crafting session as she decided that she wanted an expanding file for school so that she could keep her school books organised but the challenge was that it had to be different from the ones that everyone else had!   I did have a look in the shops to see what was available but there was nothing that really suited what she wanted and certainly nothing very pretty. 

A little bit of thought on how I was going to tackle this project and a little time spent at the sewing machine and this was the end result..

I love the material that I used for creating this expanding file.  These vintage style prints are very popular everywhere at the moment.  Hope you like it.

 

Julie

xx

Ferris Wheel Progress

Hi,

I thought I would let you know how I was getting on with my new blanket.  I have made good progress with the centre piece of the blanket.  I used the "Ferris Wheel" design from "100 Bright and Colourful Granny Squares".  This is how I got on...

I made four of these and joined them together.  I am going to use this as the basis for the centre of the blanket.

My next step is going to be some smaller squares surrounding this.  Will post again once I have started these.

Bye for now

Von xx

A New Challenge!

Hi

Walking through our town, Tamworth, this week I was struck by the bright splash of colour as I turned the corner into the Castle Pleasure Grounds.  There was a riot of bright coloured winter pansies that made me feel much brighter and cheerful inside after the dullness of winter.

I have been busy planning my next project which is a blanket for my daughter.  The criteria for this blanket is colour and lots of it!!  So here is my selection of colourful wool that I have collected ready for this project.

I am going to begin with making 4 of these squares from my favourite crochet book "

I have already started with the centre circles using a nice bright red.

I will post again once I have completed a square to show you.  Looking forward to this riot of colour after the black and white of my last blanket.

Bye for Now

Von x