It's (nearly) Christmas

It's been the usual pre-Christmas madness here added to which I've had the lurgy for the past week, I am starting to feel more human now, thankfully.
I just wanted to pop in and wish everyone a very Happy Christmas, I hope you all enjoy yourselves however you celebrate it.
Also wanted to say a big thank you to everyone one that reads my blog and for all the lovely comments you leave.
I have all the children at home, which is lovely and after Christmas we are hoping to go up to Norwich for a few days, weather permitting, so normal blogging will be resumed in the New Year.

Once again,enjoy yourselves and I'll see you in the New Year.

Sue x

Splash of Colour for December.

Here is my contribution to the splash of colour started by siverpebble.

I tried really hard to find something that wasn't red and Christmassy. Not sure that I could live with this myself!
Despite saying I didn't want to use red I couldn't resist these

not something I would wear myself but they were too hard to resist.

Enjoy the rest of your week,

Sue x

New Town

As you can see from the picture below, the new town is not as picturesque as the old.

This part started to develop after the arrival of the railway in 1906. There are some of the original buildings left

this is now an estate agent.

These three are banks.
When we moved here we had this

a small theatre which also doubled as a cinema. We took the children to see a couple of pantomimes when they were small which the local amateur dramatic society used to put on.
The town is pretty run of the mill but it does have one famous attraction

Bekonscot Model Village. It's very popular during its open season, you can read a bit about its history via the link. The children used to love going here and now my daughter takes her godsons when they come to visit.
It also had one famous resident whose house used to stand here

nothing left of her house now, just modern sticky boxes in its place.

As I said at the beginning, not as pretty as the old town but we are surrounded by the Chiltern Hills so we have some beautiful countryside on our doorstep, so not too much to complain about.

Hope you enjoyed the tour and I hope all your Christmas preparations are going well.

Have a good week,

Sue x

Nothing Exciting.

As nothing exciting has been happening here apart from the usual Christmas preparations and as you are all doing the same thing, I didn't think you'd want to read about mine. So I decided to take you on a tour of my local town.

The town is split into two parts old and new, I'll tell you about the old one today and the new one next time.

The town is very old, it is first mentioned in 1185. It was granted a charter to hold a weekly market in 1255 and in 1269 it was granted another charter to hold an annual fair, this still takes place in May.

As you can see there are some lovely buildings. The white building in the middle of the last photo has been used in some episodes of Poirot. Some of the buildings are being renovated and while this is going on you can see how old some of them are.


Not a very good picture but it was through a dirty window and you don't see this sort of thing very often.
It has a large parish church.


The first vicar is mentioned in 1210 but the church that is here now dates from around 1869.

The town is on an old coaching road so there are lots of pubs! Probably a lot less than there used to be.
There is The Saracen's Head

this is thought to date from about 1194 and there are written records of an inn from1242. It is supposed to be haunted.
There is the White Hart


there are records relating to it dated 1624.
Then there is The Greyhound


this is down one of the Ends, as the main roads are called. I've only mentioned this one as it's where Husband and I had our first date and it hadn't been "improved" then.

Just on the very edge of the town there is this house.


This is where G.K.Chesterton lived for a time. Not sure how old it is but I don't think it's as old as the rest of the town.

Hope you've enjoyed the tour, I'll tell you about the New Town next. It's certainly not as picturesque as the Old Town.

Enjoy your week.

Sue x

Family Gathering

This weekend the family was at home, except the youngest member as she was away for a much needed break.
The reason for this gathering was the 30th birthday of eldest daughter. How did I get to have a daughter that old?!
She didn't want a big celebration, she just wanted the family together, along with her partner.
On Friday night we sat round chatting, just enjoying being together. Oh and some alcohol was consumed!
On Saturday we had a party lunch. This was made up of all the things we used to have at birthday teas when the children were small. You know the sort of thing, all the unhealthy stuff you don't let them eat the rest of the year. In the evening we had a take-away and some more alcohol was consumed, although not to much.
The thing that she enjoyed most I think was the birthday cake. I had asked her if she wanted anything in particular and she said she wanted the same cake that she had on her 3rd birthday.
So I spent Thursday evening baking it and Friday morning icing it, this is what she wanted.



He tasted really good, a piece was saved for youngest to enjoy when she gets home and the rest that was left after we had all tried it went back to Norwich. Bet he doesn't last long!
We had a lovely weekend and we will all be together again in a few weeks time for Christmas, minus the hedgehog.

Have a good week.

Sue x

Winter Colour

I've been inspired by an idea in a post on Marigold Jam which she got from a post on silverpebble. The idea is to find colourful things to photograph throughout the winter months and so make things a bit more cheerful. So here is my contribution

the display outside the local florists. Lovely on a grey and damp day.

Have a good weekend

Sue x

Books

On yesterdays post Jee asked me if I had bought any books in Hay, silly question, of course I did. Although not as many as I had hoped. I'll show you what I got,

two Alice Thomas Ellis, I've already finished one.

some embroidery books. I'm not really impatient when it comes to sewing but I don't have a lot of free time and the things in this book are quick to make. The middle book has some quite big projects in, may have to wait a while to get round to some of those.

This was published in 1978 when Elizabeth Craig was 95 and still working. I've got lots of her books mostly dating from the 30's and 40's.
I only managed to find a couple of vintage books and one of those isn't that old. This one

which is from the 50's I think. At least I know how to do the washing now!
This one is a gem

the shop had it marked as being 50's but I'm pretty sure it's from the 30's. It's mostly recipes but it also has a section on modern! kitchens


and a bit on basic first aid


which looks pretty scary to me, the poor child looks really fed up.

So, there you go, my finds, as I said not as many as I had hoped but more than enough as far as husband is concerned.

Enjoy the coming week,

Sue x

Hay on Wye

On Tuesday we went to Hay on Wye, it's a pretty little town right on the northern most tip of the Black Mountains. It has the ruins of a huge castle.

The view from the car park is pretty amazing

but the main reason for visiting Hay is the bookshops.
I love books and any excuse to add to my collection cannot be passed by.
We visited several, some better than others. Hay on Wye Booksellers was one of the better ones, they had a huge stock and the lady running it was very friendly. We also visited one which is housed in the old cinema, Hay Cinema Bookshop. This is also very good, there are thousands of books but the staff are a bit offhand, still worth a visit though.

We didn't spend all our time in the bookshops, we had a wander around the town. This picture is by the side of one of the shops

he looks a bit furtive to me, maybe it's something to do with the books he is reading!
This plaster work is very pretty

pity we don't take as much trouble now with our buildings.
This shop is very eye catching

it used to be a butchers, all the tiles on the pillars have animals on them.

We came across this while walking round


very confusing. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Hay is right on the border of Wales and England and they still haven't decided who has right of way!

We had a lovely time , I hope to go back soon, you can never have too many books after all!


Hope you enjoy your weekends.

Sue x

Forest of Dean

We got back yesterday from a few days in the Forest of Dean. It is a beautiful part of the country, lots of trees (obviously, clue in the name ) and rolling hills.

We stopped off first in the small town of Coleford. It's not a very pretty place, so no pictures but we needed some lunch and as the saying goes "any port in a storm".
After lunch we headed of to a local arboretum

it adjoins Forestry Commission land. The arboretum itself is quite small so after walking round there we ventured further afield into the wider forest. The weather was glorious, bright and sunny, so I got a few photos like this.

The sun shining through the leaves but I won't bore you with them all. We walked down paths like these


as we headed for this lake

which we waked round, it was very peaceful. Then it was back to the car and off to Ross on Wye where we stayed. We had a stroll round the town, no pictures this time because the light was going and I always end up with out of focus pictures when the light is bad. On Tuesday we headed over to Hay on Wye but I'll tell you about that tomorrow.

Sue x

Visiting

We went to stay with the son and heir at the weekend, he lives in Hackney (which was much nicer than I expected and very clean ). We wandered around town on the Saturday, we saw this



Leadenhall Market, they don't build shopping centres like that any more. Not sure what they did sell there but I think it may have been something to do with game as there were golden pheasants on the round towers. This


Monument, the top is very beautiful but I didn't want to get a closer look as I have no head for heights. This

the London Eye, there were huge queues but I wouldn't have fancied a trip on this either. This



and this

it's on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square, it's quite impressive.
We also visited Sealife. It's interesting to see fish close up but I have mixed feelings about large marine creatures living in tanks. The sharks and turtles were swimming round and round, they reminded me a bit of lions and bears pacing backwards and forwards in zoos.
As we were heading over towards Covent Garden we walked past this building, The Institute of Painters in Watercolours, haven't noticed it before. I don't know if part of it is still the Institute, as you can see the bottom is all shops but then I suppose it might always have been like that.

On Sunday we went for a walk around Spitalfields. The old market is now full of stalls selling clothes and antiques, there are also some very nice cake stalls which we did spend some of our pennies at.This church



is on one side of the market it is Christ Church Spitalfields and it is by Nicholas Hawksmoor, very simple and very beautiful. While we were wandering around I happened to glance down one of the side streets and saw this,


I don't know if you can make out the horse statue. No idea what building it's on, any one have any ideas?

We had a lovely time, we don't get to see son and heir very often so it's always a treat when we do. He's coming home in a few weeks for his big sister's birthday so there won't be such a long gap between visits this time.

Enjoy the rest of the week,

Sue x

P.S. It's official, I'm old. I had to give in and use a magnifying mirror to tidy up my eyebrows this morning, how depressing is that!

Knitting and Stitching

On Saturday I went to the Knitting and Stitching show at Alexandra Palace. It was heaving, so no pictures I'm afraid as I couldn't lift my arms to use the camera!

I did buy a few things

this pattern and material

fat quarters

this charm pack which is in colours I wouldn't normally choose but hey a change is as good as a rest

and this cushion pattern as I want to make a foot stool to put my feet up when I'm crocheting. I also bought this book as I want to have a go at machine embroidery, although I have nightmares about never being able to untangle the sewing machine ever again.

Hopefully I'll pluck up the courage to give it a try and if I do you will be the first to know.

Sue x