Wild Life Park continued

So,

continuing with our trip to the Eifel Wild Life Park...

It looks as though Reuben is playing hide and seek with the deer.

Maybe he was.

It was quite a distance to walk all the way round,

and the path eventually led up a hill.

The quickest and most direct way down was by this:-

I thought I had persuaded Reuben to have a go on it with me.

But he changed his mind.

The playground suited him far better.

There was climbing,

more climbing,

or riding,

some ferrying back and to.

He gave the giant mushroom a miss.

But he sang all the way round on the horse.

There was also trampolines and dodgem cars

that he had multiple goes on,

and more animals,

before we made our way back to the car.

It was an enjoyable day out,

one we would do again,

maybe next year!

The next day we took a bicycle each and had a ride along the river,

first one way to Bernkastel where we had a drink and an ice cream.

Then we crossed over the river and cycled back on the other side,

taking shelter under a bridge half way back when it started to rain.

After a stop off at home for a breather and lunch,

we got on our bicycles again and cycled the other way.

No wonder we were tired after all that walking and cycling.

Two Lazy Days

The title of this post is somewhat misleading, as the photos here show anything but a lazy day, or two! The two lazy days that I am referring to are those that follow the very active day walking round a wild life park followed by a days cycling and I'm forgetting, before that, we had an unplanned walk up a hill to a castle.

It all began on Tuesday evening when my daughter, Siobhan, arrived with her son, Reuben. After picking them up at the airport, Reuben quickly reacquainted himself with the hounds. He became firm friends with Arthur who you can see here with Indie. Ignore the plant on the left, Danny has taken to eating the leaves off it.

The next day we had to stay close to home as Mike was away, and I had to get back for the hounds. What started off as a walk round Bernkastel, (which we've done lots of times before), we carried on up the main street, (which we haven't done before), crossed over the road and followed a very nice woodland path along the stream, up the hill, leading eventually to the castle at the top. We have been to the castle before, but not taking this route. It was very pleasant and picturesque. There was a lovely waterfall part way up that we took a short detour to. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera with me, so no photos.

 The next day was earmarked to visit a wild life park. We have been to two similar parks before. But this one was new to us. The car park was a little distance from the entrance, and once inside the park, Siobhan said that she thought we wouldn't be able to go out for the picnic that we had brought with us. It was in a cool bag, so not the easiest of things to carry round with us. Though we did notice some lockers! Never mind, we set off to discover what the park had in store for us. There were various attractions for Reuben to have a go on.

I do like the photo above. It may not be in focus, but it exudes happiness.

I even joined in when we got to the boat lake. I notice from this photo that my hair needs cutting. 

Eventually, we got to see some animals.

The wolves,

and the animals that Siobhan and Reuben especially wanted to see,

the bears.

It was quite a distance to walk round, but Reuben had energy for climbing.

The weather was lovely, warm and sunny, but not too hot. These are only half the photos that I've picked out to share. I'll be back tomorrow with the rest, now I have some gardening to do. I think I can manage that after doing very little over the last two days.

Turrets

Yesterday I did a post about my grandson's birthday and used some photos from last year when he and his mum visited us. I hadn't shown these photos previously, which is a shame as we had some lovely visits out and about and took (as usual), loads of photos. So here are more photos from the visit we made to Eltz Castle.

The only disappointment was that they were doing some work on the outside of the castle which spoiled it's appearance. However, it may have spoiled the initial views of the castle, but it couldn't detract from the rest of the visit.

It's a typical fairy tale castle. It's quite small. I get the impression that German people are very proud of this castle. It is privately owned and I think the family live there. We had a guided visit inside the castle, but of course I wasn't allowed to take any photos. The inside is as impressive as it is from the outside.

The reason for making the visit in the first place, was because my daughter remembered visiting the castle as a child with my parents, her brother and me. She had some fond memories of the visit and the holiday. I remember walking along the river to get to the castle and walking through hoards of butterflies. I've never seen so many altogether before or since.

It was a lovely day out. It was quite a hot day, and a paddle in the river below would have been nice, but the effort of walking down to it and then back up would have defeated the purpose of cooling off, so we gave it a miss.

It's such a lovely place to visit, I would certainly go again.

Seven Up

A very Happy Birthday to my Grandson!

Seven years old today!

I can't be with my grandson today, but I'm sure he's enjoying his special day.

The photos I've used on today's post were all taken last June when my daughter and her son visited us here in Germany. I was very proud of my daughter for making the visit as she isn't a keen air traveller. In fact she's had to overcome a fear of flying to make these visits, all the more remarkable that she makes them with her young son. And of course I was very pleased and happy to see them both, excited even. Yes I do still get excited at my age, especially if it's to do with seeing the family.

 The first two photos were taken on a local visit, but these two were taken on a day trip to Eltz Castle.
A great day out.

Maybe I will celebrate an unbirthday day with my grandson this June, or the next time I see him. It will certainly be worth celebrating whenever it is.

Happy Birthday

A very Happy Birthday

to my daughter today!

The above photo is probably all you'll get to see of her,

she's camera shy.

It was taken last month

on a river boat trip here on the Mosel.

I'll follow up with more photos in the week.

I meant to say in my last post

thank you for all your anniversary wishes.

We had a lovely day.

Blogtoberfest-Day 2, A Great Sentiment

I love the sentiment in this cross stitch.

I love the design.

But most of all I love it because it is a present from my daughter,

and made by her own fair hand.



A Special Day

I thought I would come out of blog hibernation,

to wish my daughter a very

Happy Birthday!

Little Pink Flowers and Biscuit Cake

Sunny warm weather,

which we are still enjoying here in Germany,

calls for some

light summer dresses.

I bought a couple when in the UK recently

and was so pleased with them,

I rashly went and bought a dress pattern and fabric.

The best thing is,

I've made the dress!

It must be years since I've made myself a dress,

though my daughter

got me back into sewing dresses

when she asked me to make one for her.

That was two years ago.

I made the 'ghost dress'

mentioned above,

an odd choice and some very slippery fabric it was too,

but I also made a second dress for her in some Happy Hippo fabric.

Another odd choice.

But they both looked lovely.

The best thing is though,

is that it got my daughter interested in sewing.

She still sews,

though she doesn't seem to blog much now.

I've sewn

for as long as I can remember.

Taught by both my mother and grandmother.

Sewing my own clothes all those years ago

led me to taking up patchwork.

An obvious detour

what with all the lovely scraps of fabric left over from dressmaking,

I just had to put them to good use.

Another love of mine,

is baking.

Yesterday, I decided to make some date scones.

I tend to use my food processor for the job these days.

I thought I would whip up a Victoria sponge while I was at it.

An easy cake to make,

but I thought I'd make it even easier by using the food processor

to make it even simpler and quicker,

(always important when you fancy a slice).

Unfortunately, it turned out on the thin side.

I did wonder at using the food processor for the job,

but it was one of the recipes that came with it.

So I've called it Biscuit Cake.

Sponge cake with a crunch to it.

It's still nice,

but it wouldn't win any competitions!

Well I'm off to sew some buttons on my dress now.

They are really quite tiny.

It's just a very small basket.

A to Z Monday~ Letter D

It has been
a Dull,
Dismal,
Drippy Day.
But that has only been the weather!
It was cold as well when my sister and I took a trip into the Lake District.
I haven't felt so cold in a long while
and that includes being in Sweden when it can regularly Drop below freezing in the winter.
But this was a Damp cold.
This was the sort of cold that gets through your clothes,
and into your bones,
into your soul.
Making me,
feel very cold.
But not to worry,
it's nice to get out and go for a walk
even though everywhere was grey.
I took some photos to show you.
But I haven't managed to download them yet.
But my Daughter came to the rescue
and emailed me some photos to show you.
Because I needed something for the letter D.
How about a Donkey?




Well it's my grandson in
Disguise.
He was a Donkey in his school play that I went to see.
I think he enjoyed himself.

He is only 4 years old.

It was his first experience of being in a school production.

He likes Dressing up.

His Mum,

clever girl that she is,

made him this costume

so he could go and see the film 'where the wild things are'

Dressed as one of the characters, Max.

People were saying how cute he looked.

The photos I have taken while I've been here in the UK

may have to wait till I get back to Germany

to be downloaded so I can show you.

Something to look forward to.

But for more A-Z fun pop over to Jen's.

100th post and Giveaway!

It's my 100th post

so in great blog tradition

I will have a giveaway.

My first post was in January 2007.
It's taken a while to get here!
Initially I had set up the blog to keep in touch with family and friends.

I thought it was a good way of showing them our new life here in Sweden.

Except I didn't tell anyone about it!

People asked us

'Why Sweden?'

This blog I suppose

aims to answer that question.

It's really a photo journal

of our day to day living.

I often wonder whether to publish a post

because each day is much like the one that went before.

We live in a forest,

Our nearest neighbour is 200 hundred yards up the track.

Some days we feel that we could be the last people on earth
because we haven't seen anyone for days,

literally.

When we sit outside on our terrace,

it is very quiet.

There is only the sound of the birds,

or sometimes the sound of the wind in the trees.

Hardly any aircraft travel overhead,

and traffic noise is only heard

occasionally.

Perhaps when the wind is blowing in the right, (wrong) direction.

Mike has told lots of our friends about my blog now.

And I know they call in to see what we're up to

or maybe it's just to see what the weather is up to in Sweden!

My daughter told me last week that she looks at my blog,

which I'm very pleased about.

I enjoy my trips into Blogworld.
I have made a lot of friends here.

Important when so far away from

family and friends at home.

So still without my camera

I will show what I have on offer for my giveaway.

I think I can manage with photos that I took before I dropped the camera.

I have been making some ATC's (artist trading cards),

from some felt I made last year,

which I embroidered.

I titled them

'English Garden in a Swedish Forest'.

I had some felt left so keeping the same size as an ATC

(two and a half inches by three and a half inches),

I have one to giveaway,

similiar to the ones shown here.

a heart,

you can just see one here

peeking out

but there's more in my side bar.

a hexagonal pincushion,

similiar to the one here, but smaller, and dottier.

some ribbons I bought-

one of a Dalarna horse,

and one blue and yellow (symbolising the Swedish flag).

All that that you need to do if you want to enter the giveaway
is to leave a comment here.
I will leave it open for a week,
until Monday 28th April 9am CET time

when I will pick one winner.

Please leave a link so I can contact you if I pick your name out of the hat.

Now I'll just go and find a hat!

Oh, and a Happy Birthday to my son.
Twenty three years old today!

Well that should be Sunday.

It has taken me that long to post this!

Best of luck!

Edited to add that the giveaway is international.

Falling

It's been a bit windy here over the weekend, and it's been blowing the leaves off the trees. Unfortunately I didn't manage to get any photos of the leaves being blown off the trees which was a shame as it was like snow when they fell.






This tree reminds me of a ballerina somehow. Perhaps because of it's upright posture and it's outstretched branches, as though it's twirling round. And in twirling round it's shaken all it's leaves loose.

This is taken from the same spot but looking towards the forest.

Brown grasses over by the barn.

I think I like this picture not only for the blue sky but for the difference in the colour of the two trees.

The leaves on the trees were n't the only things that were falling down. On Friday whilst out with the dogs for their first walk of the day I took a tumble. I had all 3 dogs on leads walking through the forest. Jewel had stopped for a moment and when she resumed her walk, she didn't carry on walking but launched herself off into the air and then lurched forward taking me with her. She does this from time to time, I think she just gets excited. Mike nicknames her exocet as she is like a missile when she does this. Only this time, being early in the morning and lost in my thoughts as to how I was going to spend the day, she took me by surprise. I was stood on a small rise and had further to fall. I landed on some soft peaty earth but my left hand was doubled up under me and quite painful. Jewel had broke free from my grasp and was stood a little way off looking a bit unsure, she'd probably got a shock at me falling over and yelling out. I gathered up the leads as best I could and hobbled back to the house. Fortunately we had not got far. Back at the house I nursed my wrist wrapping it in a cold compress and then used a towel as a bandage. Eventually the pain eased, but I was left unable to do very much for the rest of the day. So any plans I had been making were left undone. I spent the day feeling sorry for myself with just the dogs for company and no one else to help out. Just the smallest everyday things proved harder and slower to do. Still I was able to loose myself in Blogland.

However today I'm on the mend and I even managed to make a coffee cake with the help of my Robot Chef.

Well I needed a tasty treat!

I've even managed to use my left hand to help type this post, but not without some discomfort. Time to call a halt though. Tomorrow I will try to drive the car. I'm not sure how I will manage to change gear. But I need to be able to drive on Wednesday so I can go to the airport and collect my daughter, son and grandson who are coming to stay for a week. I'm looking forward to having them here.

Ghosts and Happy Hippos

My daughter asked me to make her a dress. This is the result. The choice of fabric was a little unusual for the time of year, but then again my daughter is one of a kind. She wore it to a party where she got lots of positive comments including an enquiry as to where she got it from.


This is the fabric she bought yesterday with a request to make another dress, for her birthday next month. Fortunately it's a nice easy to work with cotton, unlike the ghost fabric which was slippery and liable to fast fraying.
It's years since I did any dressmaking and I'm pleased that it turned out so well. Just need to get cracking with the next one now.

Beach Daze

Took the title from my daughters Facebook page after spending a beautiful afternoon at the beach with my daughter, grandson and son.

The beach was quite busy, mainly with young people having fun, playing ball, swimming, surfing, throwing each other into the sea. We were a bit more sedate. My son was tempted to have a swim but didn't. My grandson was intent on digging holes. He's keen to give orders to others, giving out tools and telling us to dig. We dug.

He then collected water to fill the hole. Which of course was a never ending task as the water seeped away. But as the tide was coming in, the sea eventually did its duty and filled the hole with water and sand. A good learning exercise for my grandson.

My daughter took photos and between us we took 193! Digital photography is one of the great things of the modern age as I love taking photos.

So does my daughter.

Grandmother and Grandson taking a look at the sea.

My son has fond memories of days out on this beach when he was little.

I'm sure my grandson will too.