Weekend Away

Just a quick one today. I am going over to the Lake District today for the weekend. My long time favourite place. Rain or not, surely this time I will bring back some photos? I hope so!
A good weekend to anyone reading this.
Lynne

Updates- Cygnets

Earlier in the year we were watching the eggs that the swans had laid. Their nest was just below the bridge where we walk the dogs every day. People stopped to look and as hatching time grew near more and more people could be seen hanging around waiting to see the first sign of the cygnets.

In the end 5 of the 6 eggs hatched.

The photos show the cygnets from May until last week. They can regularly be seen on the river with their parents.

Beach Days

Well today has been a better day weatherwise. This picture is good at showing the sky and how lovely the weather has been, if a little windy. My friend was taking a picture of me, supposedly!

This one is better. We had a lovely walk on the beach with Paddy, Jewel and Rufus, our Greyhounds. More of them another time.



What was amazing was , it's a Saturday in the middle of the school holidays, the weather is lovely, and the beach was deserted. I've had several visits to the beach of late and it's not unusual.


Here we are at the end of our walk. Each of the dogs had a run on the beach today. That's not always possible as two of them are likely to go chasing other dogs if there's any to be seen.

Butter wouldn't melt in their mouths.

This is a photo taken last week when I looked after my grandson for a day. We had a lovely time at the beach, digging holes, making sandcastles, singing, and then he set off for a run. It was a job keeping up with him. Perhaps I should call him Forest after Forest Gump.

Run Forest, run!

A Glimpse of Autumn

This last week, here in Northumberland, has been very wet. It has been more like November with overcast grey, miserable, heavy skies. But it has been warmer than it would be in November, thank goodness.

There has been a smell of autumn about and just a slight touch, ever so slight, almost a feel of the trees changing colour.

Hopefully the sun will find it's way back to us ....soon.

Updates- Vegetables

Excursions into growing vegetables have been less successful than I'd hoped.

I've been growing 3 tomato plants indoors, each a different variety. Top picture shows Gardeners delight which are cherry tomatoes. They are the most successful in that they have the most trusses of tomatoes on. They are the only ones so far to ripen, but the taste is disappointing.

The tomatoes above are the variety Moneymaker and my dad used to grow these very successfully on the smallholding. And although the ones in the picture are beginning to ripen now since I took the picture a few days ago, there aren't many of them.

There is a third plant, but it wasn't even worth taking a photo of it.

This plant however has been very prolific. Unfortunately I bought it thinking it was Bell Peppers and instead it is a chillie plant, and we don't eat many chillies. And yes they are quite hot!

The allotment hasn't fared much better. After getting the allotment we decided that we wouldn't be staying in the UK so my ideas to grow fruit didn't materialise as I didn't think I would be here to eat it. So anything I did grow was to be harvested by September. In the end I kept it simple. I just put more onions and potatoes in and they are currently being harvested and eaten, and very nice they are too.

I've also grown some strawberries in the allotment. I was given some plants by a woman who has a plot across from me. She's been doing it for years and is very good at it. Unfortunately we were away in Sweden when the strawberries had their main crop. Surprisingly though I did get some fruit from them and they were lovely.

Other plants I've grown (or planted) are:-

dahlias- the snails got them! Yes I know these aren't vegetables, but I like them

carrots-haven't grown any bigger than my little toe, and a lot thinner!

salad leaves- growing okay

sweetcorn- grown at my son's request and seem to be doing okay...I think



Well perhaps not the most successful of vegetable growers, but I can only get better. As I intend growing more vegetables next year in Sweden I think this years growing will have proved very useful as a learning experience, if nothing else!

A Long Two Weeks

Did I say two weeks?

Well yes we were away two weeks, and we had a lovely time. But I was wrong when I thought I would have lots of lovely photos to show, particularly of Norway.



We had delibrately decided to travel on 2 bikes and take our time to enjoy Norway. We have travelled through Norway before on bikes and in a car with a caravan, but each time it had a purpose to get us to the ferry. This time we wanted to linger. And enjoy.



The pictures above and below are taken from the ferry. The weather doesn't look too bad does it? But by the time we got off the ferry in Bergen, it was dark grey nearly black (first thing in the morning) and pouring with rain. The policeman who checked my passport said,

"Welcome to our rainy country," as he looked up at the sky.

And so it continued. I am quite used to riding my motor bike in the rain having toured parts of Europe by motor bike on several occasions. No matter how lovely the weather or perhaps because of it there will always be one day at least when we have been caught in a torrential downpour. But it has usually happened on part of the journey or has been on a day out from where we have been staying. But this was different. It rained from before getting off the ferry until we finally made it into Sweden where the sun was shining. Boy did we get wet. Despite wearing the correct gear for the conditions, it cannot prevent the rain dripping down your clothes to form a constant puddle in which you are sitting and in your boots. And did I mention my gloves. My hands were wet and cold, not good when you are riding a bike.
These are the bikes we were riding, laden up with tent and sleeping bags, but it was so wet we didn't camp we stayed in the stuga for one night before crossing over into Sweden for midsommer.

No sooner were we home (in Sweden) than we were off to friends to help them celebrate. We had two parties to go to and very good they were to. It was great to see our friends again.

It was lovely to be back in our Swedish home which we had missed. Everything was looking so lush. And I loved being back in the garden. I even did a bit of gardening.

I had plenty of time to do some sewing. So I:-

• started a dinosaur cushion for my grandson to match his quilt
• completed the stitching on some foundation piecing ready to become a small cushion
• finished the binding on a potholder that I was trying out a quilting design
• and did a bit more to my hexagon quilt that I started years ago. It's travelled with me on various holidays

We travelled back a different route, and this little fella was hitching a ride on the ferry.

Mike relaxing in the cabin...

Mike back home with his pals.

Holiday

Off on holiday, can't stop, be back in 2 weeks..... with some photos from Norway and Sweden.
Ciao.

Too Tall

This is a tomato plant that has grown too big for the windowsill. It is now on the floor in the sitting room. I have 3 altogether, different varieties. I'm hoping to get lots of lovely tomatoes from them.

These are the courgette plants outgrowing the kitchen windowsill. They are destined for the allotment which I need to visit. I'm sure that there will be plenty of weeds. Sunshine and showers are a great combination for growing.

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.

Springwatch Part 2

Following on from yesterday's post, here are photos taken of some of the birds that we see along our well travelled routes.