The Beginning of May...

The weather in our little corner of Kent continues to be fairly miserable (my OH tells me that weather can't be miserable as it doesn't have any emotions but it certainly makes me feel miserable!) and this has been the view from my backdoor a lot of the time.


We did have a few hours of sun on Monday though so we decided that in the afternoon we would sneak a couple of hours to go to Whitstable, just long enough for OH to go for a run along the beach (I walked instead!) and to have Fish & Chips afterwards.

The sun didn't last too long and by the time we left it had started to rain again.
Our planned trip to Penshurst Place DID take place, we had a lovely day with our friends and although most of the art and craft was beyond our price range we enjoyed looking around, trying loads of different foods in the food tents, having lunch together and just generally spending time together.
As my friend is a recently qualified Falconer we were particularly excited to see some birds of prey at the show.

This little Peregrin Falcon was just too cute for words!

I can't remember what type of owl this little guy was but he was very vocal.

I have always had a thing about vultures (I think it's ever since the first time I watched "Jungle Book" - go figure! :)
In other news, as the weather is generally preventing a lot of outdoor activities this means that there is always a little time for crafting so I have been making some progress with what I call my "Domestic Album". It doesn't contain any photos at the moment but I think I will use it for photos from our upcoming (as in next week) trip to Germany for my Mum's 70th.

And that's all for today as there are a gazillion other things I should be doing! Bye for now!x

Bluebells

So on Sunday we finally managed to go and find some bluebells in the woods!

For a start I absolutely love the woods (I think that, being from Germany originally, I must have that Brothers-Grimm-Fairytale-Mentality in the blood!) and I love nothing more than being beneath those tall trees with beams of light coming through the foliage. Not that there is a great deal of sunlight to be found at the moment with all the downpours we are having. We did somehow manage to avoid the showers though.

It took us a couple of attempts to find some bluebells but we persevered and were richly rewarded.

I also had a little play with a Tando frame I bought at a crop a while ago, I was in the mood to create something girly and pretty and ended up with something that really made me feel quite happy and cheerful. I get totally lost in my own little world when I work on something like this.

If only every day could be a crafting day! But at least we have a long weekend to look forward to this week, although the weather doesn't look too promising at the moment! We are hoping to catch up with some lovely friends on Saturday and the plan was to go to a craft fair but the weather will dictate whether we go there or somewhere more indoor-sy. And if the weather stays as it is there will definitely some crafting on the Sunday or Monday! ;)

Weekend Catch-Up

We went to visit some very very good friends on Saturday as we had arranged to go out for an Indian meal with them at lunchtime. The boys were both a bit bleary-eyed, as one of them had been out the night before and the other one just doesn't do getting up before lunchtime! Needless to say we made the most of ribbing them!
Lunch was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G and it was so nice to spend time with our friends, I do treasure times like these as they are all too rare.

My friend has also recently become a falconer and took us to see the Harris Hawk she is working with at the moment, what a privilege. We had such a lovely day.
Other than that I am desperate to do some scrapping but but the house has been quite full and busy with the boys being home from uni, but I am not complaining as I love having them home. No. 2 son has left this morning, OH is taking him back to uni and No.1 son is leaving on Friday.

April

Here we are well into April already with all it's unpredictable weather - cold, sunny, rainy, windy, grey, bright - we are experiencing them all.
April also brings with it my other half's and both my sons' birthdays, and usually Easter too.
My family from Germany have visited over Easter for the last few years but decided this year that for a variety of reasons they would be unable to do so this year, which made it a bit of a strange Easter. We spent Easter Sunday in our pyjamas (unheard of!) lounging around. OH and me had decided to go to Brands Hatch on Sunday to watch British Superbike Racing but then he realised that he would have to work all day Monday to meet a deadline on Tuesday. He did work all day and I helped from 5pm until 1am and for a couple more hours Tuesday morning, we were both absolutely shattered as we hadn't slept well either. What a bank holiday weekend!

I have been able to bring my Project Life Album up to date over the last week or so which I've thoroughly enjoyed and it gives me lots of pleasure. I just keep forgetting to take pictures of it!
I have also been working on an album for myself using kraft cardstock and some of my Tim Holtz bits and pieces.

I'm still looking for a good background to take pictures of my layouts on!

I'm very pleased with the way the pages are turning out and I've been losing myself in the process of getting sticky, inky hands! I would love nothing more than to spend every day doing this.

I would happily get up early in the morning, travel if I had to and work all day if this was my job - not something I would say about my current job or any other jobs I can think of for that matter!
Well, I think it's time for a lovely long bubble bath as my men have gone to the pub to celebrate No1 son's birthday so I am having a little bit of me time.
Much love to everyone in Blogland! :)





Hope

I've had a strange old day today and have ended up feeling a little bit sorry for myself.
My Mum phoned this morning to let me know that the family can't come over for Easter for a variety of reasons, she sounded quite sad about it and I'm sad about it too. There was a little bit more to it than that, suffice it to say that I felt quite dumbstruck after the phonecall and took myself off for a wander round the local shops and a coffee to distract myself for a while, because I didn't feel like sitting at home going round and round in circles in my head.
Whilst out I started to feel a bit headachey and generally yucky, so I came home but then had to pop out again to run some errands, which I really didn't feel like doing but at least they're out of the way now.
All this, for some reason, made me think of the photo above which I took in Holyhead last week. I spotted this little cluster of emerging spring flowers in an otherwise still quite dry and wintery looking patch of ground. To me it symbolises hope and the fact that there's always something to look forward to even when things seem don't seem all that great. And some of the not so good news I had this morning also made me realise that I've got a lot to be thankful for. Which is nice. I think we need that reminder sometimes.