Everyone's Doing The Itch...

Milo has chicken pox...



Just in time for the school holidays too...

A New Trend ???

It's been quite an eventful day today... I had a little trip to the hospital to get two moles on my face checked out. The Doctor said they were fine but she froze them with liquid nitrogen, said they'll probably blister or go crunchy and then drop off ---- lovely. Better to be safe than sorry though.



Hub was off work so we went shopping for sleeping bags, next week is another school holiday and we are off to Ullswater on a little camping holiday..... lordy, lordy, it is our first family camping trip and I'm not sure if I'm looking forward to it!!! Any camping tips will be gratefully recieved ?



So what's the take on Gabe's new hat , do you think it's a trend that will catch on ?

Lots of B's

Thank you so much for the chicken love in my last post, I should have said that the pattern came from here . I did manage to get my swap posted and it's now been recieved so I can show you all the goodies I got and what I made. My partner for the Freestyle Swap was the lovely Rachel from Contented,



My parcel arrived at 5.30pm on a Friday afternoon - I didn't think Royal Mail worked that late !!



There were little presents for Milo and Gabriel ( yes, that's his name )



stickers and Freddos. The boys had just finished tea so the Freddos were immediately wolfed down as dessert.



My chocolate lasted a little bit longer - but not much. The little bird brooch was put onto the little bag and the bookmark is already in use. As for the Mango body lotion from Body Shop, I think that is going to be the smell of the summer. Thank you so much Rachel.

Once again I forgot to take a photo of what I sent to Rachel doh. I did manage to take a pic of one thing though and that was this



it's a small ripple , maybe for the front of a cushion cover. With the help of Lucy's tutorial and a quick e-mail to her I managed to get this done in just a few days. I'm so getting into this crochet and I've got Lucy's bag on my list of things to do ..



I also sent her one of my chickens and a few other bits and bobs. Oh and before I forget, Rachel is holding a swap of her own - A Seaside Swap, so if you fancy joining in there is still time to put your name on the dotted line so to speak - I have.

A few bunnies have also been finished , Kevin and Katie went to live with a lady who's house I just love , and she has a camper van called Nigella ....



and Susie is for sale in my Etsy shop.



The weather has been so nice the past few days . Sunday was my nephews 12th birthday so we had a barbecue to celebrate



the boys had fun playing baseball.



Then down the park there was football





and a bit of cricket.



I don't think there will be much ball playing over the next few days as at the moment it's raining and that's the forecast for the next few days unfortunately.......

So how many B's did you get?

I Got Carried Away.

When I saw the pattern for these little ladies I just knew I had to make one ......



But they were so fast and easy to make and soooo cute I just had to make her a friend



or 3 !!!



Now I'm knuckling down as I must finish off my swap which should have been posted by May 4th......... oops

Memory Places..

Before I actually start my post I need to pass on a message from Milo, He would like to say a big thank you to everyone who commented on his post and he wants to wish everyone Happy Star Wars day as today is "" MAY THE FOURTH ""... do you get it?



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Now for my post, it seems so long since I've done one !! Here goes.

On Saturday seeing as how it was Bank Holiday Weekend and the sun was shining we decided to have a day out, we all piled into the car and set off for Keswick in the Lake District. On the way there we stopped at Barnard Castle.. This little market town holds so many lovely childhood memories for me as my dads mam used to have a caravan there.



Bang in the middle of the main street is this Butter Market and at the bottom of the main street there is this bridge which leads to the actual caravan site



The building on the left used to be an old mill which was literally in ruins - it is now swanky apartments but with a view like this you can see why people would want to live here.



As you walk along the river the smell of wild garlic hits you in the face and reminds me of when I was a little girl, me and my dad picked a huge bunch of it which we put in vases in the caravan and of course it stunk the place out - we hadn't known what it was..



Just a few minutes after I took this photo of Hub we realised that we hadn't put a parking ticket on the car so we legged it back up the steep bank to the car park . So unfortunately I didn't manage to get any more photos of my memory place , none of the market that was on, the morris dancers with all their bells or the old house where Oliver Cromwell stayed with its tiny doors. Back at the car we realised that we hadn't locked the car either --oops.

So off we set again and as we had forgotten to buy food due to the car palaver , we made a slight detour to Kirkby Stephen to pick up some sandwiches - Hub ran into the shop while I just sat in the car and stared at this amazing house.



What you can't really tell from this picture is that all the sills etc are painted a pale pink and there were swallows just flying in circles around it.

Once we got to Keswick Hub asked me to drive through it as he wanted to go to a place called " Grange " first. Now Grange is somewhere that Hub holds such fond memories of . When he was just a young boy he spent a lot of time here and this is his memory place. Ever since we met I have heard so many stories of this place , about how he used to jump off the hump back bridge into the water and so many more. To be honest I didn't really know what to expect of it.

As we drove towards it there were trees on our left and tall barren mountains on the right, then we took a right turn across a double hump back bridge and I was lost for words.







I don't know when I last saw such amazing scenery, it really was breath taking and really really beautiful.

This is where Hub used to stay,



he used to help look after boys just a bit younger than himself, they used to go kayaking and take midnight walks over these mountains.



Most of the houses in this little hamlet were made from slate and granite





as were most of the walls.



All the boys had so much fun throwing rocks and stones into the river









I took a few moments just to take it all in before we headed back to Keswick.



We saw so many little black lambs - they were so cute.



This is the view we had while we ate tea





It was an amazing day, if not a bit tiring for some.



Well, I hoped you enjoyed the trips to our memory places -- where are yours?

Jumping On The Bandwagon..

One of the goals I set myself this year was to learn to crochet, along with many many others in Blogland. So with a huge thanks to a couple of lovely ladies from my local Stitch n Bitch I am soooo proud to introduce Roco..



I finally used your book Kellie .