Mammy Would A Rippling Go.... Hey Ho Said Milo..

Jeez, can you believe it's the end of July already,,,, isn't that just scary how quick this year is flying by ?
Milo's ripple is coming along nicely, I'm even a few stripes ahead of schedule.



It looks quite pale in this photo , the sun refused to shine and let me get a decent picture . To be honest I don't think it'll be finished by the time he goes back to school in 40 days as It's a bit bigger than I intended - it's actually five and a half foot long!!



I like it though and the main thing is that Milo does too..



but now a certain little someone keeps asking where his blanket is ???

No Fog !!!

Does anyone remember this post from last year where all planes were grounded due to fog?

Not this year ..... the 21st annual airshow started with a bang or should I say a roar..



We had sun, sun , sun and lots of blue skies.



How can you not be amazed by the Red Arrows?



Just watching these guys makes me want to go watch Top Gun !!!




The boys loved it even though there were so many people here, hundreds of thousands of people descended upon our little city to see all the aeroplanes performing.





The queues to get to sit in the red arrow were enormous so Milo was quite happy to sit in a helicopter instead.



And both boys liked the camouflage paint .





The airshow lasts for 2 days and we definately picked the better day to go as today it rained and was quite overcast.

Speaking of aeroplanes , do you remember Alice?



Well she's now winging her way across the ocean to California ... lucky girl.

And before I go I must give credit to hub as just about all of the airshow pics were taken by him -- and also say thank you for a lovely week from me and the boys .

Lakes, Rain And Sea,

Sorry guys, I've been getting a bit behind on my blogging lately. There are so many things I think .. oh yeah , I can do a post about this , then time slips by and something else happens and then that doesn't get blogged about either. Like the boys birthdays which were both at the beginning of July along with the yearly measurings and sports days and the beginning of the school holidays and our local library being 100 years old , so many things.... hopefully now I can get back into the swing of things , fingers crossed.

Now , school holidays , all seven and a half weeks of it. Hub has taken the first week as one of his weeks off so we could share some well deserved family time. We had planned to go camping again, back to Park Foot , we checked the weather forecast and it said " cloudy with a chance of showers ". So on Monday we took a chance , packed everything up and set off, we got there safely and managed to get the tent up even though it was a little breezy and then went for a walk down to the lake. The boys thoroughly enjoyed the stone throwing --- again ..





Stone throwing pics are getting to be a regular occurence on here !! While they did that I decided to mess around with the camera settings and get some arty farty black and whites..













Think I got a bit carried away , but don't you just love the tree's gnarled roots, then again don't you just love the word, gnarled .... such a strange word ?

Didn't sleep to bad this time as I remembered long sleeved tops and pj's and lots of fleeces, although it did take Gabe quite a while to go to sleep and I ended up running to a man a few tents down to borrow some milk as we did forget that and the site shop had already closed -- doh.

Tuesday we woke to sun and Hub making bacon sandwiches ( thanks babe ) and then set out on a walk up the mountain . It took us a while to get there as we kept stopping to watch rabbits and different types of birds on the way but when we did we had to turn around and come back as it was just far too muddy and not suitable for the boys plus the clouds were starting to look quite menacing. We hadn't been back at the tent long when the heavens opened , remember , the weather forecast had been for showers not a torrential downpour!!! There are only so many things you can do in a tent with two hyperactive children so when it eased off we braved it and went for another walk, in hindsight this might not have been the best of ideas!



Once again the heavens opened and we got soaked , Gabe loved it and was laughing and jumping around singing " rain rain go away ". It was one of those times when you had to laugh or you would have ended up crying.



To cut an even longer story short we were so drenched , right through to our underwear and the forecast was for more rain so we gave up, yup we caved in, packed up and headed home . By 10.30 pm the boys were tucked up safely in their beds with runny noses and coughs and me and hubbed flaked...

So to make up for the not so good camping affair today we decided to to take the boys to another one of our local beaches to do a treasure hunt and look for diamonds i.e sea glass. Armed with buckets and wellies they were off. Apparantly this beach is one of the best in the North East for sea glass we were reliably informed by a man who was doing the same thing.





The tide was coming in so there wasn't a lot of beach to search but we managed and Gabe took a moment to show Pops his finds.



Milo is quite wary of water and bravely ventured into the sea for a plodge,,,,,,



Now can you see that small wave creeping up behind him ? Well that naughty wave overstepped its boundaries and went into Milos wellies, causing him to panic and land on his butt in the sea.. resulting in this.



But being the brave little boy that he is he soon cheered up and was laughing about it along with the rest of us .

And lastly , keeping in the watery theme , I just thought I'd show you Esther and her rubber ring.




Well, I think I've wittered on for quite long enough now , thank you if you are still here .and hopefully I'll have some aeroplanes for you next time..

Woollie Offerings

A few weeks ago a lady got in touch and asked if I would make a monkey for her little girls birthday. This little girl is apparantly monkey mad and is even going to have a monkey themed party, how cool is that? As long as there was pink on it the design was pretty much left to me. This is what I came up with , once again using Debi's pattern.

Let me introduce you to Wilhemina Monkey,,



She was made from the softest Snuggly wool I could find and is now winging her way to Texas. This was another one I found hard to let go... knowing she was on her way to a loving home helped.



It's quite nice to use pink as it's not a colour I get to use that often, so a request for a pink / cream bunny couldn't be refused.
This is Lizzie.



I like to think that she's dressed up for a summer wedding.



I've also done a beanie, recognise the wool Tess?



And finished off a ripple baby blanket, this picture doesn't really show the true colours as I've been unable to get a decent picture due to dull and overcast weather. So imagine it a bit brighter.

There is actually a story to go with this blanket.. It was started for my brothers second baby which is due in August but when I found out that his girlfriend had given away everything that either myself or my mam had made for their firstborn I changed my mind. My mam was so upset by this as she had made so many lovely things when their son was born and had presented it so nicely in a lined basket that I've vowed never to make them anything again. What made it worse was the fact that she didn't even show any emotion when she told my mam what she'd done!!
Re reading this I think I'd better clarify that it was all given away without any of the clothes being worn , the blankets used or the toys I made played with....

So now I'm going to put it up for sale in my Etsy shop when I get a decent photo and I might even make a little bunny to go with it.



Now for someone who does appreciate handmade things..... when he saw this ripple Milo asked if he could have one , so this morning I went through my stash and pulled out all the suitable wool that I could find.



Every day he's going to pick a colour and I'm going to try and get a stripe of that colour done, one every day until the end of the school holidays which is September 9th ( they don't break up until the end of next week ) and hopefully by then it will be finished ....... fingers crossed.

Fun In The Sun

It's been a busy busy day today what with a bit of shopping first including new summer shoes for the boys



Then after lunch it was down to the park, we've been making the most of the glorious weather we've been having lately it's been hot hot hot and very very humid . Today we went to check out " the funny tree "



with it's odd branches and spiky leaves



Close by there were dozens of pine cones, so the boys had great fun throwing them everywhere





I took a few minutes to relax and make daisy chains



Milo couldn't get the hang of making chains so gave me this instead



After the pine cone throwing and kicking of footballs it was time for tea..... Al Fresco style.



This refreshing drink went down a treat I can tell you.
Now while we are waiting for the food to cook I'll show you my yard.... You might not remember but last year we had a white crumbly wall, this year our neighbour Mrs Woman gave us a new one



It took a while to get used to but I quite like it now -- it's a nice backdrop for my sweet peas and geraniums.



We don't have a huge space but I keep telling myself it's better than none at all and I try to fill it with as many plants as I can but still leave enough for the boys to play. In the bottom left hand corner are 4 cherry trees which hub grew from pips, this year they flowered for the first time and we are now the proud owners of 1 cherry which is slowly ripening!!



Whilst the BBQ was warming up it was time for raspberrys from Pops



This week has also been a week of firsts for Milo, not only did he have lemonade for the first time and like it but today we discovered he liked squid so while we tucked into seafood kebabs he had squid and prawn. We've never stopped him having fizzy drinks he just never wanted them as he didn't like the fizz but I have to say the squid really surprised me.



Then came play time -- again. Ages ago Hub made 2 swords from polystyrene packaging and the boys love them.



not so sure about hub though .



The boys are safely tucked up in bed now and outside it's extremely wet as not long after we came indoors the heavens opened and the thunder and lightning began.
Fingers crossed next weekend will be as lovely as today as we are having not 1 but 2 parties to celebrate 2 birthdays. We must be mad ..



So I'll probably be a bit MIA this week as there's quite a bit to sort out..

Oh, before I go I just wanted to say Hi to Jane P , thank you and these are for you.