* 72 *

Here are my entry's for May Scavenger Hunt .

A Butterfly.... this was my umpteenth attempt at trying to get a decent photo but luckily this one sat still long enough for me to snap it . Don't know what type it is though?

A Bicycle ... just a random bike in our park.

A Red Door .... the local library.

A Cartoon Character ... no words needed !

An Emergency Vehicle ... friendly ' Bobbies' at the park re-opening.

Think vintage ... Say cheese !!!

Something Blue .... you've seen this photo before but I liked it so used it again.

A Street Light .... looks quite ghostly don't you think ?

Texture .... grasses.

A Sign of the Zodiac .... a goat mask made at school for Capricorn.

An Interesting Local Building .... Doxford Park Hall which is supposedly haunted. I've shown you the park on the other side many times but never did get around to showing you the photo's I took of the actual hall.

A Portrait In Black and White .... cheeky face himself , Milo .

Now to find out the list for June.

* 71 *

Thought you might like to see some colours from our Bank holiday weekend... fingers crossed you ' love' them .

The oddest brightest yellow fungi I have ever seen, which I believe is called Chicken Of The Woods and is edible , don't think I'll be trying it though just in case .

Laburnum.

A couple of iris's.

Poppy centre's are amazing don't you think.

I think this is called London Pride but I'm not sure. It looks like a pretty pink forest.

Wild orchids.

According to Google this is a Dogbane Leaf Beetle -- gorgeous metallic green.

Pink clover.

Cow parsley .

Stripey pale grey to black clouds .

Now I'm off to watch a certain Mr Packham on Springwatch ..

* 70 *

Evening all, are we all having a good weekend ? It's a Bank Holiday weekend here and the boys are off school for half term so it's all go.

I finished the little critter that I started a few posts back . Not surprisingly it's a bunny but it is a different type of bunny.

She's quite a bit bigger than my normal ones at 35cm but she is very huggable and squishy . I've never used this pattern before and it took a bit longer than expected.

There are a quite a few little fiddly bits but overall I think she is definately worth it and I do have patterns for her sisters and brothers which are also crying out to be made.

I'll take a few more photos before I put her up for sale as these last two are not very nice , the colour is a bit dodgy and dull on them . That's probably because I was in such a hurry to show you and the light is not very good outside so I tried to take them indoors.

What do you think ?

( the pattern is by Maryjanestearoom and is available here )

* 69 *

Head is now out of the sand and is inside this house instead ....

( image from Flickr)

* 68 *

Somedays I just want to do this !

* 67 *

I don't know why ,

but I got the sudden urge

to do this as I

was walking down

the passage !

* 66 *

PART ONE ..................

Well, today was the big park re-opening and to be honest I was quite apprehensive about the whole thing. I can remember being really quite devastated when it closed , 18 months seemed such a long time and there was all the wondering of where we could go instead. Luckily we did find lots of other places to go , maybe we wouldn't have found them if the park has stayed open so it might have been a good thing after all. That 18 months has flown by and now I'm going to attempt to show you just a few before and after photos .

So we'll start with the bottom of the duck pond . There was a path going down both the right and left hand sides of the waterfall with a small connecting bridge at the top .

This bridge to be exact.

This is the view now looking up the waterfall , as you can see the bridge has now gone as has the left hand side path and most of the shrubs and bushes which were on either side .

In the picture below can you see where this path forks into two ?

If you take the right hand path you now see this bridge structure. The path has been widened considerably to accomodate it but what you can't see is that all the rhododendrons which grew in huge bushes on either side of this bridge have all been chopped down.

The stumps are still there and a few green leaves have sprouted so fingers crossed they will come back .

Next is the old cannon, tucked away in a remote corner just rusting away all by itself.

Ta da ... major refurbishment and on a new stand too. I never checked to see if there was a new plaque with it as the old one was falling to bits . I'll have to do that tomorrow.

It also has a nice new view , instead of pointing into a load of bushes it now points to the newly refurbished bandstand ( more of that later ).

All the little brick bridges have also been replaced .

This one is to the left of the bandstand. Once again notice where all the shrubbery has been removed.

Now this next before and after is a bit of a biggie . The band stand was taken apart and completely redone. There has also been a ramp added for easy access.

I'll be having a closer look at it tomorrow as there was a brass band in today but look to the left - wow.....

The Grand Staircase made from granite which was removed from a train station in London.

Lots of trees and greenery has been removed here and it leads to a place we've never had access to before as it was the local council depot where they parked all their vans and those big grass cutters etc.

Believe it or not at this point my camera ran out of memory so no more pics , but I will be going back tomorrow so prepare yourself for part two and maybe even part 3.

What do you think so far?

Oh and if anyone can tell me how to get rid of the photo that posted twice I would be very grateful .