Treasure Trail - Halkyn Mountain woods and hillforts

Today we are shattered and intend to have a pyjama day.

On Monday we (that is Rachael, Luke and me) spend 2 hours up the allotment weeding and digging up potatoes.  I had some achy muscles!  Yesterday, we went on a Treasure Trail up Halkyn Mountain.  Whilst it was a lot of fun, my geography is not good and some of the clues we struggled to find.  Thankfully, the locals are VERY friendly and pointed us in the right direction.  One clue was about a mile away from the previous one and we decided we must have gone wrong and retraced our steps.  After speaking to a couple of lovely local men we found we had been right and the steep hill we had just walked up, we had to walk down again - and then back up!

This is the view from outside one of the clues - gorgeous!

A lovely little lane that we walked down (and up, and down again!) 

We had to find a church and walked down the hill, back up and back down - before walking back up again. Interestingly, we had to find the words carved into the gate 'They that sow tears shall reap in joy'.  This was quite meaningful for us by then as we were ready for sowing tears and by the time we found the church we definitely 'reaped joy'.  

It was a very pretty church as you can see in the next photo.  This was taken down a side road where you could actually see the church as you approached.

I'm not normally one for postboxes but this one which was one of the clues was quite pretty I thought.  I loved the tiling design on the front which I hadn't seen before.

So all in all we had a great day out.  The trail that should have taken around 3 hours and 3 miles took about 4.5 hours and 7 miles!

Stitching and cooking

Yesterday, Colin and Luke went to an away game - Forest Green Rovers v Hyde (football in case you've not heard of them!)  Rachael and I decided to have a Harry Potter day.  I stitched as I watched but couldn't settle to any particular design.  First I stitched on my Stable.

Bothy Threads - Cut Thru Stable

Then I moved onto Roses of Paris.

Chatelaine Designs - Roses of Paris

 And then fancied a little bit of snow.

Lizzie Kate - 6 Fat Men

Finally I couldn't resist marking out my fabric and starting this.  What is it Jo P?  I have marked it out as it is in the fabric layout chart but it seems to waste an awful lot of fabric in my opinion.  I am thinking about restarting it with just an inch and a half between each piece as they are cut down to half an inch left all round. What do you think?

What is it?

On Friday Rachael and Luke wanted to do some cooking and baking.  I'm currently on a bit of a health kick with regards to food so didn't want too many cakes.  In the end we settled on some chocolate brownies and some buns from a Weightwatchers book I had.  Then we made some spaghetti bolognese for the freezer and finally homemade pizza for tea.  Here are some photos of the finished items...

 This is the pizza before the cheese went on.  The kids were a bit heavy on the meat.  Mine only had tuna, mushroom and sweetcorn on so not worthy of a photo!  Luke's was a work of art!

Day out with the kids - no stitching

During the summer holidays we have a box that we pull ideas out of for things to do.  They might be big trips or it might be a game of cricket over the hard court area depending on what people put in during the course of the year.  Today was a 'biggy'.  We went to The Crocky Trail and had a fabulous day.

It is great for kids of all ages.  Apparently the funniest moment of the day was me failing miserably to do the barrel run.  Think massive overgrown barrel that spins rapidly and you have to run through...hahahaha.  Well I fell over and Luke came to help but he fell over so we were just banging into each other.  I was laughing my socks off and just gave up trying to stand up or crawl out and just laid on my back howling with laughter. Then came the ultimate embarrassment - the man operating it stopped it so that I could get off!!!!!!! Hilarious!

There are lots of wobbly bridges going over little stream, some with handrails some without.  I didn't manage to fall in, much to Luke's disgust and probably went over about half of them.  Some I just looked at and thought ' no way!'  Luke is very agile and was able to run across most of them.  I did however set a new record for going over the 'fallen log' - about 5 minutes!  There was something of a queue behind me but I was not going to be beaten and wasn't going to jump down.

We had a great time doing all the activities together and it was a brilliant day out.

This is a huge bridge in the middle of a field that you had to pull yourself up one side and run down the other. Yikes!

Big slide...yikes!

This next slide was called Surf the Waves and moved up and down.  I'm sure surfing is supposed to be done on your feet though!

Luke made it through...

...Rachael made it through...

...mum made it through...

...ermmm...no, she didn't :)

Luke on a bridge.

What happened to the hand rails?  I'm sure that wouldn't pass 'elf and safety.

HELP!!!!!!!

Mum can't watch.  Under the mat is a stream and the mat isn't as wide as it looks!

This should be at the top with the first photo.  Luke running down 'the other side'.

See the chain by Luke's left hand?  Well each corner of the bridge had one so it was VERY wobbly!

The tunnel.  It is only the flash lighting this, in reality it was pitch black.

Stepping stone bridge.  You can't tell but the stream is about 6ft underneath the bridge.

Rachael telling me to come on the log.

Arrrrgggggghhhhhhh...LET ME OFF!

You shuffled along these barrels to ring the bell at the end.  Unless you are like me in which case you fall off on the first barrel to the great mirth of your children. 

Final bridge!

No it's not!

Another go on the wibbly wobbly one!

Don't faint...it's a finish!

I am taking part in a very relaxed RR with a facebook group.  This is what I stitched for Linzie for her theme of snowmen.  I used Six Stranded Sweets to stitch it and think the colours turned out well.  I got the buttons this morning so I could finish it.  You can tell but they have a wavy stripe through them and look lovely as the snowballs from close up.

The Trilogy - Bucky the Snowman

I had to redesign the border slightly as the square turned out to be 70 x 66 and the original design was 69 stitches tall. It was a quick stitch even though it was on and off stitching :)

Blue, Smudge, Bradford

No not me!  I've had some stitching time so I'm not blue!  But look at this ↓

Cinderella - Joan Elliott

All I have done in the last 3 days is stitch one of three shades of blue.  It's not even made for half the skirt being done...arrrggggghhhh.

I also decided to pull out Maggie the Messmaker who hasn't seen the light in years.  After about 10 minutes I remembered why - don't like the fabric and don't like the Dimensions threads either.  I think this may have to become a 2 strands a day project if it is ever going to be finished!

Maggie the Messmaker - Dimensions

I also stitched the snow on Santa's House too.  Well technically I stitched, unstitched, re-stitched, re-unstitched and finally re-re-stitched the snow on Santa's House.  I cannot believe what a hash of it I made. So if anyone wants a frog, you can have mine with pleasure.

Santa's House - CCN

The weird cat - aka Smudge - makes a reappearance.  Seriously, this is the position he was in yesterday.  No duct tape or superglue was used.  His rear end was right up the back of the sofa.  He is such a strange one!!

Colin took Rachael and Luke to Bradford a couple of weeks ago.  The went to the National Media Museum which we hadn't heard of before but he found it on Trip Advisor.  It spans 8 floors and they had a brilliant time.  There was a dalek - luckily no one got EX-TER-MIN-ATE'd.

There was one of the sets for The Wombles. (I loved this programme as a child!)

A set from Wallace and Grommit.

Morph!!!!

An Andy Pandy set - who remembers Andy Pandy?

And they both got to read the news in the 'studio' with the autocue.  If you fancy going it is well worth a full day there.  Admission is free but you do have to pay for some of the films they show if you want to see them. There is enough for a full day without the films though!