Frohe Ostern

I had a wonderful time on Wednesday, meeting up with my fellow Master Forger Lisa who was visiting from Germany ... and taking her to lunch with an ex-Master Forger who just happens to live nearby, Lesley! 

And it was delicious thanks Lesley!

Lisa didn't come empty handed either, as I'd recently won a prize on the Whimsical Musings challenge blog that she runs.  So much nicer to have it hand-delivered.  Thanks Lisa

And of course we had to take a photo to mark the occasion.  There were phone selfies, but this was taken with my conventional camera, Lesley's (short) tripod and the self-timer that took rather longer than expected to fire ... the out-takes may yet make it onto a page!!

Happy Easter to all my friends, real and virtual!!!

Summer Scavenger Hunting - Isle of Man

Have you been playing along with Rinda's Summertime Scavenger Hunt?  I've participated for a couple of years now but this time I was only able to concentrate on it during my holidays ... two long weekend trips to the Isle of Man.  Hubby and I were invited to my friend's wedding to be held in July, but had yet to meet her husband to be, so we decided to have a "catch-up-with-her-and-get-to-know-him" trip in June, followed by a return visit for the actual wedding.  They joined in enthusiastically with pointing out photo opportunities as well as posing for them!

#1 Bouquet (for the bride-to-be)   #2 Ornate Door Knocker (in Ramsey)   #3 Dog Walkers (by Ramsey pier)
#4 Board Gamers (in Ramsey)   #5 Architectural Colums (at Peel Castle)

One of the highlights of our trip was seeing the special facilities of the Isle of Man TT, a super-fast motorbike road race circling the island, including crash mats strapped to walls and lamp-posts (to protect them from damage rather than the riders), porta-loos in the middle of nowhere for the use of race marshals and pedestrian bridges to allow people to cross from inside the circuit to the rest of the island while the race is in progress!

#6 Metal Bridge (in Ramsey)   #7 Turtle (or possibly a tortoise, in the garden)
#8 Someone plugged into social media (what else is there to do while waiting for the ferry in Douglas?)
#9 Cellular Tower (on Snaefell mountain)   #11 Tent (ready for the wedding reception in the garden)

There are no universities or colleges in the Isle of Man so there's no #10 :-(

#12 Public Toilet (at Peel Castle)
#13 Merry-Go-Round (a spinning {water-}wheel at Groudle Glen was the closest I could manage!)
#14 Traffic Signal (the electric railway crosses several roads)    #15 Multi-flagged pole (Peel Harbour)
#16 High-up Panoramic View (of Ramsey bay)

#17 Matching uniforms (runners training along Douglas promenade)   #18 Overloaded Vehicle (time for a new bike?)
#19 Ticket Booth (for Groudle Glen Railway)
#20 Natural Body of Water (another stretch ... the base of the waterfall at Dhoon Glen)
Plus Substitute A (for #10) Hubby & I eating al fresco (outside the museum in Peel)

Finally there's that pesky, un-substitutable self portrait with a scavenger hunt sign ... which I somehow forgot to take ON the Isle of Man, so instead, here's me with a double page spread commemorating the holiday hunt and more, made this weekend at a fun scrapbooking retreat.

Lots of fun ... thank you Rinda for organising it all - the final link-up is here for anyone that's curious.  Here's hoping that 2016 will produce more fun scavenging.

Zoom In Zoom Out #40

I still haven't caught up with Helena's ZIZO schedule ... but here's my week 40 from a recent trip to Italy!  Hubby and I were out walking to clear our heads after a 6am flight to Rome, two hours driving, a quick supermarket shop and some lunch ... the path to the cemetery is steep enough to combat excess pasta ...

... about half way up we spotted that the ground was littered with chestnuts! Far too spiky to handle, but we did come back another day armed with thick gloves to collect a few to roast. Yum!

ZIZO Catch-up #39

Our Indian Summer has meant that the garden is still teeming with weeds and wildlife and there's still plenty to do.  Whilst tidying up some borders I spotted two creatures in our Plumbago bush who were having a late feast on the nectar.

I'm also late with my ZIZO for week #39 - hoping to catch up with Helena's schedule soon.

ZIZO Catching Up #38

We've been a little pre-occupied here recently thanks to the departure of Child No.3 to university and regular blogging has been interrupted.  I hate it when I fail with a regular meme, especially when the photos are sitting there, waiting to be processed!  So today I'm playing catch-up with Helena's ZIZO - with photos from week #38 - when No.2 Son had kindly mowed our mossy lawn:

My apologies if my blog-reading and commenting has also been a bit lax, normal service will resume shortly!

Final Scavenger Shots

I was a bit disappointed with myself as Rinda's Scavenger Hunt drew to a close ... too many last-minute photos and too little time :-(

Here are the final two shots that I managed; neither are particularly remarkable; both were taken in my local town: the pedestrian precinct in the town centre:

#6 An Urban Street Scene

and the landscaped gardens around the war memorial on my way to work:

#19 A Public Garden

Despite a large Polish population in the town and several shops catering for them, I somehow didn't manage to get a photo of a sign in a foreign language (#16) and there were certainly no jugglers (#15) spotted.  A mascot (#12) seemed impossible and I never had a camera in my hand near a horn (#11). I didn't even manage to snap the substitute bird house (in my Mum's garden) all summer!

Still that's not a bad haul out of 21 objects, and I have had immense fun interpreting the prompts on my trips to Scotland and Derbyshire - plus I loved seeing all the fellow scavengers photos around the world.

If I include this attempt at a sort of sunrise one sleepless July night ...

#13 Sunrise

... and combine my holiday hunt with my everyday hunt, I did, in fact, manage the lot which isn't so disappointing after all! :-)

Spot The Horse

A few weeks ago saw the third Bloggers' Weekend, when I met up with some lovely fellow scrappers for a few days of cutting and sticking.  Our first get-together was back in November 2011 and I told the story of meeting up near Ironbridge here.  Our reunion (with a couple of new faces to make up for missing some of the original Telford Ten) happened in March 2013, and this year it fell to me to organise the third get-together.

Each time we've met, Ruth has challenged us to bring a set of "items" for  everyone else to include in a project ... so this year there were 12 random objects to be added to a page ... can you spot a flair badge, some scraps of silk and cotton fabric, a plastic key-ring, a heart-shaped button and bead, a brad, a paper tag, some baker's twine, a wood veneer cat, heart and horse?

The page is based on the September 1st sketch from Stuck! Sketches which was perfect for including so many elements (though I moved the journalling and split my title) and ties in with the autumnal September House Challenge over on UKSCrappers.  My bag of red paper scraps is a lot emptier now!

Not all of my objects matched my colour scheme, so I got inky and messy with the tag, the wooden heart and the cat.  I chopped the heart-shaped bead in two and coloured it and the button with a black Sharpie.  Meanwhile the orange cotton found its way inside the keyring fob and some silk helped cover up the brad. 

Are you still looking for the horse?  A careful decapitation and quadruple leg amputation transformed it into to a (blood-stained) arrow!!!

Welcome to ZIZO #37

As Rinda's Scavenger Hunt nears its close I thought I'd better get moving on the final few.  I have driven past a sign like this at least half a dozen times a week all summer, but it's never quite been convenient to stop safely and walk back to take a photo.  However on Friday, I was driving out the other side of the town on my way to a scrappy retreat with my blogging friends when I spotted the sign in my rear-view mirror.  There were no cars behind me and parking on the roadside was allowed so I guessed it was now or never for:

#1 A Sign Welcoming People To A Town Near Me

As I got closer for the photo I was intrigued to realise that the coat of arms thingy, wasn't!  My Zoom In reveals that it is a representation of the town hall!  The town council used to be for Crewe AND its neighbouring town Nantwich which explains the recent date of establishment when they became separate entities!  I'm linking up with Helena's 37th week and am off to look for the final few Scavenger Hunt items before Tuesday 23rd!

Zoom In Zoom Out #36

Another last minute ZIZO from me - just in time to join in with Helena's 36th week.  Hubby and I generally go for a walk around the village on a Sunday - it's a chance to chat quietly, get some fresh air, admire nature and get some exercise. 

Part of our route takes us through a very large field which this year is planted with corn ... of the maize variety!  It's prettier than we see in the greengrocers, with purple outer leaves and yellow tufts.  I think it's for cattle fodder rather than human consumption.

It's interesting to watch the crops grow week by week and always a shock to find that they've been harvested all of a sudden.  This week we picked blackberries from the hedgerows along the way.  I should have taken photos of my stained fingers - maybe next week's ZIZO?

Zooming Towards The End Of Scavenging

Rinda is linking up the Scavengers again as the deadline draws ever closer.  I thought I'd better see how many I have left.

I nabbed this lovely lamppost fairly a while ago in my local town:

#17 A Lamppost

And as I'm still not brave or sneaky enough to get a stranger's tattoo shot, I asked my colleague to share with me:

#8 A Tattoo

I cannot imagine how painful that must have been to do on her side - well done to the tattoo artist for keeping the lines straight!

I already have a rural landscape, so this shot isn't for #7:

#3 Birds On A Wire

Zooming in a little you'll see that it's for those (elusive for many) birds on a wire!  Which allows me to join in with Helena's 35th week of ZIZO too :-D

However I still have SEVEN to go ... #1 A Welcome Sign, #6 An Urban Scene, #11 A Horn, #12 A Mascot, #15 A Juggler, #16 A Foreign Language Sign, #19 A Public Garden ...

Zoom In Zoom Out #34

A quick ZIZO from me - just in time to join in with Helena's 34th week.  Hubby had a Boxed Set of DVDs for his birthday.  Six series worth.  We're watching together; sort of.  I like to watch one episode at a time and think about it.  Although if it ends on a shock cliffhanger the temptation to carry on and watch another is huge.  Occasionally we succumb.  I draw the line at three episodes in a single sitting though, so occasionally I'm left behind if things have been particularly exciting.

It's lucky that a second viewing of an episode is apparently acceptable to Hubby as long as he doesn't have to wait too long.  We're on Season Four now and I cannot believe how much I have engaged with methamphetamine c(r)ooks and junkies.  Anti-heroes doesn't quite do them justice.  No.2 Son & Child No.3 keep telling me "It's not real Mum!" as I sit there urging Jesse not to do it!

Have you watched Breaking Bad?  Can you watch a boxed set slowly, an episode a night or do you binge on it, watching back to back episodes?

Zoom In Zoom Out #33

Another weekend away ZIZO from me today.  In fact I have two for you.  We met up with friends from Holland holidaying on the South Coast of England.  We split the distance between our house and their campsite by meeting up at Stonehenge!  It's probably 40 years since Hubby and I last visited and things have changed (several times).  There is a newly opened English Heritage Visitor Centre which explains some of the timelines, artefacts and theories around the stones and has models with "Please Do Touch" signs!

It's a nice detail, especially as you cannot feel the real thing, nor even walk amongst the stones (except by paying extra and booking ahead or joining in with the solstice celebrations).  Instead, regular tourists are driven (or can walk) up to the ancient henge and can then walk around the stones at their own pace, listening to hand-held multi-lingual audio guides.  With millions visiting every year it's important to manage the tourist flow and allow everyone a clear view to take their "selfies" proving that they were there!  I even saw a pair of girls take turns with a selfie-stick ... and wondered why they couldn't just ask each other to take the photo?!?

I'm glad we had free entry with National Trust membership as the price is pretty steep otherwise.  We took our friends over to Avebury after lunch so that they could get up close and personal with sarsen stones erected around the same time as Stonehenge ... for free!

See that large rock nearest the foot of the path ...

... that's us in front of it!  It was quite mind boggling to realise that we were touching a rock of that size that was put there 5000 years ago with nothing but primitive tools and manpower!

I wonder what other spectacles people have zoomed in on with Helena ... check out week #33 here.

Zoom In Zoom Out #32

A friend invited me to accompany her on a 7 mile ramble through the countryside.  That's twice as far as I normally walk for pleasure or exercise, but I decided to accept the challenge.  Had it been weather like we've had this weekend i.e. torrential rain, I might not have managed it.  However we were exceptionally lucky and not only did the rain hold off, but the sun shone.  The other Ramblers were welcoming and the pace was more like an amble so I had no trouble keeping up.  Indeed, it was slow enough for me to take a snap or two too:

I have no idea whether the corn is close to harvesting but the farmer had been kind to us, leaving a footpath free for us to walk down:

Happily joining in with Helena's 32nd Zoom In Zoom Out, why not ramble over there to see what golden items others have spotted.

Zoom In Zoom Out #31

I'm just in time to join in with Helena's 31st week of ZIZO and another Summertime Scavenger Hunt "find":

#2 A Garden Gnome

Though as you see when I zoom out ... he was in a garden centre along with several others!  Does a garden centre gnome count I wonder?

How Did We Find Derby?

"Would you like me to bring my satnav?" I asked my good friend, and fellow scrappy blogger, Lesley when she arrived to collect me for our jaunt to Derby, via Castleton and Eyam.
"No thanks, I've got one" she replied, "and anyway I've printed out the directions!"

Unfortunately a list of Google maps directions from A to B only work if you actually start at A ... and if the list includes place names on the way as well as road numbers ... and if you have a compass ... and perhaps a map ...

"Erm, do you have a map? I'm struggling to work out where we are on this list!"
"No.  There are bound to be signs"

Only the signs seemed few and far between, almost as if the locals didn't want any tourists!

"I'm sure we've been past those cows before"
"Perhaps we should have turned left back there after all ..."
"Do you want to turn around or shall we just see what happens?"
"Let's just see ..."

We did see Castleton (along with a lot more Derbyshire countryside than we'd anticipated) and what's more, we were still smiling when we got there:

On the hunt for lunch we snapped a few fellow tourists ...

#4 A Group Of Tourists

#9 A Bakery

... and I zoomed in (for the 30th time) to add a bakery to my scavenger hunt finds.  The tourist information centre had postcards too:

#5 A Rack Of Postcards

It might have been prudent to pick up a map while we were there, because travelling from B to C didn't get any easier with the next list of directions!  So we stopped off to check the satnav in Lesley's smartphone and admire Ashford-in-the-Water  ...

#9 A Rural Landscape

... before finally finding Eyam, still smiling:

After that, we knew what to expect on the final leg of the journey from C to D ... but by now I'd almost got the hang of Lesley's smartphone and we only got lost twice or three times!  Our hotel happened to tick off another Scavenger Hunt item by being close to:

#9 A Parade

The next day we explored the centre of Derby and found something quite unexpected:

#18 A Waterfall

After lunch, we managed to locate Kedleston Hall reasonably well, but only the grounds were open on Fridays (beginning to see a jaunty lack of coherent planning from either of us?) so we took photos of the sheep ...

...one of whom was very interested in Lesley's camera:

#10 A Bride & Groom Bombing My Curious Sheep Photo

We topped off our Derby diversions by needing THREE attempts to find the ruins of Duffield Castle which was barely signposted (I'm sure the locals didn't want it found) ...

.. before ending our jaunt by meeting up for a meal with our scrappy friend Nat:

P.S. I found a handy place to store those Google maps directions before heading home and we didn't get lost once!!

Holiday Scavenging - Last Thing In Scotland

Where did we get to with my first installment with Scottish scavenging ... oh yes, the lack of garden gnomes!  There were quite a few items I struggled with, but more because I was in "holiday" mode rather than "spotting-obscure-items-along-the-way" mode - I kept forgetting to look for birds on a wire (#3) and there was NO way I was getting up early enough to photograph a sunrise (#13)!

Another item I was struggling to find was a mascot ... I did wonder if

a Scots Piper was emblematic of Scotland and would count ... or perhaps a cute Scottish bear, cuddly Nessie or furry long-horned sheep might fit the bill?  Perhaps this photo including someone else's hand could tick off Mascot, Horn *and* Photo-Bomber?

#10 Handy Photo Bomber

OK maybe not - but there were real horn handled knives in the next window along!

#11 Horn

One sunny evening we climbed the steep stepped hillside to enjoy the view on Calton Hill, including a sunset over the city sights.

As the lights went on we descended again and passed several stunning lampposts:

#17 Lamppost(s)

We enjoyed a great trip out to Leith Docks to visit the Royal Yacht Britannia (no garden gnomes there either funnily enough ... not much garden either!)

#12 A Mascot

But there was a Rolls Royce on board ... with the Rolls Royce mascot "Spirit Of Ecstasy" :-D
The lift doors in the adjacent shopping mall also gave me a chance to capture a juggler (sorely lacking amongst the street entertainers we'd seen)!

#15 A Juggler

On our final day in Edinburgh we ascended the tower containing the Camera Obscura, getting some fun photos along the way:

As well as a bird's eye view of a painted bus ...

#20 A Painted Bus

#21 A Photo Of Me With Something Representing The Season

... and Mum took a photo of me (with Hubby & Child No.3) wearing seasonal sunglasses!

After lunch we popped around the corner from our rented town-house to take a look at the gloriously weird new Scottish Parliament building ...

#16 (again) Signs in a language other than English

... where I spotted (lots) more Gaelic and was able to Zoom In (for the 29th time with Helena) on some very fancy letters for the blind!

#16 (again) English, Gaelic, Braille & Moon

Well how did my holiday scavenging do?

Part 1 scored: 8/21 (1,4,5,6,8,9,16,19) and one substitution (B for 2)
Part 2 scored: 7/21 (10,11,12,15,17,20,21)
Plus our journey home (ZIZO #26) added two more (7,18)

Total score: 17/21 + B (Missing #2 Gnome, #3 Birds On A Wire, #13 Sunrise, #14 Parade)

Not toooo shabby for such a short trip; now it's back to normal hunting for the rest of the summer - are you scavenging with Rinda too?