Tuesday 19 July 2011

Meet Betsy and Her Sister

Betsy

Betsy

Betsy

Betsy

Little Sister
This is Betsy, she's three weeks old! If everything goes well she'll be coming to live with us in September, I can hardly wait. Her sister is very cute too! Oh yes she's a Miniature Schnauzer!

Friday 15 July 2011

Afternoon Tea

Yesterday I made a trip into town to meet Rachel, she had planned to take me for Afternoon Tea in London for Mothers Day, but I had a bad back and with us both being busy it didn't happen until yesterday. I took the opportunity to go up early and take a look in John Lewis, I love that store. There is so much I could buy if only I'd won the Euro Lottery this week, as a consolation prize I treated myself to a knitting book and some buttons.  Tomorrow Rachel and I are invited to a 'Baby Shower' a first for me, when Rachel arrived we looked around the cute baby clothes, Lisa and John (Becky's sister, extended family is so complicated) know the sex of their baby it's a GIRL, we settled on a little romper and some incredibly cute socks, and in case it's a BOY a gift receipt, not forgetting 'Mum To Be' we bought her some luxury bath stuff.


After all that retail therapy we took a stroll through a part of London I don't really know, very posh shops the security guard at this gun shop looked very unimpressed when he saw me taking this photograph, I was expecting him to fly out through the door and snatch my phone!!!!


It was a beautiful afternoon and with time to kill we sat in Grosvenor Square and enjoyed the sun and people watching.

Grosvenor Square

It was a short walk to Park Lane and The Dorchester for Afternoon Tea in The Promenade, a real treat we were thoroughly spoilt and totally full by the end of the afternoon. We started with our choice of tea, I don't drink tea so had a pot of coffee, Rachel selected the blend of tea she wanted, both the tea and coffee pots were refilled during the afternoon. Then they presented the sandwich selection (present is what they did) after this, our pallets were cleansed with a mango puree topped with coconut creme,  it was onto the scones with clotted cream and home made jam next. After a break it was the cakes, by this time we could only manage one cake each!




 I should say that you could have as many refills of sandwiches and scones and probably cake as you wanted, I feel full again just writing about it! We just had one selection of each who could eat more,  as we'd left the cakes we were presented with them in a box to take home and they had added extras (sadly they didn't travel well, too hot on the train). Rachel said I should take the cakes as it was my treat, plus Dave would enjoy them! We both were given a bag containing a tin of blended tea, some jam and various other bits. A truly lovely afternoon, thank you Rachel! We did a bit of celebrity spotting, sadly we knew the faces but not their names, an actress an actor and a TV presenter, (sounds like the start of a joke)

I shouldn't have parked my car outside the Dorchester the tube would have been better!

They didn't travel well, but Dave enjoyed them

When I got home I couldn't eat another thing all evening or face a coffee until about 10 o'clock.

Wednesday 13 July 2011

ANLQS6


I've just signed up for 'Another Little Quilt Swap 6' . Yesterday Sharne posted that she's signed up again this year and Diane said she was doing it so I thought I'd join too! I'm a quilt swap virgin, so here goes...... I'm up for the challenge and thanks to Kate I've found it.

Tuesday 12 July 2011

Cropping!

A visitor to the veggie patch, he or she (anyone know how you tell?) seems to like the onion patch, I prefer the grasshopper to the slugs and snails that seem to like the whole garden........

We enjoyed a good crop of blueberries at the weekend this was the second large bowl I've collected, Dave made a cage to protect them from the wood pigeons they seemed to take a fancy to them.

This was the crop for Saturday, lettuce to go with lunch, peas, beans our own potatoes and roasted beetroot with stuffed marrow. The marrows are prolific so I need to find another recipe for marrow any ideas?
Today some of The Material Girls met at my house, I feel inspired to get on with the next project sorry, I cant show you much, but here's a taster of my initial ideas, needs refining and tweaking, but its getting there!

And the disasters on the home front well, the ceiling has dried out and it looks as though it will need re-plastering. No flying ants have appeared but if they do I'll be waiting with the ant powder, horrid things.
I've a trip to London planned later in the week with Rachel it's my belated Mother's Day present (belated because I had a bad back), but I'll post about it later in the week.

Friday 8 July 2011

Big Drip!

I've just spent 7 days in Lanzarote with my family, it was Rachel, James and Becky's first visit, we had a lovely relaxing break lots of sun. On this visit to the island we went to The Caves of Los Verdes, last time we went to the rim of the volcano this time we went under the volcano, brilliant textures, I took lots of images, what I'll do with them I've no idea! 

We all went for lunch in Puerto Calero.

Wall Art in Puerto Calero

Not Lunch
There was lots of reading, 


I also read 'Never Let Me Go' by Kazuo Ishiguro, I've still got lots of summer reads left!

When we arrived home there was a flying ants nest in the dinning room, lovely start! Wait it gets worse........At 4am I got out of bed it was raining, don't switch off yet...........
I heard a dripping coming from the spare bedroom (my workroom), stupidly I switched on the light water was pouring from the fitting onto the carpet. A shout (more of a scream) to Dave and we quickly removed 3 sewing machines and anything else that we could, then it was hunting for plastic sheets in the shed to cover up the rest of the 'stuff'. Apparently a tile has slipped and water managed to get through, damage has been done, the ceiling in the room has cracked and needs to come down and the room will have to be cleared out. Welcome Home........... I'm just so glad we only went away for one week what would have happened if we'd gone for two?