Bet you are humming that song now!
This post is dedicated to the one I love most in the world - my best friend, my soul mate, my partner in crime, my travelling companion and Daddy to our fur babies.
He might be getting older but I couldn't love him more.
Happy birthday Nigel xxx
We are fortunate int hat we go our, somewhere, most days, but very local. Today was not local. we headed off on a two plus hour trip to two National Trust properties (we do like to get bang for our buck on our NT membership)
We started off at Wakehurst which is part of Kew Gardens and also hosts the Millennium Seed bank which was really interesting.
The grounds at Wakehurst were gorgeous and we had blue skies and sunshine and there was some gorgeous Autumn colour too.
We then headed off to Standen House and Gardens which is a gorgeous Arts and Crafts house with pretty much all original Morris and Co fittings and furniture. It was gorgeous. We had a lovely lunch courtesy of a NT voucher gift from Sean and Viv (and also bought some plants for the garden with the same voucher) and then listened to a very good talk and wandered around the house. I took lots of pictures of the inside - I am a big William Morris fan. You will be pleased I am only posting a few photos
The only downside of the day was it was the first time we have left the boys for a whole day - they still have a lunchtime feed. We left them a timer opening cat feeder for lunch not sure what they would make of it, if they would even realise and go and eat when it opened at 1. Well they clearly found it, long before 1. They chased it round the room and it ended up upside down which meant, of course, it didn't open. So poor babies went from 7 am with no more food until tea time. They were pretty hungry and we were full of guilt!
I don't expect they will fade away!
Today I am thankful for
This is my favourite time of year and so I was in seventh heaven this week with all the new Berry Big Deal releases over at Pickleberrypop because the colours are so wonderfully autumnal and utterly delicious.
In the interests of transparency as a creative team member for the store I get given these collections for free in order to create with them and promote them.
The first is A Taste of Fall by Jen Yurko
Credits
Courage BBD bundle by Natali Designs
Credits
Touch of Autumn BBD Bundle by Dita B Designs
Credits
Dia de los muertos BBD Bundle by Chunlin Designs
Credits
Falling For You BBD Bundle by Carol W Designs
The price of these - and all of the other bundles - is incredible for the next two days and they all coordinate so the sets will mix and match. Do pop over and check it out.
I am so grateful to have been a member of the Pickleberrypop team for over 5 years now ... the designers are just awesome and such a wonderful group of girls too.
Well as it looks like Dolly's dreamings are set to stay I better get my act together and post stuff.
Lovely time at art club today - not finished so cannot share yet, but it was fun. Working on my own project. Yesterday we went to Poundbury as Nigel had a call to make in Dorchester. I have very mixed feelings about Poundbury. For those of you who are not local - that would be most of you - it is a new town built as a sort of extension for our county town of Dorchester, which is very old and very Dorset. Poundbury was built on Duchy of Cornwall land and Prince Charles is very interested in architecture and green living etc and so has been hands-on with Poundbury since its conception and all through its building.
There is a website here for those of you interested to read more about it.
Some Poundbury photos to give you a flavour - not from yesterday ... bear in mind we have no other buildings like this anywhere in the area.
It is in many ways very beautiful and the architecture, especially the public building, is on a grand scale, but it has an odd air about it. It is out of character with Dorset, with the period of Dorchester and certainly, initially, it always seemed empty and like some sort of bizarre theme park. Yet we find ourselves drawn to it and visit often. It was aimed to build some affordable housing but I also did a search for houses for sale in Poundbury HERE
I'm not sure it is affordable! High prices for luxury homes and even the small apartments are expensive by local standards.
One of the draws for us is the Garden Centre because it has a lovely Christmas shop. In fairness, it hasn't been as nice since COVID changed things but it is always worth a visit and here are a few photos from yesterday's trip
Now I have something amazing to share too
We went pumpkin picking last week and Nigel carved his pumpkin and wow what a job. He carved the logo of the Big Cat Sanctuary we love so much ... I include the logo so you can see how brilliantly he did
Well I started this blog as a scrapping blog so I had better share some of that too - gosh it's been a busy post. Apologies for that.
There was a challenge over at Scrap Squad that included a rosette and I knew that I would find it too bulky to put in an album soI remembered I had made a page before with a rosette and had framed it. I hadn't realised I had made that page in 2011!!! It had been up for 10 years. So here is the new page and it is very very dimensional and at the end is the old page it replaced.
Well phew - that was a bit of a marathon post. Well done if you stuck with it to the end.
Today I am thankful for
Well, I wasn't expecting so many comments on my blog when I was musing about stopping. But thank you - all of you. It makes me very happy to know there are people reading my random ramblings and enjoying our very boring lives - it really does. So thank you for commenting and for emailing and I will continue to ramble on here.
Yesterday I had a further specialist eye appointment and hoped they would say to stop fussing there was nothing wrong. sadly I am apparently an anomaly as people who are very short-sighted usually have 'stretched' eyes and so drainage channels are rarely narrow. Mine are apparently very narrow. They are going to refer me to a consultant at the hospital who will decide if I need laser surgery to make a hole in my iris to help the drainage. In addition I have severe dry eye syndrome. I had a very bad infection that caused ulcers on my cornea when I was 18. This has left my cornea very scarred and pitted (which is why the vision is so bad in my left eye as the light just refracts everywhere and doesn't focus) and so my corneas are rough making regular dry eye much worse. So I now have drops and gel to use every two hours! I am falling apart bit by bit! However, I have two eyes that work - my biggest dread in the whole world is going blind because everything I love requires sight. Nigel's cousin went blind over a period of years about 20 years ago and for blind awareness month his daughter has been posting an observation about his daily life every day and it is heart-breaking to read. I know any disability is dreadful but for me I think being blind is the worst thing of all.
We have had a couple of lovely walks and we also fitted in a visit to IKEA - and remarkably came away having spent just £6. I have also - of course - been scrapping
I used two of my new flair from Dotty About Flair which arrived yesterday - a signature box and an awesome prize too - I was in flair heaven
and I made this today as well - he is such a little poppet
Today's view
Nigel is chocolate heaven in Hotel Chocolat
Today I am thankful for
and I thought these were just so clever and amusing
I am debating whether or not to keep the blog going as the number of visitors have fallen a great deal and I think people use facebook (I do) and Instragram (I don't) a lot more. Am going to keep it going for the next two months and then review. I will still keep it for me, but just may not publish it to the world anymore. I always said that the blog was primarily for me, my record of what we do and when we do it, and we do both look back at things. But it might be time to keep it purely for us. We will see.
We had a trip out to Southampton today to visit the Apple store and also visited - quite extensively - Hotel Chocolat. We watched the TV series avidly but it's the first time we have been into one of the stores - and we loved it. We were so excited and chatted to such a lovely salesman and he made us fresh hot chocolate to try. The credit cards took a bit of a hammering. It was also noticeable - and I told the young man who was so lovely - that we went into the Apple store with the potential to spend over £1000 on a new phone and the salesman could not have been less interested or any more off hand than he was. We went into a chocolate shop to spend a few pounds and other service was incredible. Although we are both apple users through and through I think the attitude today was one of utter conceit. It was 'we are the best, we know we are the best, people will queue up to buy from us so why make the effort!' Such a shame Apple.Your staff today let you down.
Anyway - it was a lovely trip out and we even called into Ikea too.
And then there had been scrapping of course.
I made this for a mojo challenge at Pickleberrypop
and I made these paper pages yesterday and today
Today I am thankful for
and some internet cuteness ... street art with a difference
Let's paint the fence ... they said
Let's not try and do it all in one go ... they said
Oh let's just finish it ... he said
and he did.
I painted the first batch with him but I was shattered. There were four left - front and back - and he just got on and did it.
Wow
Not sure I like the colour but it isn't being redone.
Before
During
after
no soil visible - just a solid carpet of pine needles
soil and grass (well moss) visible again
view from my studio
Yesterday I finished the final page for the 12 days of Autumn over at Scrap Squad and I was pleased with his one. In fairness, I have loved every single lift
It was just such a lovely photo of Nigel and his brother in the sunshine in our home town.
I also made this for Koda yesterday. His name is actually Takoda which means Friend in Sioux. It was a tribute to Fiki whose name also meant Freind in Swahili
It is also new release day at Pickleberrypop and I worked with two lovely bundles this week
Harvest Time Bundle by Carol W Designs
I Put a Spell on You by On a Whimsical Adventure
Today I am thankful for
Every year I see increasing numbers of gorgeous pumpkin photos and so today we went and visited our first ever pumpkin patch. I can't quite believe we waited until now, but we did.
I am sure when I was growing up that we didn't have pumpkin [atches, pumpkin farms or a plethora of pumpkins to select from. I might be wrong. Correct me if I am.
I think it is one of the nicer traditions that has come over from America.
Anyway - we headed off to Sopley pick your own but got sidetracked on the way by Parley Pumpkin Patch which we just happened to pass. And I am so glad we did.
We were the only people there apart from the lady running it. the weather was perfect and we had such fun.
Cue a LOT of pumpkin pictures
We did go on to Parley but it wasn't a patch (sorry couldn't resist it) on Parley, though they did have a nice far, shop and display just not nearly such nice fields.
and this gorgeous peacock butterfly posed too
I was so pleased we visited and came straight home and scrapped it
Today I am thankful for
and I leave you with this I found on the great web ... beautifully written and kind of sad
Alice Butler Jan 2013
Sob Story of a Jack-o-Lantern (short story)
we have had a glorious weather weekend - really warm and sunny. I gather it is set to change but it's been lovely whilst we have had it.
I have had an 'interesting' time with my eyes. After several weeks of issues I was seen at the emergency clinic and hoped they would say - yes it is all fine it is just dry eyes. Sadly they didn't. It is dry eyes and my eyes are very inflamed and I have drops and gel to use every 2 hours, but they were worried about the angle closure behind my left eye and I need to be seen again on Friday as they want an 'expert' to check it. I confess it wasn't the news I wanted and today the pain behind that eye has been worse. That might just be that it has been fiddled with because one of the tests where they attach a contact lens to a prism thing was very painful.
Anyway - I have been trying o have less screen time and do some nice scrapping and also listen to an audio book to rest my eyes.
These are some of my recent pages
Last week at the beach
Minnehaha Falls in Minneapolis
Koda
and today's challenge
oh and one more
Today I am thankful for
Well goodness me. Isn't there a saying that in the UK if you don't like the weather wait an hour and it will change? So true. It's been a real mixed bag. It was cold - heating on, it was stormy, stay indoors. It was sunny - go out. It was wet - stay in. It was foggy, it was drizzly, it was bland. All in the space of a few days.
Yesterday was a gorgeous day and we hot footed it off early to Kingston Lacy where we had it to ourselves again
It is still a bit early for nice Autumn colours yet but it was lovely.
And even scrapped it already
How cute is that owl flair - yes it's another of Adam Westwood's from Dotty About Flair. I am so addicted. I was so thrilled to manage to get one of the advent calendars this year
I have been loving the 12 days of Autumn with Scrap Squad too
and there has been digital scrapping for new release day at PBP too and I used this lovely collection from Lorie M
Apart from that it's been pretty quiet here.
We had a lovely evening with our neighbours this week too.
Today I am thankful for
