Attic24

The Great Outdoors

It's been a long while since J and I enjoyed  a hike in the Great Outdoors together. I LOVE walking the hills with J, we've been enjoying this pastime ever since we first met seventeen years ago. But in the past couple years due to the bump/baby business happening we've been unable to stride out  together and I've missed it. I've missed it a Lot.

Early last week it dawned on me that with a little careful planning and some wonderfully obliging family, we could perhaps finally Make It Happen. We could perhaps spend a day together in the Great Outdoors getting down to some serious walking. Just us two. Just like old times.

And that's exactly what we did :: on Thursday we dropped the Little People off at school, then delivered Little B to his wonderful Grandparents, and then the glorious day was all ours (well five hours of it anyhow).

We chose a ten mile circular route. Ambitious to say that I am quite unfit these days, but we were determined to get up Somewhere High, and a walk to Simons Seat seemed to fit the bill nicely (cos it really is  a mighty high destination for hereabouts)

We've done this walk once before and remembered it to be a Good'n'. Starting at Bolton Abbey, the route climbs up through woodland and into the "Valley of Desolation". Nothing desolate about it these days mind you, it's absolutely beautiful up here.

Out of the valley and into the dappled shade of a small plantation....

...then out into the open landscape of the expansive Barden Moor.

Lots of green shrubbery up here on the moor at this time of year, and joy of joys we discover that they are all bilberry bushes, yippeee!!! We love bilberries, and hadn't realised that they grow so prolifically in this area.

On closer inspection we see that the bushes are already laden with little berries (yippee-yipppeeeeeee!) but it'll be August before they ripen and turn purply-black.

We continue to stride upwards across the fell :: by now we've been climbing steadily uphill for almost two hours. My legs feel a little jelly-like.

But up there ahead is our destination :: that rocky clump of rocks is the famous "Simons Seat" and I for one can't wait to get there. Can't wait to view the view, rest my jellified limbs and tuck into the packed lunch cos I'm suddenly starving hungry.

Ahhhhhhh finally we make it to the top and catch a glimpse of the view, and what a view it is!!

It feels as if we are on top of the world up here.

Breathtaking. So high! We have climbed so high!!

Now then, enough of the view for now, lets get down to the business of refuelling shall we? Snuggle in between the sun-warmed rocks and bilberry shrubbery and eat with pleasure :: hams rolls, sweet cherry tomatoes, apples, strawberries and dark chocolate (our usual picnic fare). Delicious.

We don't get to spend a lot of time lolling about at the summit as we have now passed midday and are very aware that in three hours time we'll have two Little People standing at the school gates fully expecting their parents to be present and correct. So down we go, down, down from the heights...

...admiring the view as we descend.

Over there we can see the picturesque village of Appletreewick, a real gem of a place which we know and love well.

We are striding out on the return journey now, following wide easy tracks past farms and campsites...

...until we make it back to the banks of the River Wharfe.

Riverside walking is always a pleasure, especially when it follows lots of climbing. It feels as if ones legs are operating of their own accord. Walking on the flat after all that uphill stuff is a breeeeeze! We cross the river at Barden by way of this magnificent stone bridge....

....then into Strid Wood we go. We are on familiar turf now, we know this woodland very, very, very,  well.

It is incredibly beautiful in this woodland at any time of year, but most especially in late April/early May.

Because this is Bluebell Time.

My heart soars with the beauty of it all...........

......Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What a day. What a wonderful, beautiful, exhilerating, exhausting, glorious day! Wow. We must do that again sometime. When my legs have recovered that is :: two days later and they are still behaving like stiff planks of wood.

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ps Dorset Tales will be coming soon I promise, I've not forgotten :o) x

 

 

 

 

 

Home Again

Just waving to you through the Attic window to let you know we are home again, helloooooo!!

I can't quite find the words at the minute to describe how completely amazing our week away has been, it makes my heart soar just gazing at these pictures and remembering it all. I think it was possibly one of the most precious and perfect family holidays we have ever had, and I am so looking forward to sharing it with you....just transferred my photos from the camera to the laptop (242 of them) and have spent nearly an hour just drinking it all in and sighing with pleasure.

However....soooooooooooooo good to be home again too!! Of course number 24 is in complete post-holiday chaos, it's quite the mad house here at the moment. J is still home with us  all this week (fab), kids go back to school tomorrow for all of two days before we embark on another 4-day holiday wkend (Royal Wedding + our annual Waterways festival + May Bank Holiday), so normality won't really return here until 3rd May.

I will post again as soon as I am able (hoping for tomorrow actually) to begin telling you the sun-drenched tales of our time in Dorset, looking forward to it hugely.

See you soon! xxx

Postcards from Dorset

MOrning!!

Just having a coffee in my rainbow striped mug, making a mental list of things I need to do today to get us all ready for a week away by the sea. We are not an organised family, our preps for going away are always last minute, a tad frantic, and very slapdash. But somehow we always manage to get everything together and loaded into the car, and it kind of works out ok.

I was thinking about Dorset last night, the place where I grew up, and how much it is a part of who I am. I love love love spending time down there. Such happy, precious memories. 

For me, that's one of the most wonderful things about writing a blog :: that it gives me a way of recording and preserving these memories year on year, it really is priceless. I have a category called "Holidays" so that I can easily take a little jaunt through my archives to re-visit these special times spent away from number 24. This will be the fourth year that I get to write about our holidaying, such fun!! But do you know, this morning I went to take a look at last years pictures and I couldn't find the post anywhere.....turns out I uploaded the pics but never had time to write the blurble so it remained in draft.

Would you like to see?? Would you like to see a few "Postcards from Dorset", April 2010??

Ok, here are some sea views,  cutesy harbours, jaunty boats, blue horizons, fluffy clouds, emerald hills, breezy kites, natural discoveries, al fresco snacks, and refreshing slurps from last year.....enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Right-o, off to make coffee-number-two before pegging a laundry load out to dry.

Have a wonderful week, I'll see you when I get back with some more Picture Postcards from down yonder. Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

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Weekend Pleasures

:: enjoying our first picnic of the year, we ate our evening meal on Saturday with this beautiful watery view ::

:: putting jugs of narcissi and daffies around the house, I'm currently enjoying them in four rooms and the scent is beeeeutiful ::

:: enjoying blue skies and some relaxing pegging out, with the promise of top notch laundry sniffing to follow ::

:: taking a lemon cake out of the oven on Sunday morning, Little Man made it and it was delish ::

:: completing the edging on my bunting triangles and enjoying a bit of colourful playing and stacking ::

♥ We've had a gorgeous start to our Easter holidays here, the weather has been glorious. We're enjoying our first real taste of Spring warmth and oh it does feel good! On Saturday afternoon we packed up a picnic tea and headed a couple miles out of town to throw down a blanket and set up camp beside the water. It was lovely, truly lovely. Good food (hard boiled eggs, creamy goats cheese, vine ripened tomatoes, prosciutto ham, crusty bread, crisp apples, a punnet of sweet strawberries and some chocolate eggs), a stunning view (the reservoir was oh-so-blue), happy children (building dens, throwing rocks in the water, discovering toads, toddling in the grass), and general all round Spring enjoyment.

♥ I managed to squeeze in a decent bit of hooky time over the weekend too and finished off the edgings to my granny bunting (remember it from this post?). I've made twenty triangles which now need to be coaxed into Good Shape and blocked out before I can join them together. It's looking good! I've been very industrious with the hooky lately, it's been very liberating working on lots of different smaller projects after the long haul of completing the Sweet Flower granny blanket early in the year. I've got the Spring flower to show you, plus another decorative Little Something I managed to finish off this morning...for once I'm making stuff faster than I can blog about it!! I'll try to bring it all up to date very soon I promise.

♥ I'm at home this week with my three Little Peeps, it feels good to be free of routine but it's also quite a challenge being home with the LP these days. The amount of energy needed for this job is not to be underestimated :: right now it's 9pm and I am completely shattered. Next week we are all looking forward to a change of pace and a change of scene as we head down to Dorset for a spell of sea breezes and delicious days, I really cannot wait.

♥ Thank you as always for bobbing by to see me, your comments and enthusiastic words really do buoy me up when days are long and demanding. Thankyouthankyouthankyou, I'm sending each and every one of you a warm, squishy hug of appreciation!

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April 2011

When I was out in the park gathering twigs for my hooky hearts a little while ago, I ended up with a few too many. Rather than sling them out, I popped them into little water filled glass bottles/jars and dotted them about the house on windowsills. Slowly over the past few weeks, the buds have begun to open and unfurl and I have been amazed. Truly. How wonderful Nature is, its ace!!! The above twig is in the bathroom and is a cherry....ooooooo there are buds, there are buds!! And soon enough there may even be blossom!! My very own Bathroom Blossom!!!!

These twigs are on my kitchen windowsill, the leaf buds were tight shut when I first put them there, but now they are in full flow and it's like having a mini tree growing indoors. The green of fresh new leaves is sooooooooooooo beautiful, it's wonderfully vibrant and I love it. I'm so glad that here in my patch we are well and truly into the Spring season now, I adore this time of year.

April, April, I could blow you a thousand kisses just for being you!! Isn't the above picture so impossibly pretty? Its from the Ideal Home calendar, beautifully inspiring as ever. I think I will copy this sweet idea and pop some blooms into egg shells this Easter. I've got quite a few egg cups about the place, I'll try and round them up in preparation.

This is the April page on my Laura Ashley calendar, reminding us that Easter time will be coming soon and I for one Cannot Wait. I love Easter. Love decorating for it and celebrating it, but best of all I love that every Easter we jaunt down to visit my folks by the sea. I've missed the sea so much, I'm craving it. I'm writing this and in my head I'm reciting bits of that Sea Poem, you know the one..."I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied..." Yeah, I feel it a-calling for sure. No, not going to deny it either. Take me to it.

I purchased Eggs last week, of the mini speckled chocolate variety, nom-nom I have a huge weakness for these little things. It's marvelous to have a glass jar of these loitering about the place to provide a welcome chocolate hit when the need arises. It's been quite a frequent need this week, I always crave chocolate when the stress levels rise :: by stress I mean the low-grade variety caused by Small People with Very High Temperatures. Little B is coming through a very horrid cold/virussy thing combined with cutting his pre-molars, ouch. He has been utterly miserable, poor mite. Chocolate eggs have been entirely necessary (for me, not him).

Talking of Little B....I am happy to announce that he is now a fully fledged Toddler, complete with the most cutesome little buckle-up boy shoes. He took his first tentative toddling steps about three weeks ago and it has been absolutely joyful for all concerned. We've not walked far outside yet, just up and down our street a bit, with some daily pottering about in the back yard. I've taught him how to handle a sweeping brush and how to stack flower pots and how to pass me pegs as I hang out the laundry, so it's all good. We like pottering outside together, I foresee much of that going on this Spring.

A couple new purchases for April, I do like to treat myself to a wee Supermarket Sweep every so often. I bought a new mug which is almost my Ultimate Favourite Colour of All Time but not quite. It's a bit more duck-egg than Tiffany, but it's spotty and fresh and spring-like and I like it. I also bought some more paper napkins (darn-it I forgot to photo them, they are printed like red n white gingham check, very pretty)....

.....and new light Spring/Summer cotton rosie jammies. I fell in love with these as soon as I saw them, and the love affair has grown ten-fold since I made them mine and brought them home. They make me so happy!! I put them on whenever I can get away with it (erm, yup, have 'em on right now) and they instantly make me feel relaxed and dreamy and content. I have to tell you that wearing them whilst crocheting is almost off the scale of my personal pleasure-o-meter. Seriously.

I don't think I'm writing this April post very well, it's not very Aprilish really is it? I do apologise. How about a bit of an Attic view then??

Taken on 1st April as is my little ritual, it was a bright and blustery day if I remember rightly.

Scuddy clouds, a little threat of rain that didn't come to much. Perfectly right for April I'd say.

I was thinking to myself not so long ago that last month I passed my Blogiversary :: Three Years of Attic24. Three years!! I've written over 500 posts in that time you know. It's quite something to be now into my fourth year of calendar pages/attic views. Lots to look back on. Last year I found it too difficult to write these kinds of posts on time, but previous years I love that all that seasonal pondering is archived. You can read all my "Calendar posts" by clicking on the Calendar word in my category cloud thingy over there to the left. You don't have to. But sometimes I do just that and meander back through the months and seasons, I find it quite soothing and therapeutic.

Pffffffffffffffffffffff...running out of steam.....needing to go to bed shortly, it's been a tough day. Before I go, I want to tease you a little.....show you a snippet of something I worked on last week.......

A pretty little Spring time project, I think you're going to like it. More coming soon.

Been lovely to have you visit, thank you so much for dropping by to listen to my April chatter. I'm off in my rosy pyjamas to the Land of Nod now, I like it there.....see you soon for some hooky floral springtime goodness! ♥

Edited to add :: for those of you in the UK, the rosy pyjamas are from Tesco x

 

One Quarter

:: January 2011 ::

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:: February 2011 ::

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:: March 2011 ::

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One quarter of 2011 has passed by already, can you believe it??

I've really enjoyed making my mosaics for this first quarter. In my mind it feels as if my year so far has been quite muddled with not an awful lot of achievement. Yet looking at the above 27 images and I am filled with relief, because it all looks quite lovely and reassuringly familiar!!

I see the beauty of the everyday, some wonderful completed projects, springtime arriving, precious time spent with Little Ones. Homely comforts, creativity, love, happiness. And I am glad. Glad that I have captured these precious snippets of life as they whizz by. It all feels right and good.

I've been trying to write my "April" post for the past five days but have not managed it as yet....Little B is unwell and so life is temporarily quite tricksy and draining. Please bare with me, I shall get to it when I am able. In the meantime, I'd like to say a HUGE thank you for all your wonderful words on my last post (the Knitty one), Little Lady and I have had so much fun sitting and reading them together, she is chuffed to bits, honestly. She has a Birthday coming up soon and has requested some Yarn of her Very Own, which has rendered me chuffed to bits.

Right-oh, off to get those cheeky Little Peeps into bed, closely followed by yours truly. See you again soon when we are germ-free (please let it be soon, please, pretty-please. Thank you.)

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