Life in August

These August days are flying past and already the first half of our six week summer holiday is over. We are having a lovely time of it and although nothing remotely exciting has been happening, it just feels really, really good. The days feel kind of light and easy and blissfully unstructured, with the exception of food provision which remains very structured indeed. Little B has a very sturdy, in-built food clock which will not be ignored, so 8am is breakfast, 10am is morning snack, 12pm is lunch, 3pm is afternoon snack and 5.30pm is dinnertime. It means that days spent at home are punctuated with these regular requests for fodder but I am not complaining in the slightest, in fact I like the way he gives some gentle routine to my own days. The Teens do not appear to have any routine at all and are completely ruled by their own weird and wonderful teenage body clocks. So aside from our evening meal which we all eat together, they will happily see to their own food throughout the day. I am so grateful for the fact that I can be at home throughout August, and I'm enjoying my Little People very much at this age.

J and I are both juggling working from home with family life this holiday and I think we are doing a pretty good job of it so far. On the days of the week when J isn't working, I try and take a bit of time out as well. I'm lucky in that I can work through into the evenings if I need to so that I can free up time during the day and it's so good to get out into the countryside together, even if it's just for a few hours.

Mostly we just have Little B with us and to be honest I think he really enjoys having our undivided attention when we go out and about. One day last week we decided to drive up into the Dales to walk one of our favourite paths along the riverside from Linton Falls to Hebden.

It was warm and muggy, and the countryside is definitely on the gentle slide into late summertime now. We saw so many butterflies and the tall dried summer grasses looked beautiful all along the river bank.

Little B and I are still going on our evening walks and it's always such a sweet hour of my day. Last week on our meander along the woodland footpath we spotted a huge heron perched on the fence ahead of us, he really was magnificent. It was a bit of a stop and awe moment - we do quite often see these amazing birds around the canal and the beck that runs through the woodland, but the size of them always amazes me every time.

You can't tell from the above photo, but as we strolled along this peaceful pathway a thunderstorm began to roll overhead. Loud rumbles of thunder followed by a heavy downpour of torrential rain meant that we arrived home looking a little soggy and bedraggled! It was fun though, and Little B seemed oddly delighted by the fact that neither of us had coats (I was wearing sandals too) and we were literally getting soaked to the skin. It was the nicest thing to come home and get changed straight into pyjamas (it was 8 o'clock by this time) and it really did fit the definition of cosy.

We've had some stonking wet and stormy weather during the past few weeks actually, with the kind of rain that makes a huge sound as it falls. But it's remained pretty warm and humid and there has been plenty of sunshine in between the downpours. I've loved the rain (now there's a surprise), the sound and smell of it has been refreshing and soothing.

Little B hasn't really asked to do much so far this holiday, we've been into town a few times to our favourite cafes and we've walked/cycled through the park to the farm shop. But one morning last week (Tuesday) he asked if I could take him on the train to visit Salts Mill. To be perfectly honest I didn't much feel like it at the time and I was very tempted to say no. But he asked me so sweetly in a way that gave a great big yank on my heart strings, so I found myself looking up train times and agreeing to go, and he was so happy! We only live a short walk from the train station, so last minute decisions to go places is made pretty easy really.

We enjoyed Salts Mill, and being fairly early on a weekday morning it was quiet and peaceful. Little B chose a new reading book (he is an avid reader) and I got to browse in the very-expensive-daydreamy-home part of the mill where Little B persuaded me to buy some very-expensive-daydreamy hand wash. I then had to recover with a stiff cappuccino and a slice of coffee and walnut cake in Salts Diner (I did share the cake with Little B), but it was altogether a lovely little trip for the two of us. And the hand soap smells delicious - the child has good taste it has to be said.

On Thursday morning last week we walked at Bolton Abbey, it's been a while since we'd been there.

It was a warm, still morning and we walked a fair number of miles along the woodland and riverside paths.

I do try and be In The Moment when I'm out with the family, but I am so easily distracted by nature's details and feel compelled to capture on camera the little things that catch my eye. 

Everything looks so lovely in summertime!

As delightful as the walk was, I absolutely couldn't wait to get back to where we'd parked the car to sit down and enjoy this.......

......ahhhhh, that was so good! Little B had a much deserved ice cream and J and I inhaled our frothy coffees and all was well in my world. We walked for a  good few hours so had covered some miles, that coffee was well earned!

We did a little bit of gardening last week, working on tidying up our very overgrown front garden. It was a joint effort - J cut and strimmed our unruly patch of grass and I trimmed back all the foliage. Our buddleia is flowering anundantly this year and we've had so many butterflies on it every day - peacocks, red admirals, large whites, painted ladies and small tortoiseshells. It's been wonderful to sit and watch them flitting about. I trimmed all the dead flowers off and tidied it up a bit - there were some casualties from the football so I snipped off the broken stems and popped them in a glass on the dining table with some other bits from the garden. Summer right there in a glass.

I've been trying to eat healthily this holiday and aside from the odd bit of cake here and there I've been keeping all my meals as wholesome as possible. Lunch is one of my favourites as I usually cook just for myself - nearly always an egg now I come to think about it. I love poached eggs soooooo much! Yum, yum, yum, especially with avocado on toasted rye bread.

Thank you for all your kind comments on my last post, and a doubly big thank you to everyone who made the journey to come and see me at Wool Warehouse on Sunday. I had such a lovely time! I traveled down on Saturday afternoon with J which was a treat in itself as we'd booked into a lovely hotel and enjoyed a gorgeous meal out and a welcome little slice of child-free time. 

I was so excited to see the Warehouse and it did not disappoint, oh boy, it was magnificent! 

The wall of Stylecraft Special yarn was inspirational and I love love LOVED that little mini Attic24 blankets had been made to showcase my colour palettes and designs......

......look!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was so neat, and really useful to see them all displayed like that. 

In the showroom there is limited space so it's not possible for all of the many thousands of yarns to be displayed. What they've done is so clever - there is one ball of every single type of yarn they stock, with a label giving you all the information you need (weight, yardage, price etc). You can then look at the colour ranges on the computers and request for any balls you might want to take a closer look at. I loved seeing so much variety and found my brain spinning with creative ideas.

It was a truly amazing day...super busy from start to finish and so many happy, friendly and enthusiastic visitors to chat to. I loved meeting everyone and hearing all about the projects you've made and those you've added to your list - lots of yarn packs went off to new homes so I know there will be some lovely new blankets in the making very soon. It makes me so very happy to think about it, gosh you just can't beat the feeling of starting out on a brand new blanket journey. I love making blankets very very very very very much.......you'd never have guessed that would you??!!

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Comments

[Hedy]

Such a lovely post. You are so fortunate to have all your beautiful walking trails, we have highways here. I so enjoy reading your blog

[Valerie]

Lovely post beautiful views. My husband and I spent a wonderful week in Yorkshire a few weeks ago and I got to go to Yarndale. Just love your lunch too.

[Jacqui]

Such a lovely post again thankyou and beautiful photos. We back onto a river and quite often see the heron/s and when they fly over we gasp in awe such magnificent creatures but we dont call them herons we call them teradactyls he he and sheep are called washing bins I have no idea where this came from but our family are mad ha ha

[Winwick Mum]

Loved reading this, thank you! xx

[Heather]

Love the fact that little B has inherited your love of walking! Thank you for another lovely blog x

[Teresa Kasner]

I enjoyed both of your outings and seeing your countryside as you do. How nice that J could accompany you to WW and you both making a holiday of it.
((hugs)), Teresa :-)

[Camcas]

I love your posts 🌻

[Liz]

Lovely to see Wool Warehouse - can you persuade them to put pics of the mini blankets on their website with the blanket packs?

[PennyL]

What a lovely blogpost. 😊 Thank you.xx

[Cate]

What a lovely spontaneous day out you had with Little B. Everything about it sounds perfect. Raising readers is one of the best things about parenting in my opinion. So sweet of him to insist you buy something nice for yourself.