Heritage open days 2016

Last week the Heritage free open days took up a lot of our time, we love this time of year and to get the chance to visit some of our local Heritage sites is always very exciting. Day one started with two garden tours, the Bishop's beautiful garden is a favourite of ours and has many different plants from all over the world.

This year there was an added attraction for the children, the Bishop's cat! Well we assume it was the Bishop's cat as it came running from the house to greet us and insisted on giving us a tour of the woodland gardens.

The children love the wildflower maze and the large swing that hangs from a very old tree near the ruins. As these visits coincided with the anniversary of when we first met, my husband and I took some photos of us sitting on this swing as a memento of the many wonderful years we have spent together.

The garden has some quite quirky plants like a tree that oozes the smell of curry, and a vine with flowers that resemble snails and smells incredible. Did I mention the little cat?... best buddies, they spent ages together.

After lunch we went on to look around a gallery housed in an old Victorian skating rink with a unique and extremely vast collection of South Asian art and objects. Followed by a medieval church in which our children got the chance to try their hand at some brass rubbing.

Day two we visited two small museums, another church and an old shawl and clothing exhibition. The first Museum is in a centuries old merchants house with a 14th century under croft and very old herb garden. We got to try on costumes, play old games, learn to write in Tudor letters, complete a shakespeare quiz and make old puppets on sticks.

We finished the week on day three with a visit to the castle museum, the children got to watch and chat to some stone masons at work which was very interesting. My daughter made a crown and they both made a shield using the heraldry pictures to describe themselves.

We had a wonderful time visiting all these places and were extremely exhausted by the end of the week.

Goodbye Old Friend

 Yesterday we lost a dear, sweet old friend... our beautiful cat, taken quite suddenly due to an illness. It has been quite a shock as he was loved so much and he will be greatly missed by everyone.

Gone but never forgotten.... finally at peace and free from pain.... always in our hearts.
                             
                               Goodbye Greebo.... we will miss you.

Catnip Mouse

The children have been trying their hand at sewing again, spurred on by the arrival of my eldest daughter's new ginger kitten called pumpkin and our own very grumpy cat, who obviously needs a lot of cheering up. They have chosen to make some catnip mice, we have tried to keep the sewing to a minimum as the children are still very young and just learning to sew... you may remember their first sewing attempts earlier in the year, the gorgeous little felt hearts.

We first cut out our mouse shape, from scrap pieces of felt, using a heart shape cookie cutter as a stencil. This shape when folded in half seems to be the easiest way to make a mouse shape and we have used felt as it doesn't need hemming so it is easy for the children to sew with.

We have stitched along the edge using a back stitch with wool as this is thick enough for the children to see and handle easily. A gap was left at one end and the mouse was turned inside out ready for stuffing.

A mixture of stuffing was used, some white wadding and the dried catnip, this gives it a good shape as well as a good smell... if you are a cat! Then all that is needed is to sew up the opening, we decided to stitch a small piece of ribbon in the end as we were sewing it up to give the little mouse a tail.

Little crosses were stitched on for eyes... and these are the finished mice. It is also possible to add little ears but the children were happy with their mice without so we have left them. All ready for some cat play.

New Arrivals

We have wanted some chickens for a few years now and finally this week saw this dream come true when we welcomed three young chickens into our family and I thought I would introduce you to them here. My husband managed to build the coop from some new pallets he was given you can read about it here if you want to, he is currently making some minor adjustments to make the run area larger, although they will be spending some time free range in the garden.

This is a photograph my eldest daughter's boyfriend took of our girls just after they arrived, I think they are wondering what is going on and are just as curious about us as we are about them. Firstly I'll introduce you to my youngest daughter's favourite one, she has named her 'Ginger', she is an amber ranger and the smallest of the three.

Ginger

My eldest daughter and my son both like our largest chicken best, she is a bluebelle and my son has chosen to call her 'Zelda', she is quite bossy with the other chickens but a little shy with us.

Zelda

The last one is our speckledy hen, according to the children this one is mine to name so say hello to 'Dotty', she is the bravest one and was taking corn from our hands the very next day.

Dotty

We have only had them a couple of days and already they just seem to fit right in, the children appear to be new 'chicken experts' and my youngest daughter calls them 'her girls'. I will never forget the squeals of delight when she found that they would take corn from her hand and it was soon declared 'the best day ever'.

Dotty

They are point of lay chickens, which means they are young and haven't started laying eggs yet, we have a few weeks to wait until that happens, so there is enough time for us all to get to know each other better. Really cannot wait to see how excited the children are when the first egg arrives, much squealing I expect!

Here is our self appointed chicken guardian, although I suspect he is only here to sun himself as he did not look too impressed with the very large birds that are now at the bottom of the garden and has been keeping his distance. Well, that was our exciting news this week, will keep you posted when the first egg arrives.

A Little Vintage and The Cat Returns!

I haven't done a Magpie Monday post for a while and this is one with a slight difference, I have not had much time for shopping and have just been trying to buy things I really need or like. Firstly I found this tablecloth with lovely Autumnal colours for just 75p, the colours actually remind me of the ones used in some of the Clarice Cliff designs. The only tablecloths we have are the modern plastic ones which are very useful for messy crafts and some given to me by my Grandmother, which are too special for me to introduce to the children just yet, so this will come in useful. I am not sure whether to keep it as a tablecloth or use the fabric for something else but so far my daughter has been using it for picnics with her dolls.

Next is a couple of wooden cotton reels I found, I had to pay 50p for these but I do love the wooden ones and the colours are very pretty.  They are now taking pride of place on the top draw of my sewing basket.

I found this bowl or saucer for 25p, to be honest I really don't know what it is, but I liked the simple lines of it, maybe it was an under saucer for a plant pot?... I bought it for my cat, not for normal cat food but for the special treats he gets like a little tuna or chicken.

This bowl is now back in use after 4 months as my cat sadly went missing at the beginning of June, but I am pleased to announce he is now home, he just strolled right in like nothing was wrong the other day. We are all very surprised and happy to have him safe at home again.

Lastly for today I have a glass lemon squeezer my husband found for me for just 50p, we had an awful modern plastic one which did not work well and I really have no idea where it came from anyway. I love these glass ones, so easy to use and they catch the pips... I now have plenty of little volunteers for lemon squeezing.

This post is for the magpie Monday series hosted by missielizzie.