My Autumn List 2011

Autumn has arrived.  I can't help but like this time of the year for many reasons really.  I will post more about that another time.  For now here is what I have for my Autumn List 2011.

1. Go Conkering (although I think I may have missed this one already, we shall see)

2. Hear Leave Crunching Underfoot During A Country Walk

3. Have A Bonfire With Toasted Marshmallows

4. Watch Some Fireworks

5. Enjoy A Hot Chocolate Outside

6. Discover Someplace New (I enjoyed this one before so thought I'd make it a regular thing)

7. Learn Something New (Same as above)

8. Fly A Kite ( I didn't manage this one last season but thought I'd give it another try during Autumn)

9. Join A Group (Same as above)

I am going to try documenting my achievements better with this one. I will write Summer down as a warm up, let's face it, we didn't really get a summer and I think I had started it too late in the season, I have no excuses this time. 

~ Gem x

The Lakes, Beatrix Potter & Waterfalls

OK, so I couldn't keep away from you guys, blogging has become an addiction.  I've stayed at James' tonight to get my photos off his laptop, I will apologise now, there are quite a lot of them.  

As you all know a couple of weeks ago I spent a week in the Lake District.  It is so picturesque and I constantly had my camera out.  I managed to get some lovely photos.

There were so many gorgeous houses.  I often found myself sighing and thinking how I would love to live somewhere like this.  I could never get sick of the views.  It is just so peaceful.

One thing I really wanted to do while we were there was to visit Hilltop which was the home of Beatrix Potter and a place she spent a lot of time writing her story's.  I did thin there would be more reference to her books within the house which was not the case but I still managed to get some nice photos of the village and the gardens around the house.

Another great day we had was that spent walking up Aira Force which is a gorgeous waterfall near Ulswater.  The walk to the top took us about half an hour and it was so worth it.

Well done if you are still with me, I promise I will no longer bore you with any more my holiday snaps.  This week has done me the world of good, although now after returning back to everyday life I could do with another holiday, if only everyday was like a holiday, now that would be the life hey.

~ Gem x

Just Another Manic Monday

Evening Ladies (or Morning, Afternoon, depending what time you are reading this).  I was hoping to be posting more about my trip to the Lake District after transferring all my photos from James' laptop back onto my memory card over the weekend.  Well after a weekend of doing not much really, I somehow managed to forget to do this, until I was on the train to work this morning by that time it wasn't much good remembering really.  I was so annoyed with myself.

My mind seems to be all over the place at the moment, I'm not entirely sure why.  There were a few other things I was wanting to share with you, like my Autumn list which I have done, this has also been left at James'.  It is so frustrating.

Work has been mega, mega busy the past few weeks, whether this is contributing to my frazzled brain, or just the fact that my life is split between two house, my home and James' home I'm not entirely sure.  However as I now don't have what I planned to blog about this week I thought I would have a little week off to catch up with everything and get myself organised. 

I will be posting on Friday with my Photo Scavenger Hunt for September so I will see you all then.

Have a great week

Love Gem xxxx

York

Last Friday myself and James decided we would make a visit to York on the way home from the Lake District.  We thought we may as well while we were up that way, it would be a shame to miss it, plus it would break the journey up a little as well. 

Neither of us had been to York before so it was nice to discover some-place new.  That is definitely something I can now safely cross off my summer list.  

We arrived around 1pm and checked into our hotel then headed out in to the city to see the sights.

Of course you couldn't visit York without a visit to the Minster.

The stained glass windows were huge, they really were very pretty, I could just imagine it in there on a bright and sunny day, I bet it looks beautiful with all that colour flooding in.  

James decided we would take a trip up the Minster Tower.  Why? I really have no idea.  He is afraid of heights and I don't always do too great in small, confined and cramped spaces for long periods of time.  You can imagine that this to me didn't sound like it was going to be a huge highlight in my life, but I am always one for an experience so for a reason still unbeknown to me, agreed. 

The stair case awaited us.

Half way up we got a little rest, this was James' favourite part, we had to walk across part of what seemed like the roof to get to the next tower ha ha.

Me being me, stopped to take some photos, what did he expect?  Me to to be offering support after making me climb all those stairs!  We were still only half way!!!!

 By the time we finally reached the top.  273 steps later, the view was pretty good, although not the best I have seen before, and if I had of known exactly what I was going to see I certainly wouldn't have climbed all those bloody stairs.

And as we all know, what goes up must come down.  

 My legs honestly felt like lead after that.  

We then decided to head back to the hotel to get ready to go out again for dinner later that evening.  Well I got back to the hotel crashed out and had an afternoon nap, ah it was bliss.

We had a delicious Indian for dinner and then a visit back to the Minster to see it all lit up.  Very pretty, well when there are no stairs involved.

Saturday was a much more relaxed day.  We walked back into the city centre, today along the old walls that form around the centre. 

The day was spent walking the streets, in and out of the shops with their old fashioned shop fronts.  I could get used to shopping like this. 

We also made a visit to one of the many food stalls as it was the York food and drink festival.  We thought it would be nice to get some fresh food in for Sunday dinner.  We ended up bringing home everything we needed and couldn't resist this. 

Purple Cauliflower.

Dinner tasted great.  I am so lucky, James is a fab cook.  Look at all that colour, and it tasted delicious too.

What a great way to end a great week

~ Gem x

The Lake District

Where has this week gone?  I can't believe it is almost Thursday already.  It's strange, the hours of each day seem to be dragging, yet the days themselves are flying by.     

I spent last week in the Lake District.  Boy is it pretty up there, every where you turn there are green hills to be seen for miles, it reminded me a lot of driving through Ireland.  All the little villages are so quaint, and so peaceful, it was lovely. 

We made a visit to Aira Force which is a big waterfall that you can walk right up to the top of.  I'll share another post next week on this.

There was a money tree there.  Basically the whole of this tree trunk has had coins bashed into it.  I have never seen anything like this before, it was great.  And of course I had to put my own coin in too.  

This is a close up shot of the tree.  Apparently people have been doing this now for 15 years.  That's a lot of coins.

The drives out were never boring, there was always a view to be admired, although I did get travel sick on more then one occasion.

We were constantly stopping by the road side to take photos like these.  It would be rude not to make the most of a view like this.  This is what I dream of, being able to look at this every day *sigh*.

I will leave it there for today, but I will be sharing more about the trip next week.

~ Gem x

I'm Featuring On A Guest Post

Hello wonderful people, 

Today you will find me over at Gemma's place (that sounds a bit strange as I am Gemma, but I'm sure you get what I mean).  I am featuring on a guest post for her today so pop along for today's post at Musing's Of A Gem. 

Thanks ladies, hope you are all having a great day,

Love Gem xxxx

A Good Weekend.

Thank you for all your lovely comments on yesterday's post, it is much appreciated.  I love receiving comments and take great time and pleasure in reading each and every single one of them.  

I had booked a day's holiday for Friday just gone, so my weekend kicked off from Thursday evening where I was hoping to cross off one of my To Do's on my Summer List.  For a while now I have been interested in joining a group, to be more specific the WI.  I found details of a group and went along to their meeting.  The ladies were all so lovely, polite and friendly and very welcoming but I couldn't help but feel a little disappointed and out of place.  They didn't really have any care as such for crafts which was one of my main reasons for wanting to join and secondly I felt very young.  A lot of my friends are older then me anyway, and if I am honest I wasn't expecting anyone of my own age, but upon enquiring I had told then my age and in response was told their members are of a range of different ages (yeah from 65-80 maybe!)  Never mind I can say I have tried it.  I have been in contact and have since found details of some other WI groups near me so hopefully I shall have better luck next time. 

I still had a 3 day weekend ahead of me so I packed up my things and drove round to James' to pick him up, we had a weekend of camping planned.  We were staying on the same campsite we camped at earlier in the year except this time we were roughing it in our own tent.  The campsite is great and you have the option of camping in the forest or in a field, we opted for the forest, you can go anywhere and camp in a field!  Location wise is perfect, it is in Pett, which is not far from Hastings, Rye or Battle so you are spoilt for choice really.  The photo above was taken just around the corner from the campsite, I'm so pleased with it.  I just love the light streaming through the trees.

Friday night I managed to cross the first thing off my list.  Star Gazing.  It was beautiful, it was as if someone had thrown a bucket load of glitter across the sky, I don't think I have ever seen so many stars.  To top it off we also saw 2 yes 2 shooting stars, I was so excited I have never seen one before so I was so impressed to see 2.

Saturday I crossed the second thing off my list.  Learn Something New.  Ann who owns the campsite and farm taught me how to spin wool.  We had been talking the last time we visited about knitting, so bless her, she saved a fleece from one of her sheep and we set to work in one of the barns.  We had started off in her vegetable garden, which is looking beautiful in full bloom, but it was just too hot.

 

It was a great experience, I doubt it is something I would be doing again anytime soon (way too difficult for me to do alone) but it is easy to get the gist of what needs to be done, not so easy putting it in to practise and having to concentrate on more then one thing at a time though.  While I was spinning James was picking hops.  He spotted wild hops growing on our last visit and they kindly allowed him to pick them so he could make a brew from them.  This was not even half of them.  He was picking for hours.

It was a great weekend and we got to spend some good quality time together, which is the main thing. 

If anyone is interested in the campsite you can check out the website here.  Perfect location in a peaceful, idyllic location.  Ann and Tim are wonderful and welcoming people, they work on the farm and have cattle, sheep, chickens and stables with lots of horses.  Great toilet and shower facilities and if you don't feel like camping in your own tent, why not stay in their tipi or yurt?  They are both fully furnished all you would need to take with you are your own clothes and food.  If you do book up tell them that Gemma sent you.

Thanks for reading,

~ Gem x