Swimming with seals

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Sutton on Sea

Actually, it was swimming with 1 seal, but still it made me smile. Whilst on my jollydays at the seaside and after 2 mornings of lying in bed trying to psyche myself up for a swim before breakfast, I managed to overcome the little voice that said "Nah, it's too cold in the sea.....do it tomorrow" and settled into a routine of morning swims. Every morning I had the sea to myself so was considerably surprised when I glimpsed a head out of the corner of my eye, and when I jumped up to get a good look at it over the waves I could see it was a seal looking at me as I was looking back. It dipped below the sea and resurfaced a little further away and of course I said "Hello" and waved (as you do). It made me giggle for ages.

It was a most relaxing holiday with hexagon sewing in the sun whilst listening to Harry Potter punctuated by cycling along the promenade, visits to the nature reserve and playing with photography. The nature reserve generally seems devoid of birds (we don't call binoculars "bird scarers" for nothing), but I contented myself with picking (and eating) bilberries. 

For a couple of days we cycled as far as we could along the promenade and surprisingly we managed about 3 miles before the path turned into a sand dune. Over the years we have seen the sea defences change from being concrete steps up to the promenade, to big boulders (in places), and then to 'beach nourishment' which is essentially pumping a load of dredged sand onto the beach to form a big bank of sand up to the promenade. This is repeated every year to replace sand washed away by the tides, but now the sand is becoming increasingly populated with dune grass and sea holly. Sand dunes are on their way back! It is still really strange to see so much sand and grass on the beach after years of concrete steps, wooden groynes and sometimes squishy mud flats. Another thing which still surprises me is the sight of all the wind turbines out to sea which seem to be steadily marching nearer to 'our' beach. 

Bike week and National picnic week and 30 days wild

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The long planned family bike ride actually took place during Bike Week. We even had a picnic in National picnic week and we cycled at Carsington reservoir with all it's abundance of bird life during 30 Days Wild. How unexpectedly co-ordinated that turned out to be as it was planned weeks ago. There was even had a break in the dreadful weather of the last week and it was dry if a little overcast. We had a lovely day. The funniest thing is that I still have bike chain oil on my calves, as was pointed out at my nephews baby's christening today :)

#30dayswild Saltfleetby and Theddlethorpe Dunes Nature Reserve

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We are not very good at identifying wildlife - birds, butterflies, wildflowers are all pretty much a mystery to us. We don't let it put us off though and we are getting better at it and it doesn't stop us from appreciating the pretty and peaceful nature reserves. This time it is the turn of Theddlethorpe dunes nature reserve on the east coast in Lincolnshire.

Norwich Cathedral

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During our recent holiday to Suffolk the (mostly) dreadful weather forced us to spend a day in Norwich. Obviously we really went there to see the cathedral, but as we parked in the John Lewis car park it would have been rude not to go in and buy something :). We did make it to the cathedral though and it really is very impressive, both in it's architecture and age. This year we have visited two of England's ancient cathedrals; Canterbury and Norwich. It would be difficult to pick out a favourite as both were equally interesting days out; in Canterbury we were unexpectedly entertained by a young choir from America and in Norwich we managed to tag onto a tour of the cathedral which was very nicely done and very informative.

Sewing day

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Nottingham Patchwork Group sewing day

Today has been a lovely, relaxing sewing day in the company of nice people making nice things. A glow of niceness is surrounding me. It has also been a productive day as I'm making the most of these sewing Sundays to makes some finishes to things started a long time ago. This time, I'm working on a quilt top that I completed at least 2.5 years ago. It's a scrap quilt who's mission was to use some left over blocks from another quilt, so these form the centre of the quilt. The rest of it is made from a load of half square triangle blocks that I made from piles of scrap 5" squares bought at Nottingham Patchwork Group. This part was an experiment for me in scrap quilting - ie making a load of disparate squares of fabric which just don't go together at all, to look absolutely fantastic and beautifully coordinated. I was really pleased with the result, especially the way that the colours transition around the quilt as I laid it out to colour blend from reds and greens, to blues and then browns, and so on. The only trouble was that when I had finished I just wasn't keen on the centre blocks compared to the outer scrap blocks. The passage of time works wonders though, because now I really like it. I must have just looked at it so much before that I got quilt fatigue. Anyway, today's objective was to layer up the quilt with the backing fabric and the wadding, first cutting the backing fabric and joining it together to fit. I was a bit frugal when I bought the backing fabric and it was only just big enough so hopefully I've got it centred properly. I thought it would take all day to do that, but it only took the morning. It was really nice to be able to do it on tables rather than lots of grovelling around on the floor, which has been my usual modus operandi. After lunch I started the quilting and since I'm quilting it simply I think I should be able to finish it the next time I have a sewing Sunday. Mind you, my next sewing Sunday is a workshop so I will end up with yet another thing to finish - you start some, you finish some :)

Yet more holiday

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I've had a few days off during the February half term holiday and been able to spend some time just doing stuff; some baking, some chilling, some walking.......and I've had some new binoculars. Admittedly, these are for my birthday, even though it's not my birthday for ages, but well, I needed them now whilst I was on holiday. Anyway, this is how we spent our holiday at home:-

Eating

I've been trying to eat more greens and have been experimenting with adding spinach to, well, almost everything. A very colourful breakfast ensued with green sourdough pancakes (with spinach) and purple smoothies with blackberries, banana, avacado, yoghurt and coconut water. It was quite a substantial breakfast and so needed a walk to work it off. I should probably say that the pancakes did taste much nicer than they looked.

Walking 

A spell of nice weather (and a huge breakfast) meant that we needed to be out and about so we went to Crich for a short but glorious walk. We parked near the purple dot below and set off along The Tors which is a ridge with a great view over Crich and Amber Valley to one side and views over the hills towards Matlock and Crich memorial on the other side. The main objective of the walk was to investigate some building works at Ambergate reservoir (marked 'Resr' on the map). The underground reservoir was built 100 years ago and was in need of rebuilding and extending, although we didn't know all this until we reached it. We skirted around the reservoir,  and up through Bilberry wood, climbing up the steepest bit of hill to get back onto The Tors and into Crich. It wasn't a long walk, but it certainly gave the lungs some exercise.

Bird Watching

We are not very good at bird watching, in fact binoculars are usually called 'bird scarers' in our house. This does not put us off from watching the birds if we can find any. In our quest to try out the new binoculars, we made a visit to a nearby reservoir at Ogston. Disappointingly, there doesn't seem to be much access to the reservoir unless you are a member of the bird club, so we zoomed up to Carsington reservoir which is a much bigger (blooming huge) reservoir near Wirksworth with a visitor centre and loads of public bird hides.

Baking

A final baking extravaganza for Sunday family tea included a mixed seed sourdough loaf and a marzipan and mincemeat tea loaf. Plus of course, I've been waffling for Britain as described on a previous post.

Holiday in Kent

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It seems such a long time ago, but here are few photo's of our holly jollidays in Kent at New Year. We stayed in a lovely Grade II listed Elizabethan dower house which had huge fireplaces which were fantastic with roaring log fires burning. It also had some interesting topiary which included a row of dancing ladies (with big bosoms). We visited the beach at Botany Bay to see the chalk stacks and had a bracing walk along the beach and cliff top. We were near to Canterbury so spent a day wandering the shops after visiting the cathedral. Whilst at the cathedral we had an unexpected (and beautiful) choir recital from a young American choir.

One very wet day we went to Margate and visited the shell grotto. This is a small underground passageway covered in ornate shell mosaics. It's origin is unknown and the shells have lost their lustre but it is strangely quite beautiful. We also went to the Turner Contemporary gallery which is on the site where the painter JMW Turner stayed in a guest house. It was of course quite compulsory to have tea and cake.  I created my own contemporary art work from a photo taken of the sea from within the gallery. 

On New Year's day we went to Deal for a walk along the pier and a breath of fresh air. We also visited the Deal Time Ball Tower Museum which was quite fascinating and we all had a New Year's day free mulled wine to warm the cockles (which really did need warming by then).

Deal

Sun and mud

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Sunday morning and the sun is shining. Time to drop everything else and go for a quick walk - Christmas can wait.  We decided to go to the barns to do  a little circular route along the footpaths and down to the railway centre and then back up to the barns. It's a walk we've done a couple of times before but it was extremely muddy today and we were slipping and sliding all over the place. I was really glad it was just a short walk because it was really hard work underfoot and we were in serious danger of going arse over elbow (or at least I was) and  when we finally got home, the rain arrived and it was miserable again. It was a well timed and very welcome brief interlude from the mild and wet weather we have had for the last few weeks.