Treats from Heather

This is a really delayed blog writing and post - sorry Heather!

It was actually at my Dad's birthday party back in May that I saw an old family friend who I have not seen for a really long time. She's one of those people though that you can not see for years - it literally has been as the last time I saw her was, I think at my wedding which was almost 6 years ago now - but you can still pick up where you left off as if no time has been spent in between.

She is also amazing with all of the things that she makes. I think this might be where I have got a lot of my crafty-ness from. I spent a lot of time, during school holidays etc around at Heathers house making things when I was a kid. There would always be something new to make each time I saw her and she would always have a new toy!

When I saw her a couple of months ago she came bearing gifts! Exciting considering it wasn't my birthday and yes, I did check, they were definitely intended for me rather than Dad.

My first prezzy was in this little red bag.

I wasn't sure what it was to start with but when you look through it, all becomes clear...

It's a kaleidoscope! And how pretty is it too?! Heather has carved the cream surround herself on her lathe. I haven't looked through one of these for years too - this one has little multi-coloured beads inside and is really really pretty when you look through it.

My other prezzy was this.

I think that this has to be the nicest and prettiest pen that I have ever owned. It's really heavy and feels dead nice and posh to write with it. If I'm honest, I never really thought that I would have a "favourite" or a "good" or "nice" pen. I just never really thought that I was a posh pen kind of person - I know some people love their parkers or whatever but I've just never really been into that kind of thing. I have to say though - this might have changed my mind. It is really special.

Here's a bit of a closer look:

It's so colourful and pretty!

I love the material that Heather has used to make it - again turned on her lathe - and the best thing. It's called Heather!

Thank you very much to a very special friend and I hope, even though I am now that bit older and don't need babysitting during the school holidays, we can have another crafty day at some time again soon. There will be hundreds of new toys that you've got and I would love to have a play with since I last saw you!

Hold on to those special people in your lives folks - if you have some friends that you've not spoken to for a while - now is the perfect time to pick up that phone and to make that call to them just to say hello. If they're a really good friend then you won't even notice that the pair of you haven't spoken for a while.

A complete collection

So in my last blog post I was talking about collecting things. I was talking about collecting memories really more than anything last time - things that provided reminders of trips away and of things that I have done.

The collection that I am talking about today is a little bit different as it's something that can actually be completed.

I am not sure how many of you have collected things before, when you were a kid - I know I did. I tried to collect the full set of Tazos (I'm not even sure if that's how you spelt it!) and had the collectors book and everything for those. Do you remember them - I think they were out of crisp packets or something and were little cardboard disks basically with pictures on. I know that I never got anywhere near collecting them all though. With all of these collectable things there always seems to be some of the items that are "rare" and are really hard to get hold of. I think they were always shiny ones or something like that in the Tazos. Those that had a kind of glittery, sparkly picture on them.

Oooh - as I'm writing this I'm thinking of other things as well. They were almost the same as Tazos but around the same time there were also Pog's. I don't know if there was ever even a complete list anywhere of all of those. I'm sure there were millions of them. I don't even know if there was a collector book for them either.

So the collectable of the year, at least for me anyway, has been Lego cards. They are little cards, each with a picture of a different lego mini-figure on them. There are 140 in total and have been a big craze to try to get them all.

There is a collector book that you can put them all in - and I have to say that it is a lot more sensible than I remember them being in the past. I'm sure you used to have to stick in other collections like this - when the boys used to collect football cards and things, I'm sure that they were stickers that you had to peel back and stick into the book. This book is really good - it has little slits in the corners where you are supposed to put the cards in so all you have to do is to slot the corners through the holes to keep them in. They can then also be easily removed then if you ever wanted and it doesn't detract in any way from the collection if you stick them in a bit wonky or anything.

The other thing that I love about this collection, is that it essentially is FREE to collect the cards! This is really good for me and my husband - I know it would be really difficult to restrain ourselves from buying more and more packets if we were close to completing our collection. I can't imagine how bad this kind of thing would be if you had kids collecting.

We were very lucky in that Adam's Aunty Sarah actually works for Sainsbury's and was able to get the book for us (and a few cards!) to help us along the way to getting our set, but also we have a Sainsbury's very locally to us that we use fairly often so we have been able to get a lot of cards from doing our shopping there too.

We saved up a number of cards until we got the book and knew what we were aiming for so here is the first grand opening of the packets to start off the filling of our book

We ended up with a number of swaps as we were trying to collect the full set. There were a lot of packets that we got that had the same cards in as we already had got in our book.

This is when you end up starting what feels like a new language. Both me and my husband have been asking our mates (most of who have been collecting the cards for their kids I have to admit!) if they have any swaps for us. We would be sending messages such as "we need 23, 67, 129, 135 and 140, which do you need?" It's all complete gobildy gook really but I guess as long as we understand what we mean then that's all that matters.

It's been, I guess, a couple of months now since we started collecting these and I am pleased to say (probably a bit too pleased!) that we have now got a full set!

The book is looking considerably fatter than when we first got it!

We have quite a few spares as well from where we have opened packets and there were some in there that we already had. This isn't even all of them as we have given a lot away - one of my friends has just started collecting them (for her kid - or at least so she says) so I gave her one set of all of the ones that we had the other day.

I know it is pretty ridiculous but I have got a big sense of accomplishment from completing a collection.

Can you all let me know what you collect? Have you ever got a complete set of anything? Or are you collecting something where there will never be an end to it?

Holiday diary postcards

Again I have been really poorly organised again and haven't managed to blog for a while. I have quite a few things lined up to tell you about but as I haven't written about them in the right order, the people that know what happened and when will know that some things are pretty delayed. Sorry about this but at least I will hopefully get there eventually and they shouldn't really loose meaning by being late getting to you.

One that is the most recent thing to happen really is our little break away last weekend. I thought I may as well tell you about this one first as it is most relevant.

We had a really lovely time away in one of our favourite places in the world and this time we got to share it with some fantastic people as well. We went up to Yorkshire again with Adam's aunt and uncle.

We have been thinking for a while about what we might be able to collect from our travels. We know that some people collect pin badges and others collect magnets but this all seems a little predictable.

We haven't really come up with a proper idea of what we may be able to get and keep yet - perhaps fabric patches... although not everywhere sells these.

What I have seen people do before though is to collect postcards from places that they have stayed. This means that you can write a little bit of a diary entry on each one for each day that you are away and then you also have a nice record of what happened on each trip as well.

Not perfect as far as collections come in so we are still thinking on this one - any suggestions are welcome! - but for now I like this idea of keeping the diary on postcards for each trip.

You all know that I keep my bullet journal anyway as a record of some nice occasions but this seems a nicer way of keeping the special parts of our lives that little bit separate and making them that bit more special than the everyday.

Ok - enough of me waffling - here goes.

In total we were away 3 full days so I had to have 3 postcards. I got one from the place that we stayed - I'm only not sharing all of the details of this as it's so special to us we don't want everyone to end up going there as well! We got one from Whitby with the lifeboat on it as while we were there we went on a little boat trip just out of the bay on the old lifeboat. It was a little bumpy as we went out to sea but we had a good laugh on it and it just gives another perspective to see Whitby from. Lastly, we pretty much just stayed around the pub and cottage that we were staying in for a couple of days and I couldn't get 2 of the same postcards so I turned a picture that I drew (or at least started to draw) while we were away into a postcard. I drew the sheep from a photo that I took - I never got far enough to add the grass so it looks a bit like it's legs have vanished somewhere but I was quite pleased with it overall. I backed it with some dark green card and stuck another cream page on the back to write on so that I could document one of the days on this.

Here's a bit of a close up of the sheep. I am really quite pleased with it. I found it quite hard to do as I was doing it on cream card and didn't have hundreds of colours to use. I love my set of pencils that I have though. This one had a spot of blue on its back to identify it, hence the blue splodge on it's back. The thing I found difficult was identifying where the sheep ended and the background began as the photo I had made the sheep look so similar in colour to the cream paper.

Postcards are a good size to document a day on - a couple of these I managed to even include some small items that we collected on our travels too. The day in Whitby we had fish and chips for lunch so I added a chip fork down the middle of the card. On the back of the sheepy card that I made, the day we just stayed close to the cottage and went for a walk, I included a little amount of sheep wool that we found along the path. We also had a ride on the steam train this day too so I added one of our tickets and also the little dog ticket that we had to get for Thomas who came with Adam's Aunt and Uncle. There is space to include just enough info for each day. It stops me waffling on for too long but gives enough space to make a good record of what happened on each day.

I made my own postcard as a title sheet for the front of the pack, plaited some embroidery thread to tie all of the cards together and attached the train tickets from when we went on the steam train to the thread to display them on the front of the pack.

I hope you all liked the walkthrough of the way that I have documented my trip. I think that this is something that I will keep doing - it could cost me a fortune in postcards! - although it would always be easier if we were doing a trip where you travelled around a lot rather than one based in the same location. As long as we end up going out somewhere every day (or at least most days) then this should work quite well though.

Have any of you got any holidays planned in the next few months? Do you have anything that you like to collect while you're away as a memory? Even if you are not going away anywhere this summer then make sure you enjoy your time at home and make the most of this lovely weather that we've been having. It's almost the weekend folks! Have a good one.

Ice bar

I'm trying to gradually get back on track with this blogging thing so here's another for you. A bit of a delay on this one as well, as this is from the end of April.

Another trip we did while we were away was another thing for me to tick off my 30 before 30 list. A trip to an ice bar!

It was incorporated into a trip around the town of Bergen which was the first stop on our cruise. There was a stop after all of the sightseeing for a visit to the ice bar called "Magic Ice"

It was just as good as I had thought it would be. Colder maybe, although I never dreamt that I would be going into one of these places when it was quite so warm outside (20+ degrees!) We weren't wearing massively warm clothes as we went in - the best I could manage to do was to put my hoodie back on instead of going in the vest top that was as much as I had needed to be wearing when I was outside.

We did also get given on the way in, these fetching poncho's. They were huge and really toasty. They definitely did a good job of keeping us warm for the time that we were in there. I think we only had around half an hour in the actual bar but even with these on, towards the end we were starting to feel ever so slightly chilly.

Some of the ice carvings were really impressive. Very intricate, although there did seem to be an abundance of naked ladies included in the artwork around the place!

 This little block was pretty cool, especially if you shone light through it.

Perhaps the best of all was that the actual glasses that we got our drink in, were made of ice too. They were little ice cones inside a plastic glass so that you could actually hold it without getting too stuck to it. They gave us gloves to wear but even with these on, and the other glass for protection, you could still feel the icy glass through them.

You had to be careful where you put the glasses down as all of the surfaces were so slippy. You could only put them down if it was on one of the little rubber mats that were scattered along the bar and on a couple of the tables.

There was this giant throne to sit in. We were pleased that they put sheepskin rugs on everything where you might have wanted to sit down!

Possibly my favourite of the carvings was this one - the scream!

It was really good fun in there but as I said before, it was really quite cold, I'm not sure I would have wanted this guy's job. I think I'll stick to working in my snowy freezer and making sure I move around a lot while I'm in there.

All of the bar and shelves were even made of ice, it was really impressive. You can see the little ice glasses here on the top shelf, the little cones. I'm not sure how well these would go through a dish washer! Maybe a one use thing, do we think?

It was a really good trip and as I said before, I'm really pleased I have ticked this off of my 30 before 30 list.

Sea Kayaking - the real deal!

Well the holiday was incredible - just so much fun and on the ship you were just made to feel like the most important person in the world, regardless of which drinks package you had and even if (like us!) we didn't have a room with our own personal butler!

One of the best parts of the trip has to have been my sea kayaking trip - mostly because it's something I have wanted to do for so long but also, the weather was just incredible. It was unbelievable weather for the whole trip really. We went to Norway and it was really warm to the point of laying on sunbeds in our swim suits, sunbathing and even getting burnt. I know that that isn't too tricky for me really with the colour of my skin but given that you assume it will be really cold when you go to Norway (it was supposed to be!) we didn't think to take any sun cream or anything sensible. We were lucky really that we had taken shorts for the gym otherwise we would have melted.

Anyway, back to the kayaking trip. I didn't really get any photos of me getting ready or anything as the others all went off at the same time to do their own thing - a bus trip around the town with a stop at an aquarium on the way around. There is this one though which was taken by my hubby through the bus window.

I am somewhere in there in the middle of the group of people.

They were all double boats when I turned up which I was quite pleased about really, especially as I was lucky enough to get in the boat with the group leader who was obviously a really good paddler. It meant that we were always the lead boat so we got to see everything first and it meant that I got some good clear shots on my GoPro of the scenery too rather than of the back of other people paddling their boats. I was also incredibly lucky to have been able to go in the front of the boat, not only for the photo opportunitites (not just getting shots of someone's back the whole time) but also there is a rudder on these bigger boats that you have to control with your feet in the back to keep the boat straight. I think it was really a lot harder than everyone else made it look. I found it hard enough to keep paddling and just do my bit to help us keep going while I didn't have my foot rests in the boat adjusted quite right. One of them kept slipping away from me when I tried to use it.

As we were all getting loaded into our kayak's (me and the guide getting in first) we set off out into the water and started to gather everyone up around us.

Ooh - as we had been lucky enough to have great weather for the rest of the trip, this day was no exception. The temperature was in the early twenties and it was bright sunshine. With the reflection from the water the sun was really strong so I thought it was a really good thing that the kayaking company handed out suncream before we went out onto the water and suggested we use it. I covered my face and ears quite well and I was pleased, it was really needed!

Once we were all loaded in, we set off towards the first little island just off the coast, away from our ship that we started by.

Once around the first little island, we turned to face the mountains. Look at some of those views! Incredible. If I could have chosen for my first sea kayaking experience to be anywhere I don't think that you could have picked a much better place really.

And we did have a bit of time to chill out on the way around. Is this not like a classic sea kayaking photo that people post on the internet. This is what everyone imagines when they think of sea kayaking.

We stopped at various points on our way around where the other leader man who was in a boat of his own told us the history of the place and of Norway in general. It was really interesting at the time (and a nice break from paddling for a bit!) but I couldn't tell you anything that he said now.

Then we set off paddling back. I'm not sure how far we went in total but we were out for the full 3 hours that the trip was supposed to last.

One last little stop to look at the fish in a little quiet spot between two tiny islands and that was it, we were heading back towards the ship and back to the mainland to get out of the boat and to let our arms recover!

My technique definitely wasn't great on this trip as my arms were killing by the time we set off back. I had that shakey arm thing going on with the first drink I tried to lift to my mouth as I got back to the ship.

I would definitely love to go on another trip like this, however I'm not sure that a little lake in this country would really do anything for me anymore. I have been too spoilt with my first trip being such a pretty one.


This was also another tick on my 30 before 30 list. I have been wanting to go sea kayaking for ages. I'm really pleased that I can finally say that I have done it. Not sure what I would have done in an individual boat - I was grateful for the opportunities I had to take a rest every so often with the guide in my boat.