A Cappuccino at Last! some Sea Pebbles and a Blast Beach Walk

Thank you for the lovely comments about my Mothers cushion cover  in my previous post, I must say it does look rather nice in the conservatory almost as if it was meant to be there.

What lovely weather we have had this week, yesterday my daughter and I took advantage of the beautiful sunshine and went in search of a cappuccino, of course none of the cafes are open yet but one of them was selling coffee to go, we had to queue at a window, give our order and pay, than we were given a collection number and had to wait  at another window until it was ready, what a difference! usually this cafe is packed but it's heartwarming to see how they have managed to adapt their business to keep it going.

We walked down to the beach where it was lovely to see people enjoying the sunshine but all being careful to keep a safe distance, a much different story in other parts of England at the moment.

My first cappuccino in 3 months!

A couple of weeks ago I visited a very different beach, this one is just a couple of miles south, it's a blast beach so called because of the blast furnaces that used to be active when the coal mines were still open, this part of the coast used to have some of the biggest coal mines in Europe along with other industries all spilling their waste into the sea, it was also used as a dumping ground for other mines in the area and as a result suffered some of the worst pollution in the world....

It must have been a huge undertaking to clean the beach up which is said to have been buried under 2.5 million tones of colliery waste every year but thankfully since the 1990 the beach has been rejuvenated and is now a haven for wildlife.

 I wasn't sure how to get down to the beach but a friend who knew the area well came along for the walk. It was pretty steep going I can tell you and if I had been on my own I would have never have found these steps  as they are way off the beaten track

Look at all those steps I've come down and I'm only half way there! 

Lots of beautiful wildflowers to be seen on the way down

The whole atmosphere is rather strange, it was deserted when I was there it's not exactly a place that you would want to spend a great deal of time in. In fact it's so eerie this beach was used as the surface of the planet for the film Alien three.

There at the back you can see evidence of the red and yellow oxide-coloured pools, they look very strange but I kept my distance, I didn't want to get too close.

It is lovely to see this lush growth made possible because of the rain water which collects like a lake at the base of the cliffs.

And after walking long the full stretch of the beach I was told that we had to climb up this cliff to get back to the top!

That was quite a work out! I could hardly breathe I was panting so much when I got to the top. 😂

I really enjoyed seeing yet another part of this lovely little Town that I've moved to and getting to know it's fascinating history. The sources for my information can be found here and here if you would like to read more.

We have sea pebbles a plenty on our beaches and I have taken a few to play with, I have painted them in bright colours and plan to paint numbers and letters of the alphabet on them for my grandson Mikey to play with he's fascinated with colours, numbers, shapes and letters at the moment, so I'm hoping he'll enjoy playing with them when he visits.

Have a great weekend everyone 😊

Look What I Found!

It's fourteen years since my Mum passed away, when I was clearing her things after she died there were a few bits and pieces that I didn't know what to do with they were too precious to throw away or to pass onto a charity so I just stored them away. Well it's been a long time and I have even moved house since then but just recently I have been going through my linens and fabric stash looking for something that would be suitable for making face masks and I came across this...

I knew that my Mother had said she liked to embroider but I had never seen any evidence of her work until I found this after she died, at that time I hadn't a clue what to do with it because it was unfinished, so obviously I had just packed it away amongst my stuff until it was revealed to me once more just recently.

It's only now that I am developing more of an interest into embroidery myself that can I really appreciate her work.  I sat staring at the beautiful neat stitching it must have taken her ages to get this far and wondered why she hadn't finished it? She had a heart operation back in 1979 and the blood supply was accidentally cut off to her arm which caused  some damage and I know after that it would have been difficult for her to sew so finely so this must have been started way before then.  Or perhaps like most of us we get tired of a project and push it away and there it remains until we ourselves pass on and our daughters find it and are faced with the same dilemma that I was, what do I do with this? Perhaps a lesson to be learnt here.🤔

Funnily enough now it's not a dilemma at all, it was obvious really I had to finish it and display my Mothers beautiful work.

My stitching leaves a lot to be desired compared to hers but I think it looks ok I was careful to sew it differently as there was no way I could replicate her work.  I wonder what she's thinking as she looks down and see's the cushion displayed in the conservatory, on the chairs that were her conservatory chairs probably something like "it's about time you got that finished!" After all the cushion cover has been more than forty years in the making, but better later than never.😊 

Can you see Jeremy he's always in the background looking on.

Have a great weekend 😘


See all the great parties I will be linking to at the foot of my blog.

Meet Laurence a Yummy cake and a Strange flower

When I saw the Crochet Llama-no-drama advertised as a stitch along I fell in love.  I'm not usually fond of amigurumi because it's tedious and fiddly but who could resist this cute Llama and as a bonus it has video tutorials, I'm great fan of Mikey from The Crochet Crowd  so I was quite literally hooked on the idea.

I had a home for him too he was to be placed in the Library's Easter raffle along with other lovely makes from the Library knitting and crochet group, the proceeds were to go to the local air ambulance service.

I followed the stitch along but was rather slow compared to others, some of the participants not only completed their Llama's way ahead of the finish line but had made more than one, I could see beautifully completed llama's all over the Facebook page when I hadn't even started on the legs!

Anyway it didn't really matter I had him all finished in plenty of time but then Lock-down happened and the Library's were closed.  So I have Laurence here with me until things get back to normal again.  I have grown quite attached to him and will be quite sad when he eventually leaves home but I won't think of that just yet.

You can find all details about the Llama No-Drama here the video's are still available and take it from me, making him is really worth the effort.

I made this yummy chocolate cake yesterday....

Never Fail Chocolate Cake

1¼ cup SR Flour
1 tsp bicarbonate soda
½ cup cocoa
125 grams softened butter
¾ cup caster sugar
pinch salt
2 eggs
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

Cream the butter and sugar,  in a seperate bowl sift all dry ingredients together, beat wet ingredients together in another bowl  then add alternatively to creamed mixture. Beat well then place in a 23 cm cake tin and bake for 180°C for 50 minutes 

When the cake has cooled top with melted chocolate or chocolate icing,  sprinkle pieces of broken chocolate over the top.  The cake is delicious sandwiched with fresh cream for a special occasion.

The picture on the mug says it all really a whole cake for just me!😂 Can you see Jeremy in the background?

Unfortunately the weather has been awful this past week so  I haven't been in my garden much but look! 

I think it looks very strange, this Cordyline flowered for the first time last year 

I didn't think it would flower again so soon but this year it has only one flowering spike last year it had two.  The flowers have a very distinctive smell not that pleasant and quite overpowering you can smell their scent all over the garden but the bees love them.

Have a great weekend 😘😘


See all the great parties I will be linking to in my right side bar.

Baby Blankets and Camera Frustration

Sometimes you make something that is so pretty you want to show the whole world, it's maybe nothing ground breaking or particularly spectacular, but something that fills you with warmth when you see it touch it and feel it. 

Trying to share what you see in real life can be so frustrating, trying to get the perfect shot that encapsulates the whole package is practically impossible at least it is for me.

I now that these are just simple baby blankets but I want you to see the colours as I see them and feel the softness of the yarn as I feel it.

 I have taken photo's in the shade and in the sunlight, with my camera, my phone and my iPad but none of them tells the true story, I have edited changed hues and fiddled with all of the controls until I could quite literally scream.  

 Each picture is a different shade but it's the same yarn, take my word for it it's very pretty.  Taken out of my stash I bought this yarn from Aldi several years ago, I wish I had bought more because I haven't seen it since then. 

The crochet blanket above is the Little Treasure Baby Blanket it took 200 grams of yarn and you can find the pattern here

This Blanket is just a simple garter stitch C2C easily knit up in a couple of nights. 

Both are preemie blankets measuring 24"x 24" and will be sent to N.H.A.P 

On anther note I was so pleased to see some rainfall yesterday because my poor garden needed it, when I moved house three years ago I managed to rescue a couple of my roses, it really saddens to think of all the beauties I left behind, I did take some cuttings but sadly they didn't take.  This is one I managed to rescue.....

Princess of Wales, the first rose of the Season 😍

Have a great weekend 😘😘

See all the great parties I will be linking with in my right side bar.