Bits and Bobs

Greetings! It's been a while since I popped on here - as made very evident to me by the number of photos on my camera! R is away for a couple of days on business and I had been looking forward to nipping into town today to pay a visit to the library. Sadly, I'm full of a cold, the weather is pretty grim and I can't seem to drag myself away from my lemsip and hot water bottle. Instead, I thought I might do a little update on the last couple of months. There have been days out aplenty, a few crafty projects, visits to see L and E, a couple of plays and numerous walks - not all of which I captured on camera.

I'm going to tax my fevered brain by trying to remember where all the pictures were taken - I've already failed at rotating some of them, so apologies in advance. Here goes:

Attending a bee keeping workshop at Shaw House. We have no intention of keeping bees, it just seemed like an interesting topic ..... and it was free!

R finding a rather large caterpillar on the fuchsia. I failed to identify it, so all suggestions are welcome. We did put him back on the bush afterwards!

L and her partner V came for the August Bank Holiday weekend. We attended the 'Altered States' sculpture exhibition. This one named 'The General' (or was it 'The Colonel'?) was my favourite.

We also saw The Lord Chamberlain's Men perform 'Hamlet' at the Great Coxwell Tithe Barn. It was excellent, although very cold - extra blankets had to be brought from the car during the interval!

A walk in the Savernake Forest. I haven't included the photo of R stood by the 'Big Belly Oak'. I may have positioned him carefully and edited the sign somewhat! :O)

It has been about 8 years since I made a crochet blanket and I felt the urge. It's only cheap Stylecraft acrylic yarn (which is hardwearing and washes brilliantly) in autumnal colours and was inspired by Sarah's Prague blanket shown here . 

Another excellent play at the New Era Theatre:

A trip to the Southern Wool Show at Newbury Racecourse - I said that there were a few that needed rotating! I was very frugal, just buying some mini skeins and a notions pouch showing photos of old Hammer House of Horror films. I kept going back and picking it up, so in the end I bought it!

Winding up some yarn that L and V brought me back from Skye on their Scotland holiday. I haven't actually cast on the socks yet as I've been busy with a few Christmas presents.

A heron in the garden. He (or she?) is often down by the river when I pop to water the greenhouse:

A trip to Oxford to meet L. We spent a happy morning exploring the botanical garden before enjoying a delicious lunch at the Vaults and Garden, then taking a tour round the Ashmolean:

A Japanese tea room in the museum. One day I'd like to visit Japan and experience the real thing.

Finishing a charity shop jigsaw of Gold Hill in Shaftesbury:

A trip to the Watermill to see this. It was brilliant and the actor playing Bertie had obviously watched the film as he sounded just like Colin Firth - no bad thing!

A Sockhead Cowl for L using some yarn that I bought on our trip to Cumbria earlier in the year:

Being inspired by Barbara Hepworth!

A trip to Hinton Ampner:

Harvesting some of my veggies. Only 1 pumpkin managed to survive the attention of the slugs - it's been a rotten growing year.

This is actually a photo of an online photo of Bristol Museum, just to remind me. I went there to see my friend S and forgot to take my camera. It was a lovely day. We started off in the Flour House Cafe (they do a very nice vegan sausage on a GF bun!), then explored the museum at length. Lunch was a falafel bowl in the museum cafe - sadly, the falafel were a tad carbonised. Needless to say, being English I smiled politely and said that they were lovely!

Afterwards I went to E's new house for the evening. If you know Bristol at all, imagine the colourful houses up on the hillside. Her house is near there, adjacent to the steepest residential street in England. I parked and crossed my fingers that my handbrake would be up to the task! We had a lovely catch up and went for a walk in a beautiful old cemetery.

I had a mad 'spring' clean of the bookshelves in the hall and discovered a walk book that we haven't used in a while. We packed a picnic and did the Ecchinswell walk on a beautiful autumn day. It has rained a lot since then!

I dragged R along to a sound bath at Shaw House. It was only £5 per person and very relaxing. He enjoyed it and even managed to stay awake - I think he was concerned about snoring!

A trip to London to see L. I took a photo of the pub which Dickens used to frequent, only because R used to work near here and raved about it. Unfortunately, it wasn't open for another hour, so I wasn't able to have a nosy!

Our destination was The Globe to see 'The Taming of the Shrew'. Sadly, it was dreadful and we were very disappointed. Some people even left early. There were a few understudy substitutions but that wasn't the issue. It was set in a children's playroom and the actors entered the stage through a disembowelled teddy bear. There were puppets galore and it was all just a little too silly for our liking. I read the reviews when I got home and they weren't exactly glowing! 

Lunch at Wagamama's was lovely though!

As was coffee and a vegan GF brownie at Cafe Nero overlooking The Golden Hind:

Finally, a trip to Coughton Court near Stratford -upon-Avon to meet my friend, C. We had had to postpone once, owing to bad weather, but we struck lucky second time around.

Well, that's all for this month. I'm off to have a spot of lunch and then, if the rain stops, I might consider that trip to the library. I hope everything is tickety boo in your corner.

Toodle pip for now. x