Starting with a night in York...

Hello

Well, I think it is just a quick round up for this blog post. 

Half term has been and gone. We offered daughter a choice of activities/short breaks but 

she chose a staycation - for her at least. Husband and I had a night in York while she had 

friends (all female!) round for a sleepover. 

Husband and I travelled by train to York, my favourite mode of travel, offering the 

chance  for a coffee, a read of my book and a few rows knitted on my socks. 

We have visited York several times but this was the first occasion in a long time for us to 

visit without children, an indication of how our life is changing as the children grow up. 

We felt in need of exercise and despite the rather grey skies and occasional 

shower of rain we decided to shun the museums and just walk. 

And we walked the city walls - something I have not done before but the walk took 

us through some interesting parts of the city and the heights of the wall gave a slightly 

different perspective of the city too. 

On the way home from York we stopped in Sheffield and had lunch with 2 sons and one girlfriend. The meal wasn't great but the company was fantastic which is the main thing isn't it? 

I didn't take lots of photos while away as I just wanted to walk and enjoy a wind down. 

York was a bit of a welcome break from this.....

Umm.... stripping wallpaper from the hall, stairs and landing. We haven't decorated these 

rooms since we moved in 15 years ago - we always knew it would be a big job and so 

kept postponing it but we decided we could do this no more!!

Underneath we have revealed a variety of paints and I quite like the rustic look we have

on some parts of the wall. What do you think? I have tried to persuade the family that 

maybe we don't need to decorate, we can leave the walls like this but I'm not sure they 

are so convinced!!

And please don't expect a "ta-dah" revealing a beautifully decorated halls, stairs and 

landing any day soon - it all needs a lot of preparation so this is definitely 

a slow-burn project. 

(The picture is one I cross stitched years ago for younger son.)

The weather has been bright recently here in the Midlands and I have made the 

most of it in between stripping!

  

These photos were taken on a now-regular walk of mine round the wood at the 

back of our house and across to the science park. 

I have made a few of these recently - yes toss-in-fruitcake, mainly for daughter. These are

 so easy to make. As the name suggests you literally toss everything in a bowl and mix! 

A friend recently gave us a typewriter.

Only a few weeks ago I had mentioned in passing how I thought daughter would like one. 

It was very kind of her to remember my words when she found one in the back of a 

wardrobe while having a sort out. Daughter thinks "it is sick!" and has even been typing 

up her physics notes.

 The rhythmic sound of the keys tapping, the ping of the bell as the feed roller 

passes the margin and the sliding back of the feed roller is almost musical. 

We have been watching more ladies football matches. Brrr, it was cold yesterday but boy

 was it a nail biting cup match. Sadly our local team lost 2-1 in extra time. But the crowd of approximately 100 was testament to how far the team have come this year.

And the chilliness continued this morning, a very sharp frost with a hazy sun filtering

 through the mist gave the hill behind our house a  warm glow. 

So nothing very exciting to report. Just a round up of recent events. 

Has the sun been shining for your recently?

Do you feel like spring is on its way?

Wishing you a good week

xXx

PS. Thank you for the lovely comments on my socks in my last post!

A walk in the woods

Hello,

I am stripping very old wall paper from our hall today. I am really quite ashamed of our 

hall. We have lived in the house 15 years and we have yet to decorate the hall. 

Sadly, the hall looked pretty shabby when we moved in, badly applied wallpaper, which 

overlapped in places and painted a dirty beige. Over the years we have even stuck photos 

and Christmas decorations up using blue tac which then took away some of the paper 

when we tried to remove them!! So you can imagine how bad it looks.

Anyway, this morning while stripping paper the sun just kept calling me to go outside, 

to go outside and enjoy the bright day. So that is what I did!

We live in a town in  the Midlands: our house is almost at the top of a hill. 

The hedge at the bottom of our garden marks the boundary for the town. 

This is the view of our back garden (goals, rebound nets and washing lines included!). 

My destination was the wood at the top of the picture. You can just make out a greenish
path working its way diagonally across the field from bottom left.

 So I'll take you with me on my walk into the wood.

This area will be a carpet of blue once the bluebells are in bloom. 

I'm pretty sure this tree must be home to some of the woodpeckers we see in the garden 

(green and lesser spotted). They are such shy birds. 

For some reason we always walk round this wood anti-clockwise, 

today we 'branched out' and walked it clockwise! 

We can't be accused of not being adventurous!

Reminders that we are not far from urban life. 

A short diversion into the science park. 

I must come back when the daffodils are in bloom.

What a super place to sit in the summer at lunchtime and contemplate...

Back into the woods. 

The sight of this tree brings back memories of the children and how they used to love to climb on it and make the horizontal branches wobble.  

Tiny homes for tiny woodland folk.  

We are very lucky to have such a beautiful wood so close to explore and enjoy.

And for completeness, here is the view from the front of the house. 

We can see right across the roof tops of town to the countryside beyond. 

It always feels like we live in a house which has its front in town 

and its back in the country!

I hope you enjoyed that short walk, making the most 

of the winter sun and our local wood. 

Wishing you an enjoyable weekend.

Has it been sunny with you too? 

xXx