Birthday Weekend Photos

A little late but here they are...

{A walk in the woods.}
{The beautiful garden.}
{A barbeque.}


It was a perfect way to spend my birthday weekend.

A Splash of Colour

{From a walk in the park the other day.}

Sunshine Saturday

Waffles for breakfast. A long walk.

{Huge mossy tree stump.}
{Bluebells and tree stump.}
{Bluebell stem.}
{Padlock on gate post.}
{Cherry tree blossom.}
{Twisty branch silohetted against the sky.}
{Flowers by the river.}
Back home for phone calls to family. Snuggling on the sofa all evening.

Four Days

We had a lovely weekend with my parents and sisters. The two extra days made it feel like a proper holiday - golf, tea, chocolate, church, Doctor Who, chats in our pyjamas, murder mysteries, computer games - and these highlights...

We had fun at home:

{Croissants and pain au chocolat, board games, birthday cake and craft.}
We walked around the garden:

{Flowers.}
We went out for a birthday lunch:

{Cheesecake, duck salad, creme brulee, fish and chips, sea view, lamb shank.}
We visited a ruined castle:

{Castle fun.}

Devon Heaven

We just spent a lovely long weekend in Devon, and had some beautiful sunshine, which meant lots and lots of photo taking. So here are some of my highlights of the weekend...


The sunrise on Saturday morning.


We went for a long walk along the coast. The hills were pretty steep but once you got to the top, the views were amazing. I love how the iron in the soil not only makes the cliffs look red, but the shallow water near their base looks pink.


Over the years, people have carved all sorts of names, dates, pictures and messages into the soft rock of the cliff. The earliest one we spotted was from 1946. This area is called the Jurassic coast, because the rocks and fossils found date it back that far.


There is so much history here, and I love that you can see the marks that people have made on the coastline too. I guess it could be called vandalism, but to me it looked much more like art.

Our cottage was a converted barn, and so lovely for two people. We had a kitchen with an aga (which was lovely to stand by when you got back from a chilly walk), a big living room on the second floor, and up a small flight of stairs from that was the bedroom with stargazing windows. It was so fun to lie in bed and let your eyes adjust to the darkness, gradually watching the stars appear. My favourite area though was this little nook, which came off the living room and faced over the valley.


On Sunday morning we took our breakfast there to eat, and it was just perfect, watching the birds swoop over the hills, with the sun streaming in the windows whilst eating croissants and drinking tea.


It was a perfect, beautiful weekend - and although it was just four days, it was so relaxing, and readied us both for some busy weeks to come.

Sunday Sunrise

Too beautiful not to share. All credit for this goes to T who woke up early enough to see it, and then woke me up to share.

A Happy List

~ A weekend with my parents and sisters starting tonight. ~

~ Wearing boots and jeans. ~

~ Lunchtime walks and eating outside, even when it's cold. ~

~ Christmas shopping and planning. ~


~ Black and white. ~

Autumn Camping

This weekend was our home group's camping trip. It felt longer than a weekend somehow, maybe because we crammed so many different things into the weekend. I was so happy that it didn't rain. It was cold though, very cold. It's all about layers. And eating plenty. We definitely ate plenty. The only slight downside was that it took about half an hour to heat the water for tea and hot chocolate. But apart from that - the food was good...



Despite the cold, autumn is a lovely time of year for camping. Crunchy leaves and cool air. We were surrounded by beautiful autumn colour. Birds flying south, a grasshopper visitor and a butterfly. Nature is truly lovely.


It was a lovely weekend.



That said, I enjoyed my warm soft bed last night. And my cup of tea.

Laid Back Weekend

We made pizza for dinner last night. You put the ingredients for the dough in the breadmaker and 45 minutes later you get...


We usually spread it with tomato puree mixed with BBQ sauce. We added bacon, peppers, mushrooms, mozarella and cheddar.


Yum yum.



Today is a laid back Saturday in our house. T got up to do some work and I slept in until he brought me a cup of tea.


We got up late and had cooked breakfast while we listened to the cricket on the radio. He's a big cricket fan. I'm learning to like it.


We just walked up to the university to get some books T needs for his thesis corrections.

(Slightly Belated) Picture Post

Sunset from our guest room window this week.

(Belated) Picture Post

A Village With Bunting

We went away this weekend to visit some friends from university. It always seems strange to me when we go away to see uni people because we still live in our university town. Anyway. It was lovely. Close your eyes and picture an english country village. It was just like that.

There was a picturesque church.


There was a bakery...


...with a farm shop.


There was even bunting around the cricket green.


We had a lovely Saturday with them. We wandered around the village, packed a picnic and then went off to the national arboretum. I didn't even know there was a national arboretum. (Or what arboretum meant. It means tree collection. Now we all know.)


It was very pretty.


We walked, chatted, ate our picnic and had ice cream. Then we went back to the pretty village, played a game and drank tea. The boys went to watch the cricket on the green, and we stayed at the house (drank more tea) and talked even more. We were cooked a lovely dinner. We were very well looked after.

Sunshine, food and friends are the perfect combination.

Picture Post

I took this as I walked through the church graveyard after playgroup one day this week. I love that colours work beautifully together in nature when if we tried to put them together the result would be hideous.

Outside World

My final piece of Kreativity!

Much as I love many indoor things (reading, blogging, cooking, sleeping) sometimes it's good just to get outside. Whether it's a stroll down the road to Tescos, a walk in the park, or just lying in the sun, being outside has such a big impact on me.

I like the varied weather we have here in England - a few months ago it was snowy, five days ago it poured with rain, and today I see glorious sunshine out of my window.

I like taking indoor things outside - having a picnic or eating fish and chips on the beach gives a meal time a completely different feel. Being outside is more romantic, carefree and relaxed.

Today we're hoping to go geocaching. T has some minor corrections to make to his thesis before he makes the final submission, and he's been up since about 7:15am working on it. We also plan to go and buy some "gardening supplies" - pots and soil. As we don't actually have a garden, our green-fingeredness is going into pot plants at the moment. A strawberry plant we were given at Easter is sending out runners so I want to give them something to grow into.

The sunshine is streaming through the leaves of the trees outside. Can't wait to get out there. Have a good weekend everyone!