I am currently in England with the Little Postcards and today, while at the Dunham Massey National Trust property, I happened upon this rather distinguished pair.
I’m joining with Nana Cathy and Wild Daffodil for this weekly photo challenge throughout 2017.
Hello there, you may be forgiven for thinking that this week’s Sunday Sevens is rather reminiscent of last week’s. For the second week in a row I climbed aboard a plane and flew out of Gibraltar to visit family in England. I normally go at least 6 months between such trips but happy circumstances meant I was able to make a quick return visit to the North West of England.
Summer’s here!
Last Sunday was a bit of a scorcher – summer has definitely arrived here in Gibraltar. We went for our first dip of the season in the pool. My latest Sixty Million Trebles blanket came with me too.
World Environment Day
Monday was World Environment Day, and Gibraltar put on a series of stalls in Commonwealth Park to highlight the work being done by the various environmental organisations, governmental and charity. The TV cameras were down there filming while we were passing through.
Here we go again!
Tuesday evening saw me heading back onto the tarmac to catch a plane to Manchester. A long awaited solo trip back to see my parents without children…. bliss (although I did miss them a little bit 😉).
Cheshire & crochet
Wednesday was beautifully sunny and we headed off into Cheshire, which is pretty close to where I was brought up. I just love the wide open green spaces – so different to what we are used to seeing each day in Gibraltar.
We called into my new favourite wool shop: Black Sheep Wools. My goodness the yarn, the colours, the inspiration… I could spend all day and a fortune in here! I love it.
I added to my stash and even convinced my Mum into dusting off her knitting needles and buying a pattern to make herself something. I don’t think she has knitted since my eldest (now a teenager) was very little, I do hope she enjoys her new project.
So here’s my stash, which includes a very nice surprise of a belated birthday gift (pink & white Sugar n’ Cream yarn and my first ever Caron Cake) and my missing April edition of Little Box of Crochet which I was able to collect thanks to the lovely Emma at Little Box of Crochet.
Homeward bound
All too soon it was time for me to board another plane to take me back to Gibraltar and my boys. Bye bye Cheshire countryside!
It was only the next day that I discovered I had had a very close call. The plane I was travelling on and the next departure to Malaga were the last two allowed to takeoff from Manchester before the airport was evacuated because of a suspect package. It was two hours before planes took off again. As far as I’m aware no one was harmed thankfully, just a lot of waiting around for passengers and staff.
En route to Gibraltar I carried on working on my Sixty Million Trebles blanket, it’s working up really fast. Very quickly I could spy the Rock out of my window!
Calentita!
Yesterday the 11th annual Calentita Food Festival came to Casemates Square. It’s got to be 6 years since we last attended due to small children. We had a nice evening and ate some interesting food. I will share some more photos very soon…
Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series created by Natalie from the Threads and Bobbins blog.
Wowzers that’s been quite a week. A trip back home to England for my brother’s wedding and lots of other stuff too since we returned. In some ways it feels like longer than seven days…. (oh and there’s more than seven photos again this week!)
Flying back to Manchester
So on Sunday last week, we all boarded a plane to England. As we sat on the runway waiting to take off I had a clear view out of the plane window towards the Rock of Gibraltar. While we prepared to depart, I thought ‘I wonder if I could record the takeoff ok my phone?’ So I did.
A couple of days later, I thought, ‘I wonder if I should upload this to Facebook?’ So I did.
It kind of went a bit crazy after that and so far the video has been watched over 8 and a half thousand times…. wow!
Here’s a screen shot of our bird’s eye view of Gibraltar taken from the film. If you would like to see it yourself, you can find it on my Facebook page (just search Postcard from Gibraltar) and it’s also on Instagram (search Postcard from Gibraltar).
Manchester
Manchester was still deeply affected by the terrible events of the week before when we arrived. On Sunday as we drove from the airport to my parents’ house I spotted a long queue snaking out of a shop. It was a tattoo parlour. The penny dropped after a moment or two. These were people queuing up to get tattoos of bees in memory of the people who died in the bombing and in return for a donation to the fund to support the survivors.
I took this photo at the same shop 24 hours later, on bank holiday Monday- they were still coming.
(Tragically as I publish this, we are seeing news pictures coming from London, where another terrorist incident has taken place. So sad. My thoughts are with all those affected and the wonderful emergency services who put their lives on the line for our benefit.)
We also went shopping to the Trafford Centre, which was unusually quiet and with several high profile armed police patrolling the place.
Nuptials
On Tuesday there was a very special wedding. My lovely brother wed his long term girlfriend and all round superwoman in front of family and close friends. It was such a lovely day and a happy time which we will reminisce about for decades I’m sure.
(For those of you who have been reading Sunday Sevens for a while – I’m afraid I didn’t finish my skirt to wear for the wedding, my head was turned by a fabulous dress in a shop window so I wore that instead).
Homeward bound
All too quickly our time in England was over, it was mid term in England but not for us in Gibraltar and the Little Postcards had to miss a day or two of school to attend the wedding, so we headed home on Wednesday. The Cheshire countryside was like a luscious green patchwork quilt below us as we rose into the sky from Manchester.
As we flew along the southern Spanish coast, Gibraltar with its cloudy Levanter hat appeared into view…
We landed in the same direction as we had taken off and got a great view on our way in.
Lunch with a friend
On Thursday, once the Little Postcards were ensconced back in school I met up with a crafty friend. She’s a very talented lady who can turn her hand to crochet, watercolour and felting amongst other things. She showed me this, her lovely crochet blanket made up of oddments of leftover yarn. Isn’t it gorgeous?
This lovely lady has promised to teach me how to felt myself … I’ll keep you posted on that!
Out of the blue
On Friday, out of the blue, I got a phone call as I was dashing out of the front door. Normally I would just leave it so I wasn’t late, but I felt compelled to pick it up. I’m glad I did. It was one of my neighbours from about 15 years ago when we lived in West Yorkshire, and she was in Gibraltar!
She and her husband had gone to the Costa del Sol on holiday on a bus (from Yorkshire), stopping 3 times on the way, and then took a day trip to Gibraltar. When she arrived on the Rock, she looked for a phone book to find my number and had just caught me in!
I dashed down to meet them as I had just an hour spare before needed to collect the children from school, and took them for a whistle stop tour of Gibraltar in our car. They did the full loop of the Rock, seeing our home, the boys’ schools and ending up at Europa Point.
They had wanted to see Africa, but sadly, the sea mist didn’t play ball and they couldn’t see it at all. They did see the lighthouse resplendent in scaffolding, having a bit of a spruce up though!
We then travelled along the eastern side of the Rock and saw the beaches before dropping them back in town. It was such an unexpected treat to see them, and made me so glad I still send real cards and letters at Christmas time or they wouldn’t have known my address.
Pomp and ceremony
Yesterday I popped into town for a quick spot of shopping and found myself in the midst of a Ceremonial Guard Mount at the Convent. The Governor was there (on the left in white presenting the bunch of keys to the Royal Gibraltar Regiment) along with the mayor, representatives of the Gibraltar Government, along with other dignitaries.
It was quite a sight to see and the tourists were lapping it up. It just goes to show that there’s never a dull moment here in Gibraltar!
Thank you so much if you have made it all the way to the bitter end, it’s been a very lengthy edition of Sunday Sevens this week! However you have spent this week I hope it has been a good one for you, and if you are one of my new followers on Facebook, thank you for joining me!
Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series created by Natalie at Threads & Bobbins.
Last Saturday, we made our now traditional annual trip to Marbury Park in Cheshire for a picnic and woodland walk. I’m a huge fan of the Cheshire countryside, having grown up nearby and enjoyed many trips into the lush green countryside as a child.
Now, every summer when I come over to visit my parents, we make the trip to Marbury on a dry and hopefully sunny day for a chance to wander through the woods, look at nature and for the Little Postcards to collect many sticks.
Marbury Park is part of the Northwich Woodlands so there are loads of beautiful trees to enjoy, from baby fruit trees planted near the ranger’s office to mature beech, oak and birches. It really is a fantastic place for a wander and even though we visited on a Saturday it wasn’t too busy.
The park path takes you through the woods to the edge of Budworth Mere, a home for much wildlife.
We stood and watched the ducks and coots paddling about and other birds further out diving down into the water for food.
This swan family with two cygnets were lovely to see.
Another tradition of ours is to try to stick coins into this tree stump on our walk. There have been quite a few Gibraltar coppers sunk into this over the years, yet there never seem to be many there….
The woodland walk eventually joins the banks of a canal before opening up into fields and then looping back to the starting point.
This lovely bright butterfly was enjoying the nettles as we past. Despite many warnings, two of the Little Postcards got stung and dock leaves needed to be found to deal with the casualties.
After a picnic lunch in a nice grassy area close to the car park (which we had to ourselves for most of the time) and several games of football, we got back into the car and headed homewards via the picturesque village of Great Budworth, who’s church we saw from afar across the Mere.
You see those stocks in front of the church? Sadly there was only room to put two of the Little Postcards in them and not all three! 😉
Throughout the village was a Scarecrow Trail. We had a go at finding some of them ourselves.
Would you like to see some of the scarecrows? Clearly an awful lot of thought and effort had gone into making them all.
Of course, you can’t have a birthday party without the guest of honour…
This building is so lovely, it even has hearts built into the brickwork!
What a great use for a disused phone box: a book crossing point.
After the excitement of the scarecrow trail, it was time to head to our last destination, Great Budworth Ice Cream Farm…
There was such a great choice of flavours, but I had to go for my all time favourite; chocolate. 🙂
It tasted as good as it looks.
And here are the lovely ladies we need to thank for that fantastic ice cream… moo!
If you want to read about our trip to Marbury Park and the ice cream farm last summer, click on this link: Daisy chains, buttercups & damsel flies I promise that I took different photos this year even if a a few look very similar 😉
Hello there! Sunday Sevens this week is actually more like Sunday Elevens – I couldn’t decide which photos to choose! I put a few extra in, well it’s the summer holidays…
Operation : school uniform
Last Sunday morning saw us up and out early to get school uniform bought ready for September. I was determined to get the vast majority of it sorted early on in the holidays so I don’t need to think of it again until we’re back home and it’s time to sew all the name tags in. Off we headed to the Trafford Centre nice and early to beat the crowds, only to discover we were at least an hour early for some of the shops opening and nearly two hours early for others! I don’t think I’ve seen it so empty before…
Clothes tend to be a lot cheaper to buy in the UK because you either have to pay a lot for shipping on Internet purchases or the shops there charge a bit more because they’ve had to pay to ship the stuff out themselves. When I have to buy a lot of stuff in one go, like school shirts, jumpers & trousers it’s a lot cheaper to get the stuff in England. I just need to fit it all in the suitcases now!!
A trip to see friends
Monday morning meant a dash to the station to get the train down to Berkshire to visit some very good friends of ours. They used to live in Gibraltar but have relocated back to England because of work. It was so nice to be able to catch up with them and for the children of the two families to get back together again. They have remained great pals despite the distance and length of time between visits. We went out for an early evening stroll in a park near their home and we all enjoyed our first taste of an English woodland walk for this holiday.
A day trip
We had a fantastic spur of the moment trip to Legoland in Windsor on Tuesday. It was our first ever visit but our friends had been before and guided us around the place. It was brilliant, the models appealed to me more than the rides and the Star Wars section was just amazing. Big and little kids had a great day!
I couldn’t decide which photos to choose for this part of Sunday Sevens this week, so I have included a few more Legoland photos…
Look at all the little Lego people enjoying the Queen’s 90th birthday party in the Mall!:
Having grown up in a household where both Lego and Star Wars featured prominently, this Lego Minellium Falcon (yes you read that right – that’s what my brother and I called it as children and a couple of the Little Postcards call it to this day) was fantastic – it even lifted off the ground!
I loved this tunnel with the X-wing fighters flying along the ceiling…
And finally – that’s the Mona Lisa made of Lego bricks… I’ll just leave that with you 🙂
Blue skies over Manchester
We got the train back up to Manchester on Wednesday and were greeted by this beautiful sky. We had left rain and cloudy skies down south.
I seem to spend a lot of time defending Manchester’s weather to friends and family (who live elsewhere). I know it has a tendency to rain occasionally but it doesn’t rain ALL THE TIME, despite what some folk may say – here’s the proof!!
Parking…
I had a chuckle to myself when I saw this. Those of you who are familiar with Gibraltar will know that the sight of an empty motorcycle parking area is never ever seen! My Gibraltar friends with motorbikes can only dream of an empty parking space like this!!
Holiday games
The old scrabble set’s been dusted off this week and games have been played in the evening. I happened to pull these four letters out of the bag after putting down a particularly good few words (or so I thought). I came last…
Blue
On a walk out in the countryside of north Cheshire yesterday I spotted this stunningly blue hydrangea bush. Blue is my favourite colour and I thought this was just stunning!!!
Sunday Sevens is a weekly blog series created by Natalie at the Threads & Bobbins blog. It should feature seven photos from the last seven days – although that wasn’t the case for me this week! If you want more details about it, pop over to Natalie’s blog to find out more.
2015 was the year I took the plunge and decided to have a go at blogging. For several years I have followed blogs including Attic24, The Patchwork Heart, Bunny Mummy and Just Pootling and I have admired the beautiful photography, their ways with words and their beautiful crafts. A couple of years ago I decided I had a long way to go before attempting my own blog but set myself the challenge of taking a photo each day and writing a bit about it. Obviously on some days (like holidays, trips out & special occasions) it’s incredibly easy to snap away and you’re spoiled for choice, on others you are forced to think hard and be a bit creative about what the daily photo might be. This turned out to be good practice for my blog posts, especially Sunday Sevens.
Convent Garden, Gibraltar June 2015
Since I gave up (paid) work on the arrival of my first child, I have struggled to find something to entertain my brain, I’ve dabbled in crafts & craft fairs, done a bit of voluntary work and tried and failed to get a job which can work around my main job as a Mum.
July 2015 (Manchester, Cheshire, Berkshire)
Recently, I guess my friends have picked up on my need to stimulate my brain and a few have independently suggested I try blogging (I hadn’t told them that I had previously considered and discounted it). I guess the planets came into alignment as when the most recent suggestion was made, I thought ‘why not?’ and set off on my Postcard from Gibraltar journey. In order to protect my boys from future ridicule, I decided to keep my blog anonymous for now.
August 2015 (Algarve & Gibraltar)
And so my Postcard from Gibraltar adventure began in June, hence the review of only half a year! We are very fortunate to live in a vibrant and interesting place, so there is never a shortage of things for me to write about, I also now have an outlet to talk about my various crafty fascinations of crochet, watercolour and sewing (friends and family heave a huge sigh of relief).
September 2015 (Gibraltar)
I have thoroughly enjoyed it so far, I am thrilled when I look back at my old posts and see photos of things we have done and seen as a family, it’s almost like an online journal or photo album (both are things I have started many times but failed to complete).
October 2015 (Gibraltar)
I have met some really supportive and kind people through the magic of the blogosphere and found inspiration for future projects and positive criticism for my own crafty endeavours. I used to think I was just a frustrated crafter who never had the time to create the things I want. While I admit I still get a bit frustrated at times as there are so many ideas in my head of what I want to do, but looking back at the makes I have documented I can see that I do churn out quite a bit as it is!
November 2015 (crafts)
Away from the world of the internet, blogging has also helped me build some networks in real life here in Gibraltar. There are some very talented people residing on this great Rock and I am pleased to have met some more of them during the past six months.
November 2015 (Gibraltar & Marbella)
I won’t ramble on any more, but will leave you with my thanks for taking the time to stop by and read my blog, I’ve had a great time with it so far and very much look forward to what 2016 holds. Happy New Year!
December 2015 (Gibraltar)
We’ve had a great time today doing something I like to do every summer. We drove out into the stunning Cheshire countryside and visited the lovely Marbury Park. There’s wide open green spaces for a picnic and a kick about with a football and a beautiful woodland walk.
It’s so nice to be able to share some of the things I previously took for granted with my boys. We don’t get daisies in Gibraltar, nor do we get buttercups. They had never heard of a daisy chain before today – let alone seen one, and as for shining a buttercup under your chin to check whether you like butter? They had no idea such scientific tests were possible!
I have to warn you that I adore trees, and green leaves…. There are quite a few photos of trees coming up!
Our woodland walk took us through the mature Northwich Woodlands to the edge of Budworth Mere (below).
It was quite a nature trail we were on, seeing rabbits and squirrels (including a fast-moving white squirrel which I was too slow to get a photo of). By the water’s edge, on a stretch of greenery was a mass of damsel flies. Their blue bodies stood out brightly against the green leaves.
I took so many pictures of the beautiful things we saw, trying to store them away, so that I can remember them when we get back home to Gibraltar. The foxgloves were so pretty.
Now it’s time for my green tree appreciation bit… I just LOVE trees!
And I love ferns!
Get a load of those leaves with the sunlight shining through them!
On the edge of Marbury Park is the Trent and Mersey Canal. It was looking a little murky today but there were a couple of lovely narrow boats moored further along looking pretty.
Along with the delights of daisy chains and buttercups, my boys were introduced to the delights of ‘sticky willy’ on our woodland adventure today. I spent much of the walk adorned with bits of it stuck to my clothing – much to the delight of the smaller members of the party. I got a few weird looks from passers-by!
After our walk, the best reward for small people with tired legs has to be ice cream. Where better to get one than an ice cream farm?
A short drive from Marbury Park is the Great Budworth Ice Cream Farm. It tasted as good as it looks! We were even able to see the cows responsible for providing the cream and say thank you!
For more information about Marbury Country Park & the Great Budworth Ice Cream Farm, click on these links:
Northwich Woodlands
Great Budworth ice cream farm
