Sea, sand and sickness

So for a few years now we've been taking holidays with family down south, however this year we went North instead and headed towards Northumberland.  It's not far to drive just over an hour and the beaches there are wonderful. We were staying in a grand and beautiful holiday house, they have to be quite big as it's for Sue & Dave(Mother/Father-in-Law) and their dog Fox, Claire and Lee(Sister/Brother-in-Law), their children Ben and Josh and their dog Bonnie and myself, Stu, Maisie and Lucas.

We were staying within a short drive/long walk with children from Cresswell beach, a shell finders haven, and after a week of beautiful weather I was hopeful it would continue throughout the week. 

Well how wrong was I, and the week had more in store than a bit of dodgy weather.

I'll leave the highlights for other posts but a quick run down of the week is 

Friday:
arrive to lovely house settle in, weather nice.

Saturday:
Alnwick Castle (Harry Potter day), weather nice, Barter Books, Ben get sickness bug.

Sunday:
Holy Island, pleasant weather, long walk, Lucas gets sickness bug.

Monday:
Cragside, beautiful weather and amazing place, long walks, great bridge, play the hat game :-)

Tuesday:
Farm park outing, it bloody snows, came home to 12 hour power cut, drink a lot by candle light.

Wednesday:
Claire gets sickness bug, Meal at Tree house at Alnwick, get call from solicitor to say house sale can complete, Stu and I have to drive home remove furniture from house and post keys into estate agents. Goodbye house. I start throwing up on way back, sickness bug gets me.

Thursday:
Sunny :-) Bamburgh Castle (amazing), picnic, surreal telephone call in Castle to sale house sale is completed. Onto the beach, everything is lovely. Maisie get sickness bug.

Friday:
Pack up, Stu complains of tummy aches :-( bug comes home with us.

All in all a strange and yet wonderful holiday, and in the next few posts I'll explain why.

Hope you had a great half term holiday

Amanda.x.

Wordless Wednesday - January Joy

January Joy.

Out with the old...

And so I wave a welcome goodbye to 2009, not a completely bad year; I've made some amazing new (and mostly crafty) friends, seen my children grow far to quickly before my eyes , started my business, seen friends & family children grow strong, done craft fairs, and seen 3 friends start families too.

However I've also seen major illnesses, deaths, grief, job & money worries, friends & family suffering mental & physical illness, and the world itself suffering greatly through natural & man made problems.

All these things often keep me from my sleep at night and although I'd love to fix the worlds ill I cannot, and that is quite a realisation for me.

Instead I've made some goals for this year & if I accomplish these then I can ask no more from the year I'll be happy lady.

1. Make time to spend with my family doing nice things and staying in touch with my friends, above all housework & business.

2. Keep myself and family healthy.

3. Learn 3 new skills this year, not including the one below but hopefully knitting socks.

4. Learn to drive by September so I can take my daughter to school.

5. Complete at least 250 handmade item items, & document them here

(harder than to seems for a serial starter... I have a lot of WIP).

6. Learn to bake nice bread.

7. Get my website up and running.

8. Have my handmade items appear in 3 magazines, I know which ones I want too.

9. Learn to love the home I'm in rather than constantly thinking I'll sell it soon & not enjoying living in what is a perfectly acceptable house.

Well they are my goals for now, more may be added later but I'll work on these for now, and just to start here is our family enjoying a snow day sledging

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE.

Birthday Lampies Continued,

i took some pictures of my favourite beads.

the pink one reminds me of a glass light shade my Nanna had in her parlour, and the black circle set look just like an Andy Goldsworthy sculpture.