Another's Odd Week

I've been on leave again this week and, whilst the weather hasn't been as nice, it's been a busy little week all the same. We've made an effort to get out walking in some more interesting places and I've made a dent on my sewing and other crafts.

The #mindfulmarch photo challenge has been ticking away in the background and, 4 weeks in, I'm pleased I've managed to post each day. "Motivation" was probably my fav to set up, mostly because I think wristwarmers for dogs should be a thing, even if Missy isn't so sure!

We did a new walk this week, starting at the Falkirk Wheel and walking to the Kelpies and back again. Missy absolutely made some toddlers day at the Kelpies as, during her obligatory photo with the horses, I could hear delighted cries of "look at the doggy! It's having its picture taken!"

Whilst I'm pleased we did the 8 mile walk, I wouldn't particularly recommend it; unless back-of-industrial estate canal is your kind of walk. We had a weird one where we were stopped by a lady who's 7 month old Westie had been allowed off lead and wouldn't return to her. She'd been trying to catch him for an hour and was absolutely wind bunt and frozen to the bone. Hubby and I were more than happy to help, but I was honestly shocked tmby the number of folk who completely ignored her pleas for help. We did manage to corral the pup and, 30 minutes later, he was caught and back on the lead (I suspect permanently). 

Our other big walk was another 8 miles, doing a repeat of the Bo'ness to Blackness walk. We met with our friend who lives in Bo'ness and gave a puppy play date a go. Lily, like Missy, is an ex-rescue who likes other dogs but is totally over this bouncing on each other thing. She seemed delighted to meet another dog who was passively interested in her and they took turns to casually sniff the other before going on thier adventure.

Rescued from the roadside in Serbia, Lily is definitely part terrier and she was content to sniff everything and everyone. Both dogs trotted alongside each other for the bulk of the walk and seemed rather pleased about the arrangement, so I imagine more play dates will occur in the future. 

Pleased to report that both dogs are totally tuckered out in thier respective homes!

Sewing wise I've done rather well in squaring off odds and ends with projects and getting things tidied away. I'm particularly pleased with this baby quilt and matching tote I made for a friend who's expecting. There will be a matching cross stitch, but I have a few months still before that needs finishing!

Gender is unknown and being kept a surprise, so I kept it neutral with nice greys and a lovely mint green. I find Dumbo to be a neutral character too, so either way the baby should get some use out of the quilt.

Hope your all doing well and staying safe, till next week. 

A Quick Catch Up

It's been a busy couple of weeks! So, as mentioned in me last post, hubby has fractured his toe so I've ended up taking on all the dog walking chores although this last week he's managed to slowly make their way around the park for the morning walk.

After a long week, we had the in laws through with Ruby Havok last weekend. My hubby's Aunt (MILs sister) also came for a visit with the intention of us all getting in the Christmas mood. 

Ruby is doing very well, she's only 7 months old but is now an equal weight to Missy, so they got along very well now they can actually play on equal ground. As you can see from the photo though, she's still getting the hang of having her picture taken! It took almost a whole day to puppy proof the house and we did OK, the only casualty being some air hardening clay (which she ate, threw up and then ate some more of... Clearly not the sharpest tack in the box!) 

We were supposed to be doing the lights at the castle, but they were cancelled last minute due to high winds. Then the Sunday was a wash out with some pretty horrendous rain. Sunday had always been planned as the dogs day, and Aunt had asked to see the Kelpies. Despite the shock of my sister who lives nearby (and rang me 3 times to say it was terrible weather and I was mad to go out) but as I said, dogs need walking and so we went anyway. 

Yes. It was very wet. But not so bad that it put Ruby off trying to swim in the canal! Both dogs were quickly snuggled up in dressing gowns (MIL has commissioned one for Ruby) and we all had a well deserved cup of tea when we got in. 

Monday was much more successful. We had booked the lanterns at the zoo and woke up to a hard frost and bright blue skies. I'm happy to do the cold, it's the wet that I hate. I made pancakes for us all much to the Aunts amusement - it had been years, she said, since she had pancakes for breakfast! 

The in laws went to visit BIL and the hubby and I had a quiet morning with the dogs. He hobbled around a nice slow dog walk (linhouse loop, it was the flattest I could think of with something resembling a pavement) and we enjoyed some time to ourselves. 

The lanterns were spectacular. My inner six year old nearly died in joy at the life size triceratops and smilodon. I wasn't sure about the theme originally as I feel dinosaurs are a bit over done these days - and as someone who wanted to be a palaeontologist as a kid, that's saying something. However, I absolutely loved it. The lanterns translated really well into the dinosaurs and, with a pause for a hot chocolate and toasted marshmallows, it took us 2 hours to get round them all. 

Tuesday was back to normal and by the time I was home from work the house was empty again. A lovely visit and finally starting to feel a bit christmassy. 

I didn't get a lot of time for craft, but I was very pleased with this quick project. This is Ruby's first Christmas and I felt she needed a stocking. It had to be girly and sparkly and full of fun treats. I just hope she likes it as much as the rest of us do! 

Busy busy!

It's been a busy couple of weeks! The blog posts have been staggered so I've not written about the last two weeks despite regular updates. 

I was away last week to Alton Towers as a girls holiday- the hubby is one of the honorary girls, which gives us all a good laugh and my sister managed a cheeky wee day off to join us too. We may have broken one friend (note, spinny rides do not agree with everyone!). It was all good fun though.

Missy was not left out, the in laws kindly house sat for us and Ruby came to visit. Despite best efforts I did not puppy proof the house as well as I thought I had - Ruby was very, very, *enamoured* with a fleecy cuddly sheep and ate half my coasters. Lesson learned and they are easy enough to replace! She got to keep the sheep, after seeing the poor thing being humped a dozen times she was more than welcome to it!

Ruby is not so little anymore!

Then it was home, a quiet weekend and a busy busy week at work. Friday was a reprieve as I got to go play with greyhounds at the Greyhound Rescue Fife - my company does a corporate volunteer scheme where we get two days paid volunteering, and I always make sure to use them! I saw a puppy greyhound for the first time and met some absolutely lovely dogs. If Missy were not so happy as an only dog she'd have been at high risk of a new sibling. As it was she insisted on spending the evening hugging and cuddling me, just to make sure I knew who I belonged to!

The weekend was wrapped up with a catch up with friends at the Kelpies. It's the last hurrah of summer and, at 21C, the place was mobbed. I made sure to keep Missy on the grass and got her in the water to be safe, and she was happy to trundle along with us.

I tend to share my sewing and not my artwork here, but I couldn't resist finishing with a few sketches. I finally got my sisters birthday present to her - a scrap book of our Disney holiday together. She loves holiday scrapbooks but with a young family has no time to make one herself. I really pushed the boat out and made sure every page was covered in doodles and little mementos we had picked up. I even included little cartoons of those moments you never catch on camera, like Donald Duck stealing my hat, or the kids on the Small World ride who adored every second whilst their parents were terrified on the cheesiness! So I'll leave you with a few of my favourite moments:

Beecraigs and Kelpies

An odd little weekend. I had my dad doing a tour de force visit - he sailed over night from Northern Ireland to Liverpool, drove to Manchester to see my sister then up to Edinburgh to crash at mine and then saw my other sister today before going through to Glasgow to see his brother for the night and sailing home Monday.

Certainly makes my weekend look oddly quiet in comparison!

Knowing my dad was due to turn up in the evening, the hubby and I spent yesterday getting jobs done about the house before taking Missy on a super soggy walk about Beecraigs. It was far too wet to risk taking the camera along and, despite water proofs we were all fairly soaked through.

They have spent the winter season upgrading the paths and all the signs as well as putting in new walks, so we were pleased to try a new route and get a renewed interest in the place.

Today we did the Kelpies. You are guaranteed great pictures there no matter the weather, and the bright blue winter sky really gave them a cold steel grey colour that matched the bitter wind. My fathers arthritis is getting pretty severe, so an amble about them followed by a break in the coffee shop before another amble was all he was really capable of - but it was plenty enough time to enjoy the attraction, meet fleets of other dogs and show my neice and nephew how foreshortening works. Everyone was soon getting photos 'feeding' the horses and then played about pretending to have a miniature sibling in their hands!

Just a short post today! Its funny how tiring these short visits can be!

Big Celebrations

Well, August is that month in my family, the one where everyone seems to have their birthday and every week has cake scheduled in it. With the hubby's birthday landing on the bank holiday Monday this year, my sister was able to manage a sneaky wee visit up with the promise of a big get together with the family, as well as tons of Aunty and Uncle time for us with her two.

Firstly, I was able to pass on the big sewing project I've been working on for my sisters birthday. I found this amazing print and just knew my sister needed a dress in it. With the whole family being cat daft (I'm working on my nephew to be in team dog), I couldn't resist the opportunity to make some matching pieces for the kids too. I have threatened a matching waistcoat for the brother in law (he did get a matching tie that I forgot to photograph!). Check out the AWESOME hat I got in return!

Saturday was a BBQ at my older sister's house as a small get together. We had originally intended on meeting for a dog walk at the kelpies first, but upon arrival discovered it completely full with no parking available. It didn't spoil the day as we had been running late to begin with, and afterwards, once the kids were safely in bed, we adults enjoyed a murder mystery party with friends. Alas, I was not the murderer, but with my false beard certainly got the kudos of the best costume! It's the first murder mystery we've had were people 'died' during the course of the meal! A good laugh!

Sunday was a packed itinerary! We started the day swimming and continued on the water theme with a very soggy doggy show as we attended the West Calder Dogs Trust fun day. After completely acing temptation alley and showing us all that old dogs can still learn new tricks at the agility, we all gave up during the egg and spoon race. Whilst we grown ups didn't mind the rain, it wasn't fair to keep the little ones put in it. So we decided to bring forward the family birthday bonanza.

A very soggy doggy - just imagine what the kids were like!

With four cakes on the table, there was certainly no shortage of treats! I tried to keep things varied with a nice marzipan sponge for my sister, the rocky road/white Christmas layer cake which was mine, the chocolate Dalek piñata cake (hubby's) and the sugar free monstrosity that was for my brother in law. The BIL was an honorary mention as his birthday had not been celebrated within the family and it was my first shot at making him a cake. Whilst making a fully sugar free dessert was a challenge, I was happy with the outcome - my niece enjoyed helping to decorate it and chose where to place the characters. I'll have a master baker out of her yet!

After the cake, we ushered the family out of the way and took the kids to the walking with dinosaurs arena show. I will be honest, I wasn't sure about taking a 15 month old to the show, but he was absolutely enthralled for the whole thing, and even cheered on the torosaurs during their battle!

We took hubby's birthday quiet. With such a late night the kids were understandably tired, so we gave the Kelpies another shot and this time were successful. It's the first time the play park has been quiet enough that I felt I could play in it myself, and I will say that it's a superb play park - even if most of us got stuck in the twisty slide! We followed that with soft play were we treated ourselves to hot chocolate and cake (yes, more cake) and watched my nephew figure out how to get onto a slide himself and go down.

Yesterday was home day for my sister. After a morning of reassembling the house (my niece was rubbing elbows with the boys in the man shed playing beetle drive - my sister did try to sneak in with the aforementioned false beard and was denied access!) we went trampolining. It was a good way to end the visit as the kids were tuckered out and there was no complaints about having to go home. my niece did try her hardest to convince her parents to stay longer, but with them both working the next day, there was little room for negotiation.

All in all a very good weekend! Missy is absolutely tuckered out from the affections of her cousins. She always impresses me no end with her absolute tolerance to the children. We are hoping to get visiting down to Manchester soon, so hopefully it won't be so long until we get together again!