New wall art.. and a week away

I just HAVE to show you this..

My son is 14 and about to start his GCSE subjects in September, one of the subjects he is dropping is art (OMG school with no art class would of been sheer purgatory for me!) as such he brought home a folder with all of the work he has done over the last 3 years.  When we were going through it my heart almost leapt out of my chest when I saw this.. I LOVE it!  It is now mounted and framed and hanging in pride of place in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs :)



'The Blue Ladies'
sorry about the glare across the glass.. really should of brought non-reflective



A3 size, worked in oil pastels.
I love this so much

I cant believe that his art teacher actually marked him down on this piece because he strayed from the red,orange, yellow tones.. isnt art about doing what feels right?  He is getting lots of positive comments from our friends and family who have seen, and I'm hoping this will boost his self confidence (which has been ground out in art class!) and inspire him to keep drawing & painting.

We have just spent a wonderful week camping and ocean kayaking in Cornwall :)  The weather was a bit dodgy, but my goodness did we have some fun!



Gary & Rachael on Daymer Bay

We camped right on the cliff overlooking Polzeath beach (a lovely place to camp).  Polzeath is a great surf beach! The first half of the week, while the weather was not so good, the waves were pretty big on Polzeath - too much for us with the kayak,  so we stayed on Daymer Bay just inside the Camel Estuary.. the water was calmer here.  When the weather changed for the better the sea calmed right down - the surfers were seriously unimpressed - and we could get out there!  So lovely kayaking up close to the sea birds bobbing around & diving, or nesting on the cliffs - they took no notice whatsoever.. if only I had a waterproof camera!  Here are a couple more pics anyway..

 

Polzeath looking out to Pentire Headland

Daymer Bay.. so peaceful

I had an awful head cold for the first few days (I'd had it a week before we went too).  It really fuzzed my poor brain up for a few days!  I did quite a few daft things - most noticable of which was my mishap with hair removal cream..  Night before we went I did my legs (as you do)   and didnt realise I had hair removal cream on the back of my hand when I put my hair up..  I didnt notice until I put my hair up the next day..  luckily its just a short chunk and not a bald patch that I'm left with - and I'm due a hair cut anyway. 

I also managed to fall in a humungous rock pool!  (Blame it on the head cold) Sods law it was on a cold day and we were on a nice long walk so I was all layered up; trousers, t-shirt, fleece, coat, scarf, backback..  I went in upto my armpits and soaked the lot - I've never been so unintentionally wet in all my life.  Amber was swimming across it at the time - she though I had come to join her lol.  It was funny though I must admit.  And it proved the water repellant qualities of felt too!  I had my phone and camera in my felt backpack - both were perfectly dry.

The kids just have 2 weeks of their summer holiday left now - where has the time gone?  Its flown by!

Hope you are all having a good summer too

xx

A week of family fun...

As hoped last week was great!  We decided to weather-watch and go camping when the weather promised to be fine.. Late Monday afternoon we made the decision to go; spent a few manic hours collecting camping gear from various nooks & crannies, packing and preparing - Tuesday morning we were on the road bright and early.

We took a bit of a gamble and set out with no campsite booked, only to find that everyman and his dog had decided to go camping in Cornwall that week lol. We still had no real trouble finding a good place to stay, it just meant we were not as close to a beach as we like. Regardless of this we had a really fun break... We were based just outside St.Agnes, on the coastal path right by an old tin mine..



Along the coastal path heading back to our campsite (which was behind the tin mine)

 This is Wheel Coates tin mine, partially restored and very beautiful, perched on the slope heading down toward cliffs.

Just look at how TALL it is!  This doorway was already about 20feet up.

Lots of hidey holes and tiny gaps to squeeze through exploring

It was worth the squeeze and climb for this view though!

Thought this was quite interesting.  We saw lots of the medieval workings - you certainly wouldnt walk across the heather where you cant see whats beneath it!

We had 3 wildlife encounters - 2 of which were quite unexpected! 

We came across a beautiful little adder (snake) basking in the sun on the coastal path just about 300 yards past the tin mine.  Didnt have my camera to hand unfortunately, he was so pretty; about 18" long, shiny and with a clearly marked black zig-zag/diamond pattern down his back.  He gently wove his way into the undergrowth when we got to within a couple of feet from him, didnt seem all that bothered about us - it was lovely.  A lizard ran across a few minutes later but only Matt saw him (he was leading the way)... shows how quiet that stretch of coast is for them to be out in the open, they are usually pretty shy.
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While brushing my teeth ready for bed on the first night I had a bit of a fright (nearly swallowed my toothbrush!!) when a bat crash landed in the sink I was using!  He must of chased a moth in through an open skylight.  Fortunately he found his way back out very quickly.
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Our biggest wildlife treat however was planned.  We took a boat trip out of St.Ives to seal island and saw the seals lazing on the rocks there.. there were snowy white babies too :)

This is the boat we went on.. the Dolly Pentreath.  Shes a replica of a traditional St.Ives fishing boat. 

We had such fun see-sawing over the waves on the way out - it made my heart soar I LOVE it!  Rachael was less enthusiastic ("why is it moving so much?!" followed by lots of girly squeels) and turns out Amber is no sea-dog!  She would not settle till she was on Garys lap.  Though in fairness she was getting bounced around pretty well.. Jess had the good sense to lay down & go to sleep behind my feet.

Big baby!

It was funny watching them lift their heads & tails everytime a wave came along to keep them out of the water

Lying there like a sausage :)

We had a couple of lovely days on the beaches..

Thats my little man in the sand dunes - he didnt stay still long enough to get a closer picture! 

We visited Gwithian beach, Hayle for the first time - and what a beautiful beach it is!  You walk over lovely big sand dunes to get on the beach, which is 3 miles of soft golden sand, crashing Atlantic surf and dogs are allowed on all year round.  Its lovely and clean too - we will definately be going back there.  Infact we spotted a campsite nestled right at the foot of the dunes that we shall investigate further.

Favourite days!
I think they were pulling faces at me, but Im not really sure :)

And now life is back to normal.. kids at school, husband at work.  Yesterday was spent weighing fibre & dyeing, with a little bit of felting to finish off.  Today I was at Oak House (doing living history) taking on a role I rarely do; Mistress Jane - the la-di-daa lady of the house - a role I find rather tiring if Im honest.  Livened it up though with 1/4 of an hour of dancing to finish off.

Lots of felty plans for the rest of the week.

xx

A Tale of Treasure... Allen style

OK, this post is going to be told by images more than words... the photos speak louder than words anyway :o) A tale of adventure from our holiday in Cornwall, it happened a week or so ago...

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One lovely sunny day, the Allen family and their 2 dogs went rockpooling; the tide was waaaay out so there were many more rockpools to explore than usual. A very enjoyable morning was spent mooching around, finding little treasures - shells, bits of driftwood, buoys, fishing weights. Moma Allen took lots and lots of photos for inspiration, peering into rock pools trying to capture the colours and textures of rock, sea creatures & sea weed. A large rusting anchor needed several photos to capture its beautiful colours.

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As they got to the furthest point, they discovered a sheltered place with high rocks around 3 sides... and lying in the middle...

Was a huge, very interesting, and obviously very old piece of driftwood, lying in a murky puddle.

Daddy Allen is a carpenter by trade, and loves wood. This big old piece of oak got his imagination going straight away... where did it come from? How old is it? HOW long has it been in the water to be so shaped by the tides?

How am I going to take this home? He was figuring out just how to get this huge (6 1/2ft) and very heavy soaking wet piece of oak up the cliffs and a mile or more in either direction before we could collect with the car.

Ever resourceful - the dog leads came in useful. The dogs thought he had gone mad & mistaken a log for one of them :o)

Once at the top it took Matthew & me at the front with a dog lead each, and Gary at the back. Rachael was overseeing the operation and carrying dog water bottles etc. What a funny sight we must of been! Luckily about 1/4 of a mile up the coastal path, we took a chance and headed up a tiny walkway toward some beautiful houses - my reasoning being they were sure to have road access. This was very narrow so Gary shouldered the log by himself.. fortunetely it wasnt too far till we reached a rough road. Gary and Matthew jogged back to collect the car.

It had 4 days to dry out sitting raised on slate outside our tent (looked like we had built a bench :o) Before it was time to come home...

Dont worry, it wasnt really as low on the arches as the picture suggests - it was very uneven ground here & the back tyre was at the highest point.

First day back home...

Sculpted by the gentle hand of Mother Nature - 'the Needle'

Gary set our new piece of garden art in place, the bottom 18" are buried.. its very steady. The corner with the picnic bench has been a bit of a dead area until now, characterless & unused. Its going to be our coastal corner now :o) Ive strung the buoys on fishermans rope and hung them on the fence. There is going to be a shingle area around the Needle, with boulders, sea pinks and Livingstone daisies (they`re the closest I know to pink sea daisies). Just hope they can survive there - its quite shaded most of the time being right by the woods.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun... and we do love driftwood - this really was treasure to us (all 4 of us)

xx

There and back again...

Hi folks :o)

Hope you have all had a good couple of weeks! Ours have been spent exploring new places and enjoying lots of precious family time. I LOVE our family holidays - we have a couple of weeks in the summer and a week at Christmas that are just the 4 of us (and the dogs of course) I do my best to soak up the warmth & serenity and store it to keep me going through the rest of the year when outside influences do their best to disturb my equilibrium! With the children getting older I know that these times are precious... pretty soon they are not going to want to spend a week or 2 just with mom & dad...

We have been camping in Cornwall - yes, again; we love it there. Although next summer Im determined to visit Scotland! The weather was rather mixed... we had some lovely days, a cold day, a rainy day and a windy day - but every evening was beautiful strangely enough.

We spent the 'rainy' day walking up and over Pentire Head and along the coastal path to the Seven Sisters rock formation. On the walk up the headland the rain was coming horizontally at us - we were soaked through! But by the time we got to the top it had stopped... and there looking totally chilled out were these sheep - arent they lovely?!

We didnt want to go to close & disturb them so bypassed the bench, much Rachaels dismay. The day was warm and rather windy so luckily we dried out quickly :o) The cliffs where we walked are where the poet Laurence Binyon wrote 'For the Fallen'... very moving. Im sure you are all familiar with it.

Along the way we crossed the Rumps - an saw evidence of iron age fortifications. They are mound and ditch earthworks... I didnt manage to get a very good photo of them to be honest, you can just make out the lines going across the middleground. Matthew & Jess are just in this photo. Must get a better shot next time! We have wanted to explore here for years but up till now there has always been something thats stopped us; weather, health, unable to drag ourselves away from the surf :o) etc.

This is the furthest point we got to, as you can see a sea mist blew in and got thick fast. It was very rugged and beautiful... possibly due to the weather that day it was SO quiet, there was nobody else about, just the sound of wind, waves & gulls - wonderfull.

We also explored Trebarwith Strand at low tide... when the tide is high there is no beach (and it comes in pretty fast!), but when its out its huge - and fierce, rugged and beautiful. Trebarwith is a few miles south of Tintagel.

We had wildlife treats too; we saw many Merlins and Kestrels and birds that I really dont know what they were, but they were lovely. And walking south along the coastal path from Tintagel, we were the only people about, we were saw a wild deer about 30 feet from us. He bounded up the path and away before I could take a photo unfortunately.

We investigated many rock pools and coves (kids and dogs swimming in many :o) This activity led to one of our biggest adventures! We found treasure! Well, treasure as far as the Allen family were concerned anyway :o) and on that tantalising note Im going to leave you for today... I think this post is plenty long enough lol. Will post soon about our treasure

xxx

Holiday pics

We had a wonderful camping trip in North Cornwall last week! And for once the weather did exactly what the met office had promised; Tuesday, the day we went, they said it would rain till 1 ish then clear up and be nice for the next 3 days. Driving down the weather was absolutely dreadful... rain so bad you could barely see anything - especially with the spray on the motorway. I kept think "ooooh, I hope theyve got it right" ... 4 of us plus 2 dogs in a tent in rainy weather are not my ideal (I hate the tent getting damp!) Lo & behold though, come 1.30 the rain was stopping & by 2.30 when we arrived it was great! We pitched in sunshine and a light sea breeze; the tent was up and all the stuff sorted within 30 minutes :o) and we were off! The weather just got better and better. Tuesday afternoon and evening were delightful, Wed, Thu & Fri were absolute scorchers - definately needed the factor 40! Here are a few of my favourite pics...

It was bloomin` cold at night though, I must say! I was wearing; shorts, thermal vest, thermal leggins, bedsocks & a fleece with my sleeping bag drawn up as much as possible just to be warm! First night I rather stupidly got in (while it was a pleasantly mild 11 o`clock) in shorts and T-shirt OMG I WAS FREEZING! I barely slept... was glad when I woke up down the gap between the 2 blow up matresses cos it was warmer :o) so I stayed there for the rest of the night.

We did loads of walking... out between 8.30 & 9.00 and walking pretty much all day till about 7.00 - there was lots of paddling, rockpooling,ferry rides and stopping to enjoy the scenery too of course.

We were lucky enough to see a pod of dolphins leaping in the mouth of the camel estuary heading toward Polzeath, a seal floating sunning himself at Tintagel, and what Im 99% certain was a Peregrine Falcon over the cliffs between Polzeath & Daymer Bay - AWESOME! Could only see him from beneath though and it was against a very bright sky so couldnt see his markings... the shape & size suggest Peregrine though and they are fairly common there. I didnt get photos of any of them though... I was too busy watching & enjoying them to take my eyes off long enought to find the camera!

Since we got back we have been playing catchups... Yesterday the kids were back to school & Gary at work - so I got a little felting time! Played around with the silk saries... shall have to post pics.

Anyway, Im off to felt ...maybe a cushion cover?

x

allo allo we`re back from our camping holiday (right next to Polzeath beach - awesome!) The weather was rather mixed (well it IS England) but we still had a great time - didnt get quite as much body boarding done as the kids would of liked, but come on its bloomin` cold in a bikini or trunks - the kids could stay in for hours in their wetsuits, but we dont have them :( might need to `splash` out a little next year.

Thought Id share a few holiday pics...

Wave watching on Polzeath Beach

From the seaward mouth of Merlins Cave

I love Tintagel - some of the shops are quirky & nice, but for me, by far the best thing about Tintagel is the coastline/scenery. Theres a lot of very steep walking, but its all worth while - it is one of those places which just soothes the soul! For the first time I managed to clamber all the way through to the other side of Merlins Cave & OH MY it was so worth it! Beautiful, awesome and so peaceful (yes, thats my lovely hubby standing to the side of the picture :)

Overlooking the Severn Sisters rock formation.

Looking rather wind swept - this was the only day my hair wasnt braided; it was like a rats nest come evening it was so tangled!

We went on a cruise aboard the Jubilee Queen around Puffin Island - unfortunately we didnt see Puffins as they leave by July...we`re planning to do it again earlier in the year so that we can see them. We did see grey seals though :) We also visited Trebarwith Strand for the first time and I got the strongest feeling that Ive been there before. I came home & asked my parents whether we went when I was a child - but we didnt. So strange - I KNOW Ive been there before, I can remember walking barefoot across the sea-smoothed rocks at the entrance to the beach - it was so familiar... in a past life maybe?! Strange but true.

I got lots of inspiration for felting projects while I was away. The kids go back to school a week from Monday, so it`ll be back to work for me too `Felt-a-hoy`.

Ive just been reading Keiaras blog and Im devastated!!! Keiara if only I hadnt been on holiday I could of met up with you... Stourbridge is a 10 minute drive from my house!

I luuuurve the Desert Tree necklace that Keiara has made for me! Its SO beautiful (you clever lady)! It is intended as a special birthday present - if I can bear to part with it... thank you sweetpea xxx

Well, thats about all for now, hope you are all well - thank you for following my blog :)

Debbie
xx