Tis Friday - time to take stock and reflect, now you are going to get a two week round up - because last week we were away - you may or may not need a cuppa before I start so without further ado it's
First up has to be digital cameras - amazing creations, I remember the old processed cameras - 36 exposures seemed a lot and you never knew quite what you'd taken until you were well and truly home. Digital cameras changed all that not only can you take as many as your card will take and we found our 2GB card could do 900+ photos (plus the 871 that said 12 year old managed on a separate card) but we could check them when we got back and capture a few we'd missed on our way - so my biggest grateful if being able to capture life as it occurs in such mahoosive quantities!
Next up finding castles in the fog - I tell you, you might be able to see Bamburgh Castle for miles around - however, not on a foggy day! Despite that, it was a fabulous castle in a beautiful setting!
Here is said 12 year old making Viking flat packed furniture who knew they were making flat packs so early! We love things like this, makes history so much more fun don't you think!
These two - mischief 1 and mischief 2 (I should get tee-shirts with that on), had me in stitches all week they did and this was no different - the pointing was about who'd been the naughtiest!
History, I love history and here in Britain we are surrounded by oodles of it, if you can be bothered to go and find it, these chains were apparently used to rescue shipwrecks - not sure who was big enough to use them mind - they were enormous!
Finds - lovely golden finds that we got to see, rather than hidden away they were in a fab glass cabinet for us to peruse and when they were tiny they even provided magnifying glasses!
Said 12 year old, an absolute delight to spend time with him, he's growing up so fast these days it scares me.
Alnwick Gardens - my most favourite place when we were visiting Northumberland, spent an entire day there and if I lived local I'd be buying an annual pass!
Plus the Poison Garden was fantastic for a walk around, scary how many of these plants are in most peoples gardens (well apart from the cannabis plant that they have to have a special licence for in order to grow).
Alnwick Castle, buying a joint garden and castle ticket meant we could upgrade the ticket to an annual pass and return the following day - biggest grateful because there is no way you can do both the garden and castle in a day - so hugely grateful for annual upgrades (it's a shame it didn't include the garden boo hoo).
Next up has to be Ryan - tour guide for the Broomsticks and Battleaxes tour at Alnwick, had us in stitches and pointing out all the areas that were used for filming the first two Harry Potter films was simply fantastic.
Outdoor theatre and more specifically The Lord Chamberlains Men, an all male cast who tour with Shakespeare, this years delights As You Like It! Fabulous night out at Bamburgh Castle, picnic blanket, picnic, fleecy blanket and a glass of wine!
Balcony, bacon buttie and a cuppa - nothing finer (very naughty but nice)!
Holy Island - just because it's a bit different, I wasn't particularly enamoured with the inside of the castle but the photos of the outside are lovely (I actually preferred the priory on the island if I'm honest and the gorgeous Church next door)
New stained glass windows in the church next to the priory - beautiful!
Celtic knots on the vestments - gorgeous!
Playing board games whilst we were away - great fun and made us giggle!
Cragside, now this was not my most favourite day despite it apparently being the number one place to go in Northumberland, however looking back I can appreciate that it was very pretty and a lovely place, just wish it hadn't been on the side of a rather steep hill, walking down, down, down to things was fine, it was the walking up, up, up to get back I wasn't too keen on!
I did like the veiled statue inside, no where near as refined as the one in Chatsworth but lovely nonetheless!
The 8 tonne Italian marble fire place is fabulous though - and quite breathtaking when you walk in!
Art installations, I love art installations, this one was real roses placed inside a tank of copper sulphate that had a charge running through it thus electro plating the rose - genius!
Oh and this felled tree that looks mighty sad but provided fantastic photo opportunity!
Cuthbert Cottage, a lovely upside down cottage very comfortable and immaculately clean. I loved the balcony and spent many sunrises sat enjoying the views over the fields!
Sunsets, this felt like a gift almost at the end of the holiday, a beautiful sunset sky!
And arting when I was away, the cottage has only recently been let and the visitors book had lots of comments about how lovely the cottage was but not a lot else, single line entries and didn't give away places to visit or things to do which we felt was a shame - so I did this to it (I couldn't help it).
A double page spread covering pretty much what we'd seen during the week
Up close you can see it a little better!
and the other page, I'm hoping the owners didn't mind!
This week well let's see
Chatsworth show (the day after we returned from holiday), fabulous day out with sister and niece as well enjoying each others company!
Picnics and flasks (I can't tell you how giddy the kids were when they realised I'd took a flask of hot chocolate as well!).
Red Arrows (always amazing)
Dancing diggers and niece complaining that it wasn't proper dancing!
A clean home when we got home from holiday meaning I could sort the washing out and not much else!
Hubby purchasing new DVD's recently that we got to watch, Oblivion (fab film), Star Trek (fab film but fell asleep - whoops) and Olympus Has Fallen - lots and lots of shooting but good fun nonetheless.
Said 12 year old for not bouncing up and down all night the night before returning to school, he went up a bit later and went straight to sleep!
Said 12 year old for being so animated when he came home from school on the first (and second) days. Growing up so fast.
WW girls - just because!
I think that my lovely people just about scrapes together the last two weeks. I have so very much to be thankful for and so many lovely people I come into contact with and you my dear Rockettes are most certainly one of them! I hope you have had a beautiful and blessed week and that you too can find the silver linings.
Mr Linky for you to link your Rocking posts - have a fabulous Friday!
How fast has your week gone? Because mines gone very very slowly and I don't like it! The heat at the beginning of the week certainly didn't help matters and it's set to return so the office will warm up again grrrrrr. Anyway I digress let's see what I've got to share today.
A double page layout from our first visit to Ludlow Castle, we were fortunate to end up there when they had a battle group visiting so there were plenty of props to try on!
Up close you can see that the layout is very simple and the only embellishments I added were the pennants of bunting along the top of the page.
I really enjoyed creating the layout - and managing to get in plenty of photos! And yes that is said 12 year old in chain mail and yes I said it was very very heavy.
