Breaking News!

Guess what? My lovely mum has decided she wants to buy me a Kitchen Aid mixer. Yes, it's true. Woo hoo! There's only one problem - I can't decide which colour to choose...

Classic white perhaps?



or maybe the ever popular red? (my sister has just got this one from mum and it's GORGEOUS)



I quite like the apple green,



but I do have a strange hankering for this pink one. Strange, because I'm not a 'pink' sort of girl...



Oh, I just can't decide. All of the shops I've looked in only stock the black, red or cream and I'd really like to see the colours 'in the flesh' before I decide. I mean, what if the pink one is a really sugary pink? I wouldn't like that at all. But, if it was a pale-ish pink, then that might be rather nice... Och well, it's not a really bad problem to have, is it? :-)

Here is what I'm working on at the moment - very, very slowly. Not a great photo - but the colours are really lovely in the flesh. I'm following a sock pattern which doesn't have an illustration - on reflection this probably wasn't a great idea as I've not knitted socks in the round before and it's proving hard to visualise the different stages!




We had a nice trip up to our favourite wildlife spot at the weekend, saw the ospreys, red squirrels and loads of birdlife. The weather was gorgeous and we spent hours there just watching nature and relaxing - ahhhhhh...

Two posts in one day????

Some pics of a street fair we inadvertantly came upon in the lovely village of Falkland at the end of June. This was mainly due to a certain someone (okay, it was me) thinking that the Big Tent Festival was on that weekend when in fact it wasn't until 26/27 July! It was a happy mistake though, as the street fair was good fun and had a rather lively jazz band too.



Falkland is very picturesque and still looked nice even when the rain came down.



Falkland Palace - very old, very lovely with beautiful grounds and gardens to stroll through on a summers day (if we ever get one).



There was also a small pipe band.



Miss Lucy and Mr Adam spent a lot of time trying to win various prizes by throwing toilet rolls (clean ones, I might add) into toilets (also clean), hitting things with hammers to ring bells, and hooking little ducks.

And rolling down the hill in the churchyard!

Use Yer Loaf!

I am now the proud owner of one of these little beauties, thanks to the generosity of my mum (thanks, mum). It's a fantastic all singing, all dancing bread machine. I got it last week and so far I've tried several different types of bread including, wholemeal, white, sundried tomato & parmesan and spicy fruit loaf. They have all been delicious! My goal is to never buy supermarket bread again (thereby saving a fortune - even taking into account the cost of flour and electricity) and I think it will work out fine. My only problem is going to be cutting the bread thin enough for sandwiches!

On the same day I got my bread machine, I got a surprise parcel of goodies from my lovely pal, Diane (she of The Sound of One Hand Knitting). Aren't they gorgeous? The corsage brooch is really soft and fluffy - yummm. Thanks, Diane xx

Benderloch

We had a lovely weeks holiday at Benderloch last month (about 9 miles north of Oban on the West coast of Scotland). It was so lovely I can honestly say that it's the first holiday I haven't wanted to come home from - usually I'm ready to head home by day three!

We stayed in a lovely cottage - the four of us and my mum.





Right opposite the cottage were several ducks, geese and cockerels which made themselves heard at all times of the day.

Most mornings Lucy and I went for a walk down a leafy lane. It was lovely - foxgloves, irises, wonderful lichen laden trees, fields and mountains in the distance.



One morning we had company; a little cat that Lucy christened Kit and it followed us all the way on our walk and all the way back but we never saw him on any other morning. We did see a fox and a deer on our walks though.






By the way, that lovely jumper that Miss Lucy is wearing was knitted by my mum - she stayed up late the night before we left on holiday so she'd be able to take it with her! Just as a matter of interest, the jumper was knitted with wool I must have bought about 20 plus years ago and kept 'just in case' and then eventually passed it on to mum - see, I knew it would come in handy eventually!

One day we took the ferry from Oban (Oban harbour below) to the island of Mull.



Ferry heading out to Mull.



Just look at those clouds over Duart Castle (on Mull). It was pretty wild weather-wise that day!







Adam and his dad took a look around Dunstaffnage Castle on another day trip. Adam was happy - there were swords for sale!



One of the best days was when we went up Ben Nevis by gondola. I don't mind telling you I was somewhat terrified but was trying not to let the kids know :-) I was very relieved when we got to the top.

It seemed rather surreal that there was a restaurant at the top, but we took full advantage of it's facilities and then climbed another summit (sorry, can't remember it's name) which had amazing views up to about 30 miles away.

Mr Adam got a new friend at the gift shop (a gift shop up a mountain? bizarre) - a furry highland cow which he named Hamish. That coo' has been everywhere with him since - even to school where he behaved rather badly and bit a small boy. Tut tut...

Heading back down in the gondolas wasn't nearly so bad as going up! There was a track for mountain bikers which you can just see in the left of this photo and we watched them zooming ahead of us as we went down.

On the last morning Dave and the children went horse riding. They were riding for about an hour and they had perfect sunshine - as soon as they got off those horses it poured!

They rode through woods, along an old track and on the beach in front of Castle Stalker which you can see in this photo. They would have been riding along directly below the trees you can see in the foreground. What a setting eh?




There was a fantastic beach about 3 minutes walk from our cottage too and for some reason I never did take a picture of it. It was truly amazing - it swept round in a curve and at one end it was quite sandy but by the time you had walked to the other end it consisted of those lovely rounded stones that make such a lovely sound in the waves. The view from the beach was stunning too. It was called Tralee beach I think and it was in Ardmucknish Bay.

I loved absolutely everything about the holiday, it was relaxing and that's just what we all needed. I would love to go back again and maybe take a bike and do a bit of cycling around those leafy lanes and also explore some of the walks that were around. Aaaaaahhh... bliss...

Now the children have just broken up for the summer holidays and we've already had our holiday :-( Still, apparently we will be going camping sometime - joy...