ATCs, Cards and Part 1 UK Visit, Jack and Kitty

ATCs

Our group of 10 ATC-ers is still busy working its way through the alphabet for the second time. I have got a bit behind with mine but am trying to catch up. We aim to do one letter a week. Did I show you my 'I' for International?

I have just done 'J' for 'Jumping':

This Jumping Cat is for Lolo and is wending its way to America as we speak!

I have received some lovely ones too:

This is I for Indigo Blue Bunting and is from Lolo. Isn't it gorgeous?


It came in this pretty blue and white card.

This lovely card came from a friend I met when we were both pregnant. Her daughter Tania is 9 days older than my youngest, Ben. Chris also enclosed a photo of Tania and Ben when they were very small!

Ben is in the front. Tania is now in Australia working and Ben is running his bar in Puerto Banus, Marbella. Who would have thought it to look at them? Chris is coming over some time in May and hopefully will be able to come and see us. So many visitors.

Bea's Blind 5 Week Challenge

FIVE WEEK CHALLENGE - DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE WITH BEA

Bea, from Dog in the Hole Studio has set a challenge for anyone who would like to join in. I was away for the first week but have joined belatedly. Here are my first 2 pieces of work. I did 2 pieces instead of one in case I messed one up! Bea sets the next 'clue' each Monday and we are to post our work on the following Friday. Let's pretend this is last Friday!


I cut 2 pieces of muslin 9" x 7" and covered them with a gel medium. On the top one, I then stuck some paper from a parcel I had in the garden for several months, which had taken on some lovely colours, onto the gel medium. Then I covered it all with more medium. When it had dried it felt lovely, the whole piece feeling like fabric.

The one below, I used just one piece of paper from the same bundle then filled in the spaces with a 'wet wipe' I had used for mopping up paint. It had something sparkly on it too. I have received today's instructions, which are on Bea's blog, and will post the results on Friday. Properly!

UK Visit Part One

I arrived in Suffolk last Monday. Jack had complained that there was a Mother's Day but not a Big Brother's Day, so we made Tuesday Big Brother's Day and Jack opted to go to Colchester Zoo. It's a lovely big zoo and we headed off quite early in the morning.


I bought Jack a camera so he could take some photos of his special day!

Kitty is now almost 10 months old. She enjoyed her day too. She'll be demanding a 'Little Sister's Day' soon!

We tried to see things we had missed on our last visit, which included the sea lions. There was a tunnel underneath the water of their pool and the view was wonderful. I took loads of photos of them:

The pale blue strip going from left to right is the tunnel. The sea lions came and showed themselves to us when their trainer arrived:
The keeper held a football the other side of the glass and the sea lion pointed to it.


This is my favourite photo taken from the tunnel. They were all rolling about and seemed to be having such fun.

This one was keeping an eye on me.

We then wandered along to see the Oran Utang - he looked very fed up but I was assured they can't smile so always look like that!

He turned around and his back was covered in bits of straw:


Outside they had a lovely big play area and the lady Oran Utang was having a great game hiding underneath a sack:

The females have much shorter hair. She did eventually drop the sack, but soon picked it up and put it over her head again. Maybe she's shy!


Jack was enjoying watching her.

Inside the zoo are the ruins of an old church:
Jack had a go on the play equipment. He's almost 5 now. Unbelievable. I think that's enough for today.

Happy Monday everyone.

The End of Poppy's Visit 12 -13 March 2010

Poppy in Coole Park

Gosh this seems such a long time ago. I've been to the UK since my last posting on here. On the Friday Poppy and Ali were here, we visited Coole Park, one of our favourite places. It was cloudy but didn't rain, so all was well. Poppy had a great time both in and out of the pushchair. The turlough was quite low, considering in the floods it was at a record high. Here is a photo of it:

Sometimes all the land you can see here is covered with water.

We walked up to the more formal area of Coole Park, where Poppy roamed free. She wanted to push her pushchair and got a bit cross every time anyone else tried to help. She had such fun though.
Ali with Poppy pushing the pushchair.

We also gave her lots of 'swings' between us - you know the sort:

'wheeeeee'
Inevitably followed by 'gain' (again)!

We sat at a picnic table and Poppy munched her way through a few raisins and lots of 'cots' (dried apricots). She just loves them.

There is a sun dial in this area and Jim stood on it and told the time!

Now Jim wants to build one in our garden!

Poppy enjoying a last run.

We didn't have much time on Saturday morning as sadly our visitors were flying home. We thoroughly enjoyed having them and I'm sure they enjoyed their stay in Ireland.

Ali and Poppy Visit Part One: 11 March 2010

POPPY

I spent all of Tuesday cleaning, clearing up and making beds, moving clothes etc. Jim was in London for the day so didn't get back until late. I was worn out!

On Wednesday we finished off, put the cot together, found cot bedding and by the time we'd finished the spare bedroom looked a treat. Our bedroom, however, looked a complete tip! We assembled our new king sized bed then realised we didn't have a king sized quilt or bottom sheet! We left early to collect Ali and Poppy from the airport and called in at Dunnes on the way, where we were able to buy the missing items. Phew!

Soon Ali and Poppy appeared through the arrivals and I was so thrilled to see them both, as was Jim of course. Poppy talks non stop, repeating just about any word anyone says and is now really understanding what the words mean too. She has an amazingly cheeky grin and pulls some funny faces.

We wondered how Buster would react to our visitors and he was a bit of a pain the first evening, as Poppy was a bit grubby from the journey and all he wanted to do was lick her! However, we managed to keep him vaguely under control and Poppy says his name delightfully - he's now 'Busher' as she has trouble with her st sound.

I had plenty of new toys for Poppy to play with. I obtained them from Freecycle but they are all in excellent condition. The train huffs and puffs and goes along, a large frog talks and the bus on wheels sings any number of songs. She had a great time playing with all these exciting new things before bed. A quick bath, milk and into the cot, where she slept all night, apart from one little cry.

Today we walked down to the lake, the short way so that we could push her in the pushchair. She was tired but really enjoyed it and Kevin came out of his house to meet us. Buster caught the scent of a hare and ran right to the top of the hill like a maniac. We saw the hare rushing off in the opposite direction! Kevin told us that they often leave false trails to mislead predators. It certainly worked in this case.

I took a photo of Jim, Ali and Poppy:

Poppy was getting a little fed up, but cheered up when Buster came to see her:

We headed back and Poppy had a 2 hour sleep - we had worn her out. Buster did too - he was worn out from chasing that hare.


Jim entertained Poppy by shouting 'GOAL' and putting his hands above his head so Poppy did too. She was highly amused.

After Poppy's sleep, Jim and Ali took Poppy for a walk down to the orchard and up to the allotment - Ali said it's the furthest she's ever walked. Buster and Poppy are getting on really well and on the allotment she fed Buster lots of stones and leaves - which he obligingly ate!

I am so enjoying their visit - it's far too long since I saw Poppy. I had to cancel the last visit because of the snow. She is so gorgeous and funny. I haven't managed to get a cuddle out of her yet - but I'm working on it. We've had some great playing time though.

That's enough for today, we have a whole day tomorrow so will probably go to Coole Park and maybe somewhere else - it depends how Poppy goes.


Poppy says bye everyone.

Ennis Visit and Jim's Birthday Celebrations 6.3.10

Jim with his Birthday Cake - just four candles for 'When I'm Sixty Four'. I love this photo!

Ennis Trip

Yesterday I popped to Ennis to do some shopping for Jim's birthday. It was a lovely warm day and I really enjoyed my day out. I was successful on the shopping front and Ennis was buzzing. A new footbridge has been built since my last visit:

The pigeons took no notice of me.

I loved the shadows


The view from the bridge.

I took just one photo of the priory as most of it is shrouded in scaffolding.

the tower looks magnificent against the blue of the sky.

One of the main streets in Ennis, which is very narrow.

These lovely guys were playing 'Summertime' as I passed them. They liked having their photo taken - I put money in their pot of course.


Don't you just love this bike with one round and one square wheel!


Look at my great take away cappuccino!! This is how I felt!

This is the statue of O'Connell taken from by the river. You can see the sun was going down.

A dead tree at the side of the car park. There was a large bird on the top branch - which flew away as I focused!

I finished all I had to do and headed for home, stopping occasionally to take a photo of the lovely sunset.



Sunset taken from Kilbeacanty on the way home.


This was the last one and it really was too dark by then.

Today, Jim's Birthday, 'When I'm Sixty Four'.

It's been a funny old day! This morning, Jim just had time to look at my card for him, then we had to be on our way to a funny place called Cranny to pick up a bed we'd bought! It was a lovely drive over there, towards the West coast, and we found the house with no trouble. Now this is a king size bed and we wondered whether it would fit inside the Doblo - but it did, well, the mattress hung out the back a bit!


It's amazing what we've transported in the Doblo. Cranny had a wonderful 'welcome' sign:

The first word is 'Failte' which means welcome in Irish, but is pronounced 'Folcher'!!

It was a bit of a draughty drive home but luckily the weather stayed dry and bright. We had cheese on toast at home followed by a cream cake we'd bought on the way - delicious. Then Jim managed to open his presents at last.

I had had some trouble wrapping his presents as most of the paper we had was Christmas wrapping, so I had to eke out the birthday sheets. I left the last one at the bottom of the bag - and Jim reckoned it was the worst wrapped present he'd every received. It looked OK from the top:


As long as you didn't turn it over.

I must remember to buy some wrapping paper!

We spent the rest of the afternoon in the garden. Jim pruned some of the living willow fences on the allotment and I did some digging there.

When it became almost too dark to see, we came in, had a curry with peshwari naan bread (my favourite) and watched Casualty. We did the 'birthday cake' thing of course:


I seem to have some ghost candles for Jim to blow out! I couldn't fit 64 candles on the cake, so just put the 4 on. The other photo is at the top of course.

Jim then decided he'd like to go to the pub, so we got changed and headed up to Canny's. It was reasonably busy, with a crowd of young men playing darts. We didn't know anyone but enjoyed people watching, Jim had 2 pints of Guinness and I had a gin and tonic. How rash! As the late evening moved towards 11 and then midnight, the pub got much busier. Nothing much seems to happen around here before 10.30pm. Michael the farmer arrived so we did speak to someone. Then it was back home.

We had both enjoyed Jim's birthday. Only a year to go until pension time for Jim. Woo hoo! He's already retired so we've lived quite frugally for a few years.

Lest I forget, Jim's main present was really for us both. I had ordered one of Rima Staines's hand painted clocks and she timed it (oops) to arrive for Jim's birthday. It's quite beautiful and is all ready on the wall in the kitchen/diner. Rima is an artist extraordinaire and I encourage you to visit her blog at The Hermitage. Wander around and click on her paintings. Wow is all I can say. Here is our gorgeous piece of Rima's art:

Rima has called this clock 'The Hedge Brother Clock'. We discussed what I would like on it and I gave a few suggestions. It had to have a hedgehog and I like umbrellas and Jim and I both like wild flowers and here it is. But not just any old umbrella, it is, to me, one shaped like a flower. Look at those dandelions too.

A close up of Harry the Hedgehog.

Thank you Rima. We both love it.

Now I must go and do some gardening as the sun is shining. I hope everyone is having a Splendid Sunday.