Just a Few Photos & Exciting Holiday Plans!

It's been a busy time just recently here; we've spent any spare time gardening, tidying and busy with DIY jobs around the house. In between that we've been enjoying the lovely light evenings taking Barry for an extra walk most nights. Barry loves his walks and already gets two or three each day, but we've had some beautiful sunsets just recently and been going out for a final quick stroll around the nearby field at 9pm. I like to make the most of the light evenings and I'm convinced that extra bit of fresh air not long before bed, helps you sleep better. We certainly don't get any complaints from Barry! We've had some amazing skies too though; hailstorms in between sunshine etc. (as the photo below shows... more photos on my Instagram account; @handmade_em).

I love stormy skies

The back garden is looking good; the Alliums are just about to start flowering, the wildflower bed is full of greenery (soon to be full of flowers I hope), the Montana Clematis is going mad and covered in buds and flowers that are just emerging, the lawn is like salad cress and grows so quickly, my runner beans are covered in pretty scarlet flowers and we've already been enjoying dinners with home grown pak choi, peas and mangetout. I love pottering in my garden!

Tasty young Mangetout

I spent all of yesterday afternoon cleaning the conservatory; the windows were filthy and I now realise it's because the conservatory roof is leaking in particularly torrential downpours, which means over this past winter it's been getting quite damp in the room. We're going to have to look at what we're going to do about the roof leaks but in the meantime at least it's all clean again. We popped to Ikea at the weekend and bought two Poang chairs and a footstool, which means I've got somewhere nice to sit in the conservatory and read a book - Barry has already claimed the footstool as his! We bought a lovely corner plant holder too and my handmade Terrarium now has pride of place on the top shelf. I've bought another pretty glass jar to make another terrarium, I'm a little addicted to them now.

 

And finally I bring you onto my exciting holiday plan news... very exciting actually! Jack and I went on a special holiday 3 years ago to New York with his family for his Dad's 60th and then we flew onto Vancouver, Canada to visit my Aunt and Uncle who live out there. We had an amazing two weeks exploring new places (I completely fell in love with British Columbia) and vowed we'd do more 'exploration adventure' holidays in the future. Jack then told me a week ago that he wanted to take me away for my birthday and that we both deserved a special holiday away having not had one since saving very hard over the last few years for our house deposit. Jack made various suggestions of places we've both said we'd like to go, but in the end we've both decided on..... a California road trip!!

To say I'm excited is an understatement! We're going at the end of August/beginning of September and will be out there on my birthday. This holiday will be very enjoyable for the both of us and we've had great fun so far researching where we'd like to go and what we want to do. One of my dreams for a long time now was to go whale watching in Monterey, California and to know that we're now going to do that is so exciting! One of my favourite animals is the Blue Whale and it would be a dream come true to see just a glimpse of one. We were very lucky to go whale watching in Vancouver three years ago and see 8 Transient Orca, it was fantastic, so I'd love to see some again but this time in a different place. Jack is a car lover so is also very excited for this holiday as we're hiring a Mustang convertible to drive along the Pacific coast highway in California. We fly to San Francisco, have a few days in San Francisco, drive onto Monterey to spend a few days there (including my birthday), then we're spending a night in San Luis Obispo, then a few days in Los Angeles, before finishing up with a few days in Las Vegas and flying home from there. It'll be a tiring but fun holiday and one we're both super excited about.

We've booked our flights and hire car, and saved ourselves some pennies by organising and booking hotel stays ourselves; we're staying in a total of 5 different hotels during our stay and it took us two evenings to decide and book them all. I'm also very pleased to say we've earned over £200 in cash back thanks to Quidco. Anyone who doesn't use cash back sites I really do recommend Quidco! Since moving into our house last year we've earned over £300 in cash back and it's so easy to use and free to register. It's paid for a couple of night's of our hotel stays anyway. I've also been busy sorting out unwanted things in the house to put on eBay to make us a bit of extra spending money hopefully. Every little helps as this won't be a cheap holiday (America is expensive!), but we know we work very hard and deserve to treat ourselves and we also know just how lucky we are that we get to go on a nice holiday like this. I've already ordered a couple of guide books and a book on wildlife too; I'm itching to get tonnes of photos and have been busy practicing with my camera!

We're most excited about;

• Whale watching in Monterey
• Seeing the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco
• Driving along the Big Sur
• Driving through the Californian wine region
• Walking along Rodeo Drive (I'll try and resist the temptation of quoting my favourite film of all time, Pretty Woman!), Los Angeles
• Watching the famous fountain display at the Bellagio in Las Vegas
• Seeing the Grand Canyon, Nevada

I will stop rabbiting on about it for now, I promise! It's still 3 months away after all, but I'm sure lots of photos will appear on here when we're back!

Have a good week everyone

Em x



Lovely Bank Holiday Weekend With Family

Morning all, I hope you've enjoyed a lovely bank holiday weekend where I think the weather was pretty good considering it was a bank holiday and they can be a total wash-out.

Beautiful sunshine on Overstrand Beach, Norfolk

We loaded up the car on Friday afternoon and set off to North Norfolk to spend the weekend with my parents, brother and his partner. Usually the car journey from home to Overstrand is around four hours, but it took us well over five hours due to the volume of bank holiday traffic on the roads. I think Jack (who was driving) was rather frustrated with the constant crawling towards the end, but we did eventually reach Cromer where we picked up fish and chips for everyone from Mary Jane's (best fish and chip shop ever!) and took it back to Mum and Dad's where we ate it alongside champagne (we're not posh people, I think Mum and Dad were just very pleased to have their 'babies' home so it called for a celebration!). My brother Simon and his partner Jenna had arrived prior to us so it was lovely to catch up with them too and hear all their good news about the house they're in the process of buying. They are first time buyers so all the stress and excitement is new to them, but so far the buying process seems to be going smoothly.


We spent Friday evening having a good catch up and then we helped my parents with various jobs on Saturday to help them get ready for the garden party they had planned for Sunday. The weather on Saturday and Sunday was amazing and we can't believe how lucky we were! We all had pink faces by the end of Saturday where we'd caught the sun and it was so nice to feel warmth instead of an icy breeze. My parent's garden is so pretty at the moment; full of bluebells, tulips, blossoms, Camellias and Rhododendrons too. Jenna and I took Barry for a walk on the beach in the afternoon and it was beautiful down there and great to see lots of people enjoying the beach and sunshine. We spent Saturday evening having competitions with the Shuffleboard. I'm not sure if any of you will have heard of it, but we're all rather addicted to it now and it's great fun to play! It's a wooden table game where you push wooden discs down it and the aim is to get them through the different holes at the end of the board. I'm not too good at it but then I'm not very good at many games (I'm a sore loser!)

Sunbathing Barry - his fur is growing back slowly but surely

Shuffleboard in the sunshine

Beautiful colours in Mum and Dad's garden

The weather on Sunday was even better than Saturday and it made the party extra special for my parents. They had invited a big group of friends to come for a bbq for the afternoon and I think they all had a great time. I helped Mum with the food and we put on quite a spread. Mum's lovely friends Annie and Jenny made amazing desserts too which went down very well along with Dad's home brewed beer. Their close friend Hugh even played a few songs on his guitar including one he used to sing to me when I was very little called "The baby went down the plug'ole", look it up, very funny (lyrics here, but there are different versions and no-one is sure of who wrote it originally)! I'm glad that Mum and Dad had such a nice time with their friends and that the weather was kind to us all too. Barry was such a good boy around all the people at the party and he was very popular.

It clouded over and got a bit chilly as 6pm approached

Jack and I got up nice and early on Monday morning to take Barry for a final walk along the beach. It was low tide so you can get around the ends of the groynes rather than having to climb over them nearer the back of the beach. A fairly deep pool is always left at the end of the groyne though and Barry completely mis-judged this and ended up disappearing right under the water much to his surprise! Luckily he loves water and is a good swimmer and shook himself off before setting off again down the beach at 100mph! We then said our goodbyes to my parents, Simon and Jenna and endured another 5+ hour journey home (this time I gave Jack a rest and I drove). We eventually made it home all very weary. Sadly Jack had to go into work for a few hours so I just snoozed on the sofa in between putting on a few washes. We have a very tired pooch after all the playing, beach exploring and attention this weekend and Barry looked mighty pleased last night when we said good night and went to bed, I think Barry was asleep before we even reached the top of the stairs!

We've got a busy week ahead of us in terms of jobs to do around the house; I emptied the loft of nearly all of its contents the other weekend in order to sort through everything, throw things, bag things up for charity shops and sell other things on EBay. I've kept it all in the guest bedroom and slowly been sorting through it but now my parents are coming to stay with us this weekend I had better get a move on and finish sorting it. We've laid more loft boards in the loft so you can now walk around more easily up there and as I'm slightly obsessed with being organised, I don't want anything to just be thrown back up there and instead want to know what is in each box. My parents are coming to stay this weekend for a few days as my Dad is kindly tiling our kitchen splash back area and also tiling the conservatory floor. So he'll have plenty to do but have Jack's help too. The weather looks good this week so I'll be able to move my plants out of the conservatory too, more space again!


Finally, just a photo of my two very happy tortoises on waking up this morning to find a whole windowsill box full of home grown lettuce for them to devour! I've tried to leave it growing as long as possible and had better get some more planted ready - I'd quite like to enjoy some too, but it is a lovely treat for Squirt and Lola!

Have a good week everyone!


Em x

Dog Walking Holiday; Wye Valley, Wales

We're back from a lovely weekend in Wales; this was my first time visiting Wales and I'm completely in love with the scenery, it's beautiful! I understand there's a whole lot more of Wales to explore but we've made a start at least.

We set off early Saturday morning down the M4 towards Wales and looked a little worriedly at each other as we drove through a heavy snow storm! Thankfully as soon as we got into Wales we had nothing but glorious sunshine the whole weekend we were there. It was noticeably chilly, but you could certainly feel the sun's warmth when lugging the camera bag around and striding out on our walks. I'd planned a whole itinerary for the weekend, much to Jack's amusement, but I think he's glad about me being organised.




Walk 1: 'Trellech Beacon'
First stop was just outside of Trellech, to a Forestry Commission car park. Once parked, we donned the walking boots (my new walking boots have been well and truly christened this weekend) and an excitable Barry was very pleased to be out of the car and ready to explore. Our first walk consisted of an easy 3.5 mile walk around woodland and heathland, also taking in the beautiful Cleddon Falls. It was the perfect way to ease us into the Wye Valley, with beautiful views too. Barry loved drinking and splashing in Cleddon Falls and relished jumping from rock to rock too, we swear he's part Mountain Goat!

Our route

Barry the Mountain Goat

I absolutely loved this mossy wall

Splashing around Cleddon Falls

Part of Cleddon Falls

After Walk 1, we got back into the car and drove back into England to a lovely place called Clearwell, where we stopped at The Butchers Arms for some lunch. The staff here were very friendly and it was lovely to talk about places nearby and about Jack Russells too. Barry was more than happy to sit under the table while we ate some lunch, to see if Jack or I would drop a chip! I did come prepared though and he gobbled up a chew pretty quickly. We then got back into the car (much to Barry's disgust - he's been a very good boy with all the car journeys this weekend though) and headed back onto Wales' side of the Wye Valley and onto Penallt, near Monmouth where we were staying on Saturday night.

I booked a B&B room a while back at the lovely 'Inn at Penallt'. It looked like a great location for some walks, was pet friendly and the menu for the evening looked good too (always thinking with my stomach). We parked up the car as it was too early to check in and instead headed off on the next walk I had planned - all walks I found via Google, I'll provide links at the end of the blog.

Walk 2: 'The Penallt-imate' (Jack's name for it!)

This walk was slightly longer than our first walk at 4 miles, but considerably more a 'hiking' route as opposed to walking, with various terrains and hills (my they were hills!). This walk took in woodlands carpeted with Bluebells, open grassland while walking along the River Wye, a couple of pubs along the way (we stopped at one) and a small amount of roadwork (Where we only met one car the whole time). I loved this walk, it was certainly tough in places climbing up through steep woodland, but the views were fantastic and the River Wye looked lovely in the sunshine. I'd certainly like to come back again in the summer when the trees are full of leaves. We stopped at The Boathouse pub for a quick drink part-way around this circular walk before continuing on through beautiful Bluebell woodlands. The climb was tiring on the way up but when you reach the old church at Penallt you're rewarded with stunning views.

Our route

River Wye

The noser/poser

"Come on Mum, keep up!"

Old Church at Penallt

Great views when we had a rest at the church before the final climb back to where we were staying

We finally made it back to the Inn at Penallt feeling a little weary and rather hot in the sunshine and big coats. We checked into our room which was a lovely cosy room separate from the main pub and overlooked the pretty gardens. As soon as Jack had lifted Barry's crate into the room, Barry went straight into it and fell fast asleep, I think we wore him out! We had a little rest for a short while too and a nice shower before leaving Barry with his dinner while we went for ours. I'd had a quick nose at the menu before I booked us in and it sounded great but I wasn't expecting such fantastic food (food in general was good when you're tired and hungry!). I had a lovely leek and potato soup to start, followed by pork belly. Jack of course had dessert too but I was feeling rather tired and full by that stage. The food was delicious and the pub was very popular so a great atmosphere too. You are able to eat in the bar side of the pub with your dog if you want to but as Barry was so tired we decided to leave him to happily snooze in the room.

Fantastic food in the pub for dinner, an added bonus after a day of walking

We slept well on Saturday night and woke up feeling ready for some more walking on Sunday. The breakfast included in our stay was so yummy; we picked from a menu the evening before so it was cooked fresh once you arrived at your table. It set us up for the day and not long afterwards we checked out of the room and drove towards Abergavenny for our final walk.

Tasty Full Welsh Breakfast

Walk 3: Blorenge Mountain

We drove to the 'foxhunter' car park part-way up Blorenge Mountain. Once out of the car the walking route to the top of the mountain is nearby and is mostly over rocky upland, though can be a bit boggy and slippery in places (cue filthy dog and lots of rock jumping too!). It was quite chilly as we set off, although the sun shone which did keep us a little warmer. It was a fun walk to the top; Barry is incapable of walking, he instead chooses to run and bounce everywhere, but he had us in stitches trying to leap over some of the boggiest areas. Sometimes he'd run straight through them covering himself in mud and then other times he'd leap like a Gazelle over them. It didn't take too long to reach the top and front of the mountain where we sat down overlooking Abergavenny below. The views were fantastic as the weather was so bright and clear and we had lots of sheep grazing around us too (as responsible dog owners Barry was back on his lead at this point so as not to scare the sheep and their lambs, even though he didn't show too much of an interest in them anyway). We then headed back the way we came, choosing a slightly rockier route to pretend we too were Mountain Goats! In all this was just under a 3 mile walk.

Our route

So glad we remembered our hats!

Rock climbing can be added to Barry's favourite hobbies

My Two Favourites xx

Barry & I

Wheatear

View from Blorenge Mountain of Abergavenny below

Blurry photo as my shutter speed wasn't correct but it gives you an idea of how Barry chooses to get around!

Flying Jack Russell Again!

We got back to the car, attempted to clean some of the mud off of Bazza before heading back down the mountain and into Abergavenny. We found a Waitrose and bought ourselves a sandwich for lunch to see us through the journey home and ate it in the car park while Barry chomped on a chew I gave him. We then set off home, going back through Gloucestershire and Oxfordshire.

We had a fantastic time and it's shown us just how stress-free it is to pop in the car, drive a couple of hours to somewhere different to enjoy a walking holiday together. We're already looking into some other holidays and I definitely want to return to Wales soon (suggestions of where to go next are appreciated). Barry still isn't massively keen on the car, but there was no sickness at all this weekend and other than a small amount of panting and crying as we arrived at our destinations he was as good as gold. He was so exhausted on Sunday that when we got all the way home after a 2 hour car journey we were amazed as we pulled onto our gravel driveway and didn't hear a peep from him in the boot. When we opened the boot he was squinting back at us with a wrinkled face, he'd obviously been fast asleep the whole way home! I gave him a good bath on Sunday afternoon as the boggy mud was hard to get off, and he then promptly curled up in my lap to dry off and snooze. We all went to bed early on Sunday night!

This is where Barry loves to dry off after a bath, wrapped in a towel on my lap!

Sorry that this post has been so photo-heavy! I have to say it was lovely getting the camera back out again though and the photography bug has returned! I've included a few links below to the walks we completed and where we stayed. It's really worth a visit!

Helpful Links:

The Inn at Penallt B&B; http://www.theinnatpenallt.co.uk/ 

The Butchers Arms, Clearwell; http://thebutchersarmsclearwell.co.uk/index.html

Walk 1: Trellech Beacon; http://www.wyedeantourism.co.uk/system-images/files/Walk3.pdf

Walk 2: Penallt Pub Walk; http://www.wyedeantourism.co.uk/system-images/files/Penallt%20Pubs%20Walk1.pdf

Walk 3: Blorenge Mountain; http://www.abergavenny.org.uk/blorenge.htm

The Boat Inn, Penallt; http://www.theboatpenallt.co.uk/

Em x

Spa Weekend Turned Into An Eventful Weekend :-(

This weekend my best friend and I visited Ragdale Hall; it's honestly the most amazing spa and I'd recommend it to everyone! It's not cheap but I think it's totally worth it and this was my third visit. We have had this booked for weeks; I needed a bit of de-stress and I wanted to take my best friend away somewhere special to try and help her relax a bit given it's approaching two months since her Mum passed away (and quite understandably she is struggling with it all). So I had everything well planned to make this a special weekend for Jess, I even arranged for a surprise bottle of sparkling wine to be waiting in our room on arrival... only our arrival was a little late due to the fact I crashed Jack's car on the way there :-( I feel so stupid and guilty and my main worry was just the fact that I had damaged Jack's car and quite considerably too. I went into the back of a tractor/fork lift type vehicle, so you can imagine which vehicle came off worse! We're fine (everyone keeps asking if I'm ok but I'm just worried about Jack's lovely car!), but the damage to the front of Jack's car is substantial. I was a bit hysterical saying "Jack's going to kill me!" but he's been so lovely and keeps reminding me it's just metal and that he'd rather have me in one piece. I still feel so stupid and guilty though. The car was driveable so we got it to Ragdale and parked up and after a phone call to Jack he started sorting it with our insurer. We still went to the spa (couldn't get a refund that late anyway) and I think Jess still had a good time but I do feel like I ruined the whole weekend for her and I couldn't relax at all despite being in the best place to relax! The car was recovered yesterday morning after our one night stay at the spa and is being taken to somewhere in Newbury today to await assessment - we think it's a write-off but will have to wait and see. Jess' fiancé very kindly came and picked us up from the spa and dropped me off at Jack's parents and then Jack's Dad gave us a lift back to Newbury last night. I dropped Jack to work this morning in my car and hopefully we'll have a courtesy car soon.

Anyway, despite the fact it's all I can think about, enough about the car and let me share with you a few photos of our trip to Ragdale, http://www.ragdalehall.co.uk/, which is located just outside of Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire. It's in beautiful grounds, the rooms are beautifully decorated and comfy and the facilities are just amazing! There's lots to do there but all very relaxing and the food is lovely, which included a three course dinner on our first evening there, breakfast in bed (you pick what you'd like the day before) and then a hot and cold buffet lunch. Our package included a facial and back massage treatment which I really enjoyed using Clarins products which are my favourite anyway (I blame my Mum for introducing me to expensive beauty products, but considering mascara is about the only thing I wear make-up wise I think I can afford to spend a little more on a nice face cream!). I won't go on and on about our spa experience, but here's a few photos of our time there.

A little surprise for Jess on our arrival

 

Love it just because it's different!

 

This room is called "The Retreat" and it's a no talking room filled with sofas, bean bags and duvets to either chill out and read a book or just to snooze

 

My breakfast in bed!

 

The pool area

 

This is the outside area of the thermal pool - I've been here before when it was snowing and being outside was amazing. This is located in their thermal spa area which has multiple different rooms including a thunderstorm shower, volcanic rock steam room and a rose sauna

 

The Pavilion - Just another lovely sitting area

 

Lovely Food

 

... and lovely desserts!

 

Just a quick note to say thank you for the congratulations on the job front, very much looking forward to starting a new adventure there late next month!

 

Em x