One view of London

I have just up loaded my pics from London, and I have found that I took a very strange selection of snaps. I suppose it reflects the things that caught my eye.

 

I have not, for example photographed the extremely exciting collection of modes of transport that had Tiny Boy in a constant state of high excitement (train, underground and to top it off, the top deck of a bus). There are no dinosaurs or stuffed elephants or whale skeletons. The Diana memorial fountain and the ducks in the serpentine are entirely absent.

 

Instead we have the ceiling in the main hall of the Natural History Museum.

 

Leaves gathered by Tall Girl in the park.

A flower bed outside the Tate Britain and a sign by the door, both pictures taken by Tiny Boy.

Tiny Boy admiring sailing ships.

Tiny Boy and Tall Girl looking after my friend's Small, letting her take the lead and dictate where they went and what they looked at.

Just goes to show eh?

xx

Harlow Carr

I think it is safe to say that I am feeling a little in limbo at the moment and it is making it hard to blog. I am really enjoying our time in the UK and seeing lots of lovely people and places but the lack of routine is starting to tell, as is the lack of time on my own footling about the house doing a little housework, a little crafting, a little cooking and a little pootling.  Since our lovely time in Harrogate, we have had a few days at home, then a few days in London, and a few days on the west coast of Scotland. Frankly I don't know whether I am coming or going! We now have 10 days or so here, at home, before embarking on the journey back to St Helena, or is that our journey back home?

 

There is loads I want to do here that don't have time to do properly, and loads I could make time for but it all feels a bit overwhelming and I don't know where to start. Today was eaten up with food shopping, a flu vaccination for Big Trouble and the dentist for me and Tall Girl (they were very brave).

 

I want to tell you about London and about Scotland but I still haven't told you about Harlow Carr despite uploading the photos a week ago. I have admitted defeat as far as the September Slow Living goes. Nothing slow about this September, and October has sped up even more!

 

So to Harlow Carr... I have visited many many gardens in my time, but never an RHS one so I didn't really know what to expect. We walked there from the town centre through a lovely, well maintained and well used park and some public woodland. 

 

Now, you may be aware that I do like a bit of sculpture in a garden. Preferably of the fun and not-taking-itself-too-seriously kind. I was not disappointed.

 







A giant bee was guarding the insect home in the park.



You have to look twice to see that two naked toddlers have not climbed up on the fountain, their posture is so lifelike.

Bird on a fork.

Another giant bee - metal not wicker this time.

No sculpture but I have a thing about passion flowers and may just have to get some...

Tea pot leaf mould maker outside the tea room - love it!

Gorgeous annual mixture looking great in October.

Woven willow sculpted to support the growing of a beech arch. Genius!

A lovely way to display miniature succulents.

Sculpture or landscaping? Landscaping or sculpture?

My absolute fav: Rhubarb and custard.

xx

Yarndale

Arg this week has been mental! I love love loved Yarndale. It was the start of a few days on our own for J and me and I just wasn't in the blogging mood. I usually blog when everyone else is at school and work, not when I have a few precious days without the Smalls but with J. 

 

We got home with just enough time (36 hours) to prepare for our monster annual social event - our apple picking party. So I was cooking up a storm, St Helena style this year, and generally tidying up so we were ready to welcome 50 or so willing pickers from 4 months to 72 years. Now it is all over and we are having a chill out at home day. (In between a little light clearing up.) My Dad is here and right now we are enjoying/enduring cbeebies en masse. 

 

 

Anyway back a week to Yarndale... We had arrived in Skipton the day before, and the crack was that Yarndale was mobbed and parking was tricksy. We duly arrived early the next morning and joined the queue. Yup, by 9.45 there was an excited but orderly queue. There was plenty to entertain us - the yarn bombing was a joy.

 

Once inside the bunting was fabuloso in the extreme. I looked and looked but couldn't spot mine. There was miles in the entrance hall and more in every free spot around the mart.

If you can make it out of yarn then it was at Yarndale - an Andalucian feast anyone?

With prawns? Actually I can't abide prawns, they are not even in the category of food in my head so I don't know why I took this pic but it does show you how amazingly detailed it all was.

My bunting did get there. There was 1.25 km of the stuff and St Helena was definitely on the list of participating places.

There were 161 stalls vying for our attention and we tried to look at them all. Naturally a few caught the eye more than the others.

J was very taken with the idea of sheering a rabbit. I think he was having visions of New Zealand champion sheep shearers trying to wrestle a small bundle of fluff.

This was in the knit and natter lounge - some of the goodies that Lucy regularly shows us on her Attic 24 blog. She was there but looked totally overwhelmed so I didn't go and say hello. I figured she didn't need any more complete strangers having the same weird conversation with her.

I liked these massive knitted heads. They were brilliantly pointless.

It wasn't just knitting and crochet either - these are all hooked rugs I think.

And and and - a new yarn produced from just down the road from us in Northumberland. When we get back for good I shall definitely be checking them out.

Yarndale had teamed up with Oxfam and had appealed for yarny donations which could be made into products for the shop. They have a group of talented peeps who just need the materials to make all sorts of goodies. This is the second day stash just after lunch.

There were loads of stalls with wonderful arrays of colour. All very touchy feely. This one was typical of many  - sooo much choice!

I jumped up on the railings to try and capture the scale of the thing for you - yarny joyfulness as far as the eye could see!

Once we had wandered round everything twice, and spent all our pennies (Santa spent some too), we went back through all that lovely bunting and out into the most beautiful sunshine to follow the yarn walk towards town.

(See St H in the middle of the south Atlantic?)

Not strictly part of the yarn walk but this camper caught my eye - soo pretty...

We walked down to the canal for an ice cream then back up to the car, noticing even more things on the way back. We missed the tulip before.

A great day out, and looking forward to Santa visiting at Christmas...

xx