Fright Night

No one can have failed to notice yesterday was Halloween.
I love Halloween...I love all the scary films on TV, I love all the silly creepy songs, I love all the Halloween themed goodies in the shops, I love the spooky decorations and most of all I LOVE dressing up!

So...I covered my sisters wedding dress (yes she knew about it) in icky, sticky red food colouring and zombified myself!
Evie looked like we'd just dug her up from her grave!
And our friend Emma had the most amazing fake wounds...

Last night some friends of our held a party in their pottery painting shop http://lescadeaux.wix.com there was free painting and trick or treats for kids and then there was an adults fancy dress party.

Evie got a haul of goodies from her hour of trick or treating between the two parties and I took great pleasure in walking around our village in my costume...I realised after posing for hundreds of photos, that I'm a total camera whore when I'm in fancy dress!

Just a few of my photos from last night.
I've decided next year im going to wear my halloween outfit all day...a few hours at night just wasnt long enough!

Until next time
Em x

Rainy Day Out in Saltaire and Shipley

Monday was the day the UK was warned a huge storm would hit the South and Midlands and leave a trail of devastation in its wake...luckily for Yorkshire all we got was yet another bloody wet day!!!
Anyway I'd planned a trip over to Saltaire to see an exhibition at Salts Mill with Harry and Kia, Evie talked her way out of it and wrangled a day at my Mums with Hermione.
Anyway apart from feeling really crappy because of a stinking cold I had a brill day, the exhibition was interesting and deserves a blog post all of its own, so i'll write that later in the week.
We had a quick glance around another exhibition there of photographs of pop/rock stars of the 60's...but as we only whizzed around this one, we've yet another reason to go back soon!

After a good couple of hours spent in the mill we decided to walk up into Shipley and take a trip down memory lane!
Kia couldn't remember the flat my Grandma lived in for almost all of my life, but she remembered the hill with the rock on it outside her flat, she played on the hill with Mica when they were little much like Marc, Jody and myself did when we were kids too...

Walking down the hill into Shipley town centre I pointed out various points of interest to me, the church where I vaguely remember going to a playgroup, The road where the best fish 'n' chip shop in Yorkshire was (maybe even still is!) that my Dad would drive over from Manchester to when he fancied decent fish and chips.

A pub that was always the big Co-op, the shop that used to be the toyshop where I bought Famous Five books, the Underground market and (I couldn't believe it was still there) the best second hand book stall in the world.
I used to live for my trips to visit my Grandma in Saltaire so I could go into Shipley and spend all my money on books!
Sadly after my bragging to Kia about this amazing stall, it was closed, apparently it only opens on Fridays and Saturdays now.
But we did find a great wool stall with a guy who would win gold in the talking olympics!
Amazingly I didn't buy myself any wool at all...Kia got a couple of nice balls for her pink blanket though.
All in all it was nice to get out and explore without having to worry about Evie getting bored, we had time to wander at leisure around the exhibition and linger over coffee and a very late lunch!

Thats all for now...back soon with the exhibition photos.
Em x

Autumn Days.

Its Autumn here in the UK and one of the most beautiful times of the year in my part of the country.
Trees are suddenly a riot of glorious colour, smoke from chimneys and bonfires evoke memories and preparations for both Halloween and Bonfire Night mean Christmas is just around the corner.
If we're lucky Autumn is cool and crisp with bright sunny days, cold clear nights and stunning sunsets, but sadly so far this year its been mostly dull, dreary and damp and really cold to boot!
On the few days its been nice enough to get out and dawdle rather than rush up or down the road to avoid a soaking or hypothermia I've managed as always to take billions of photos...

Autumn Fruit

Autumn Skies

Autumn Friends.

Until next time.
Em x

The End of a Magnificent Summer

So, it's the end of another summer and it's been a great one! 

Lots of lovely hot sunny days spent with people I love, lots of fun days out and some pretty big changes too! 

We moved house in the middle of August, we've got a lovely old house with a huge kitchen and a lovely cellar that Kia has turned into a cosy bedroom for herself.

Evie has a huge double bedroom to fill with her Xbox and various other bits of geekery and as always Scott and myself have drawn the short straw and have the little bedroom, which is currently filled with boxes and boxes of craft supplies including 10 very large boxes of wool! 

We had so much help from our lovely friends and family moving house and Scott's brilliant parents came all the way from Inverness to clean and decorate the new house before we moved in.

So we've been here a month and still not finished unpacking or putting up furniture...but otherwise its perfect, we've already had guests to stay.

Kias friend Penny came for 5 nights before heading home to Denmark and then Mica and her boyfriend Danny were here last week when they came home from Cheltenham for a few days.

Hopefully we'll be unpacked and organised sooner rather than later as I'm planning a house warming party in a few weeks!

 

 

 Other things we've enjoyed this summer is a new found love of geocaching , if you not know what geocaching is...it's a worldwide treasure hunt, looking for containers holding one times nothing more than a teeny roll of paper on which to sign your name. You get the GPS Coordinates from the official geocaching website, and use your phone with GPS enabled or another handheld GPS device  to track down the geocache, be warned if you give it a go...it's pretty bloody addictive!



 

 

 http://www.geocaching.com/ is where to look if you're at all intrigued by it! 

And finally to end our brilliant summer...we had lots of music recently in the form of a very very muddy weekend at LeedsFestival, I went with Kia, Evie and my little sister Hermione. Even though Evie and Hermione have been to festivals before, this was the first time they were really into the whole thing, the music, the silliness, the general festival spirit and of course the never ending MUD! 



 

We saw some amazing bands including Nine Inch Nails, Fall Out Boy, Villagers, The Lumineers, System of a Down, Green Day, Foals, Is Tropical, The 1975, Chase and Status and the absolute high point of the weekend Eminem!! 

And following closely on the heels of Leeds Festival was a musical evening at the bisque painting studio Les Cadeaux in our village with our very talented friend Kayla Kavanagh playing there, in the break between segments of her set Evie payed 'Yellow Submarine' with Neil the owner of Les Cadeaux and Evie's guitar tutor, it was a wonderful night, Kayla is talented and funny and a lovely person too and seeing my little girl sat playing her guitar in front of a roomful of people was the icing on a big fat cake! 



 

 

So, we are well and truly into September now, the weather is much, much cooler already and the nights seem to have drawn in super fast.

We are back on track with our lessons and Evie has the LEA assessor coming to visit us next week.

Our current topics are The Romans for history, Australia for geography and The Solar System for science, so lots of fun coming up with those! 

That's all for now

Emma xxx

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Sunny Days.

I know I've been really lax on the blogging front recently, but to be honest I've been very lax about everything that doesn't involve spending as much time as possible outside in the glorious sunshine we're having here in South Yorkshire at the mo.

We've been on walks, eaten picnics, had lessons in the park, camped out overnight, spent lots of time in other people's gardens ( we only have a tiny yard), had a sneaky afternoon in the pub beer garden and a day out at Hemsworth Water Park.

 



We've seen geese standing on one leg, ducklings with their Mum and an inquisitive plump hedgehog! 

 



The sunsets have been magnificent.

 



 

 

And there's been lots of time for some lovely al fresco crochet! 

 



And that's it...a short but sunny post this time, keep watch though...I've got some interesting news coming up soon.

See ya

Em xx

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Zombies and Tennis Anyone?

There's nothing much can beat a summer weekend when there's nothing much to do except relax and enjoy the sunshine.

Evie spent most of the weekend chasing around with Hermione and some friends, soaking each other with water pistols or squeezy bottles filled with water, which is what we used for water fights when I was a kid! 

Me and Scott spent sometime painting at the village studio 'Les Cadeaux ', we went to see 'World War Z' and we spent all this afternoon watching Andy Murray win Wimbledon! 

World War Z was a really good film, I wanted to see it because I love anything with zombies and as I read the book recently it made me want to see it all the more.

I really, really enjoyed the book but couldn't see how it would translate into a film as its just a series of interviews with survivors of the zombie war, but if you haven't read the book or you can detach yourself from it and accept the film  as a story in its own right then it's a bloody good film! 

 



 

We saw it in 3D and all I can say about that is...3D zombies...wowzers!! There was one point early on in the film where I jumped like I've never jumped before as a big scary 3D zombie suddenly popped up in front of me, and I do not usually scare easily! 

 



 



The film was tense from the start and had a bit of a nail biting edge to it all the way through, the ending was a bit predictable and sentimental for my liking, I know I'm awful but I love miserable, depressing, unhappy endings (my all time fave film is 'Requiem For a Dream).

Anyway if you like a bit of zombie action or a bit of Brad Pitt or just a good, jumpy story go see it! 

In very brief other news, I shed a few tears when Andy Murray won the tennis this afternoon, I'm so happy that he won, he always seems so very serious and he's such a nice guy...I hope he lightens up a bit and enjoys his moment of glory! 

 



Until next time 

Em xx

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Saltaire.

Evie's project this week is Saltaire and Sir Titus Salt, the wool manufacturer and philanthropist from Yorkshire.

Sir Titus Salt built the model village Saltaire on land he had acquired near to Shipley, he decided to relocate his mill and workers out of the it's of Bradford after a cholera outbreak killed over 300 people in Bradord.

 Salt built houses for his workers, a church, school, hospital, an educational institute and almshouses for retired workers as well as his magnificent mills.

Saltaire had everything a good village in the mid 19th century should have except a pub! Sir Titus Salt was a strict teetotaller   and insisted that his workers remain sober as well.

The streets of Saltaire were mostly named after members of the Salt family and two architects who contributed to the design and building of Saltaire, a few notable exceptions include a trio of streets named after flowers popular at the time and some streets named after royalty.

These days the mill hosts an exhibition by local artist David Hockney and some excellent historical information.

 



[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500"] David Hockneys Art at Salts Mill.[/caption]
 



[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500"] A Mural of The Process of Woolmaking.[/caption]
A brilliant restaurant and some rather lovely shops! 

 



And the houses once occupied by mill workers are now highly desirable properties and the shops are mostly either speciality shops or sadly empty, although we did see one, 'Salts Village Bakery' where my Grandma worked a long time ago, and where they make and sell the most deeee-licious spinach and feta pasties! 

We also found the street where my Dad lived when him and Mum first met and where my Grandma still lived when I was first born and we spotted houses where various relatives have lived over the years.

 



[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500"] Memory Lane[/caption]
 

We had a yummy picnic in Roberts Park and a good walk around it, culminating in a run around (for the kids) in the playground...although I had a quick bounce on a trampoline and our friend Helen slid down the slide a few times, looking out over the river Aire from the playground we could see a weir in the river where as a child I begged and begged to be allowed to play with all the lucky kids who were allowed to play in the water...I was never ever allowed though!! 

 



[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500"] Around Saltaire and Roberts Park.[/caption]
 

The weather was on our side yesterday too which helped make it yet another lovely day out! 

Until next time 

Em xx 

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