Five on Friday

Today I'm joining in with Amy from Love Made my Home. 

You can find a link in my side bar.

One

These days I have a lot more time for cooking, and really enjoy trying out new recipes. 

Favourites are usually anything from Jamie Oliver or Nigel Slater,

 and I always use Mary Berry's books for baking. 

The photo shows the assembled ingredients for a delicious chicken and chorizo paella 

Two

The view of the river Dee at Llangollen from the Corn Mill 

where we were having a meal with our daughter last weekend. 

I'm sure the decking area is lovely in the summer months 

but we were much cosier indoors.

Three

I actually went out one day this week without my boots and socks.... 

just the once mind! 

Four

I love this book swap area in Liverpool City Centre.
You can take a book away from the little storage boxes, but you must leave one in its place.

It's a fantastic idea, especially for children.

The city is having a real push on reading for everyone this year
with lots of events going on over the summer.

Five

This week I addressed my fear of crochet, and attended a workshop in 

LOVE STITCH 

a lovely new haberdashery shop ten minutes from my house.

I discovered that I can actually crochet reasonably well

and I was told, to my delight, that it doesn't matter which way you hold the hook
as long as it's turning out OK. 

I can see I'm  going to be adding to my 'works in progress' pile.

Pop over to Amy's place and see what everyone else has been getting up to this week.

Sefton Park

With our daughter home last weekend, and a promise of fine weather, I searched online for something nice for us to do in the local area. We weren't disappointed.

I discovered a lovely event called 'Artisans in the Palm House" being held at Sefton Park in Liverpool, so we headed across the Mersey.

We arrived hungry, to take full advantage of the many food stalls that were set up. Of course, my daughter chose the one with the longest queue .... a sign of good food we always say as we wait patiently .....

She had the most delicious (and enormous) halloumi burger ever created. I'd eaten my pulled pork bun while we were waiting ... so no pictures! Hunger satisfied, we were ready for a good mooch around.

The Palm House looked beautiful in the bright spring sunshine.

Stalls were set up inside, and out and there was live music creating a lovely chilled atmosphere.

Inside, among the gigantic tropical leaves, it was filled with beautiful crafty goodness. A feast for the eyes and so much inspiration. I never feel right taking photographs of hand-crafted items, do you? Is there an etiquette? I just feel that I don't want to put their hard work out there in the ether for people to copy.

The enormous paper pompoms added to the festive air.

Everything was very tempting .... yes ... the purse is coming out here. A few purchases were made on the day.

Sampling and buying "super-dooper very rare flavoured peanut butter" .... how we laughed when we learned later that they also supply the deli round the corner from my daughter's house in Newcastle.

The Artisans in the Park are holding several more events through the city over the coming months. Well worth a visit if you're in the area.

I was also pleased to see that the park's much loved statue of Peter Pan is still in good shape.

A Postcard from Derbyshire

We've just returned from a week in our caravan. We realised it was the first trip away when it wasn't a school holiday. We really are in the world of the retired now!

We were pitched up just behind this wall ....

... which has a little wooden door ....

... I'm always intrigued by doors in walls , aren't you ...

Let's open it up and see what's on the other side .....

.... well, goodness me - we're on the Chatsworth Estate!!!

The Caravan Club site is actually in an old walled garden belonging to the big house.

Even shrouded in grey mist the house looks magnificent.

The house is closed for winter at the moment but I did take a peep through the gates ....

There's a hive of activity going on as the staff are getting ready for the new season which starts at the end of this month.

Meanwhile, we pretty much had the place to ourselves ......

..... but we did have to share it with these guys.

World Book Day

It's 11 a.m. I'm sitting down with a cup of tea trawling through Twitter and I've only just discovered it's World Book Day.

A sure sign I'm no longer a teacher.

This time last year (and many years before that) I would have been dressed up as a fictional character and attending a whole school assembly to share our love of books.

Here is Mr B. doing his final Book Day assembly last year showing the children one of his ancient mountaineering books.

I'm still working on my 2015 Reading Challenge. The details of this are on my page at the top of the blog.

This week I've just started South Riding by Winifred Holtby. I remember it as a TV series not so long ago but I hadn't read the book.

If you're involved in a World Book Day event today I hope you have lots of fun.