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.

Five on Friday - 27th February

I'm joining in with Amy from

Love Made my Home

 to share five things that I've enjoyed this week.

Apologies for the strange spacing and layout of this post.

I think Blogger is having a brain fade. 

It won't let me move things around so I've given up trying.

1. Pretty flowers from the garden centre

It's that time of year when thoughts of Spring trigger a longing to start gardening again. I needed to buy a few essentials like bird food and compost, but some goodies just fell into my car boot too. I just couldn't resist these pretty primulas. 2. My dog Inca having a Princess and the Pea moment, nicely settled on the sofa resting on THREE cushions! 3. This costume drama Oh, I've loved watching Wolf Hall. I hadn't read the books so I can't compare,  but I've been captivated by the stunning performances  and the whole sumptuous production of this drama.  4. A trip to the cinema A new pleasure at the Next Phase is re-discovering the cinema. We've found that a trip to the cinema on a cold wet afternoon is a lovely thing to do. This week we saw Selma, a very powerful film about the Civil Rights movement in America.  It should be shown in every secondary school across the world. 5. Blue, blue skies on my walk this morning Lately I've been trying to get out early each morning for a good walk. I don't go with Inca (because she stops to sniff every 30 seconds and it would take me all day) so I take my i-pod and just power away at a decent pace. I've been out in all weathers and was nearly blown off my feet earlier in the week. This was the view today, looking across the River Dee to Wales as I cut through our local churchyard. It felt quite warm for the first time this year. Pop over to Amy's blog to see what everyone else is sharing today.

Five on Friday

Tonight I'm joining in with  Amy at Love Made My Home's new link up 'Five on Friday', 

sharing five things that have made me happy this week.

At this stage in the year spring still seems so far off and I'm longing for some colour and warmth back in my life. So my five things are little signs of hope that things might improve soon.

Sunshine in a jar .... homemade marmalade tastes better than anything shop bought.

Our Christmas Amaryllis in bloom at last. 

This plant is truly gigantic .... the picture doesn't convey it's size.

Washing out on the line for the first time this year. Woohoo!

It was still light around half past five this week.

Gorgeous colours .... surely the worst of winter is behind us now.

And best of all, this week it was Shrove Tuesday - begging the question
why oh why do I only make pancakes once a year?

But would they taste so good if we had them every week?

Pop over to Amy's blog and see what everyone else is sharing this Friday.

Projects for 2015

One of the greatest joys of my new life is having time to spend on things that I've always done ... but always wanted to do better. Now I've got the  time to really get stuck in.
I've got quite a few projects going on right now.

Reading  
For the last few years I've vowed to widen my reading choices, and not stick to the same old, same old. I failed because I was always too tired to stray from the simple 'Cupcakes and Cafe' type of book. This year I've found an on-line challenge to read 50 books in 2015. Instead of giving you a list you choose your own title from a given option .... e.g. A Pulitzer Prize winning book, or a book written by someone under 30 .... etc. I've got the whole list up at the top on one of my pages but the link to the original site is here .... Reading Challenge

It works out that you'd have to read one book a week to get through the list. I'm one month in, and on my 5th book so it's going quite well. I've picked books that I would never have read before, though I think I may have to sneak a 'cupcake' book in soon to give my brain a bit of a rest.

Messing with paint

Art Journaling is something I've dabbled in in the past but never really got very far. So this year I've joined an on-line group to give me some inspiration. The Documented Life Project at art5academy gives you weekly prompts for using different materials and media and often a quote to base your page on.

I absolutely love it, and as the weeks have gone on, I've found myself becoming more experimental and getting seriously messy hands! There's no right or wrong way, and it's the total opposite of my watercolour classes where everything has to be done just so or else. After years of 'doing art' with primary school classes, I'm still getting my colour fix!

Watercolour Painting Class

The class I go to is a bit like painting by numbers. The tutor gives us a line drawing to copy, and then we watch him paint it bit by bit and we endeavour to do ours the same way. Some times it works, sometimes it's a disaster. There's no room for experimentation. He likes everyone to do everything exactly the same way using the same colour, brushes, paper etc. The pace is also very slow, as everyone in the class is at different stages. At first, I was very impatient with the process, and found it strange being on the 'other side of the desk' being the pupil and not the teacher ha!ha! but I have learned to just go with the flow. I find it all harder than I expected it to be, but I am improving slowly.

The next big step is to have a go at painting something from a photograph I've taken, or even actually outdoors. Hmmm .... we'll see.

Scrapbooking
I did scrapbooking the traditional way for years, and have filled many books for family members. My scrapbooks would be the first things I would rescue in a fire, (after people and our dog of course). But last year I finally tried the  Project Life way....  after looking at it from a distance for a few years. I knew it was going to be a big year for us and I wanted to mark it somehow. With Project Life you get to record all those little moments in the weeks and months and not just the big occasions. You just take lots and lots of photographs and pop them into plastic pockets along with some journaling, instead of making a fancy page. I do one page per week, but there's lots of ways of approaching it.(Just look on Pinterest)

At the end of the year I had a huge file filled with memories ....

This is probably the main reason I don't feel the need to blog so much. I always used my blog as a sort of visual diary, but now I've got this instead.

I've already started this year's folder. I love the way you can tell the little stories. I wish I had this around when my children were small .... but I'd never have had the time to do it properly then I suppose.

I also get to use up some of my"stash" which satisfies the need in my life to play with pretty paper and embellishments.

Knitting

I finally finished the knitted throw I was working on last year.

I'm not a knitting fanatic, but every so often I got the needles out and made a square. It took me 18 months to get this throw finished and it gave me an amazing sense of achievement to actually put it onto the bed in our guest room. It's very cosy.

I had quite a lot of wool over, so I started throw number two and have knitted about a quarter of it so far. I reckon it will take about another year if I work at my normal pace!!!!

and finally the project I love most of all is .....

Our Garden
For years we put up with a tatty unloved messy garden which flooded every time it rained. Last winter we had it transformed .... the flooding problem was solved, we had new patios constructed and a new lawn.

Last spring we had a big empty patch be planted up.....  

I can't wait for the weather to improve so I can get out there again. 

So, lots of lovely things to keep me occupied. 

I can honestly say I haven't had one day yet where I've wondered what to do with myself