Scarborough; how a bit of sunshine changes everything

 This weekend I went to Scarborough. I'd never been before but my friend Grace is at uni in Hull and it seemed like a fun place to visit not too far away.
We arrived Saturday afternoon and meandered over to our hotel. We had chosen to stay at The Grand knowing that it had very mixed reviews. It's a beautiful Victorian building that's not been very loved recently, we didn't really have any problems with it .

After we'd got ourselves settled and had a good old nosy around the hotel we set out for the seafront. We walked all the way along one of the bays to the harbour, stopping to eat chips and poke about in all the tacky touristy shops.
 The sun was so beautiful. Everything looked golden in the light of the late afternoon. I'm enamoured with the seaside any way but for a short few hours everything seemed to sparkle.
 I can just feel my soul relaxing by looking at the pictures, bright sunshine really effects my mood so much. I feel invincible on a sunny day, full of power and joy that I can't quite find when it's grey. I must keep remembering this

  

(aren't seagulls funny?)

Local yocal

I don't always have a lot of love for my home town. Taking my camera around with me is making me reconsider that.
That huge bridge is Stockport viaduct, apparently the largest brick built structure in Europe! This old factory is now the hat museum, Stockport's former main industry was in hats

Things sometimes seem so different from behind a camera lens

Things from the internet

I quite fancy making these avocado and chocolate cakes, sounds like a winning combination


Love these often slightly creepy pictures of buildings with faces on them by Russian artist Nikita Nomerz

I want to have a go at this cross stitch on crochet, love this cushion from Purl Bee

So, I've been thinking about maybe working part time and pursuing other things, this article from yes and yes is encouraging and daunting.

This messy science experiment looks so fun, I hope I get to teach somewhere that I could do this soon or I might have to have a go by myself!

So, uhm, yeh, I have a birthday coming up. This fantastic and slightly scary ring might have to be my present to myself

How to end up a secret virgin.

 

This video is lovely, the guy in it runs a videography/ photography business in Islamabad and his pictures are making me want to visit Pakistan, it's definitely on my list of places to explore.

Spring is bursting out all over

I'm so excited to see these signs of spring at the moment

 

I'm off to enjoy this burst of sunshine, happy weekend everyone!

Wednesday Remembering

This is a regular post featuring an old picture of mine, usually from former travels, with a short description of the story behind the photo.

Wales.
Coming from south Manchester, north Wales was where we usually went to go to see the sea on sunny days.
I'm very much looking forward to being able to go to a beach and swim in the sea again soon.
This picture was taken on the Gower Peninsula on a family holiday in 2007. I was about two months away from finishing uni and was under a heavy cloud of dissertation worry. I spent several days cooped up inside the holiday cottage while the rest of my family were out exploring. I won't say I was particularly productive during those days though. One day my mum and I went for walk along Rhossili beach at the very end of the peninsula. It was a perfect late spring day, warm, slightly breezy and bright
I'd love to be there today

On becoming the next Blue Peter presenter

A month or so ago I came across this article "BBC's Blue Peter launches show to find new presenter"

I've wanted to be a Blue Peter presenter for ever. It had definitely been my childhood dream and here it was, a chance to actually make my dreams come true! I can do all the fun things they get up to - making crafty things from rubbish, baking, dealing with elephants, going on cross cultural adventures, doing daring deeds involving high wires and being scared.
I already had the perfect jumper 

So I set about preparing my application. I had to make a short video so I recruited a friend of my brother to help me film and edit 3 minutes of myself being very Blue Petery. I decided to make my own Blue Peter badge for the section that required making something. I thought about making a badge like this

 

Which involved colouring blue various pictures of people called Peter, this hit a problem with the lack of famous Peters for Blue Peter's target age range. Never mind, I set about creating a different sort of badge using plastic 6 which shrinks!



I also had to complete a short written application which allowed me only 250 words in which to convey how ideal I am as a presenter and how much I love Blue Peter. In order to do this efficiently, I wrote a series of limericks.


This Helen did dream of adventure
she crossed Ghana to get to Burkina
was ever so eager
dressed up like that Bieber
Got job as the face of Blue Peter

 Her own Blue Peter badge she would craft
and in danger's face she had laughed
By day she’s a teacher
games and learning do feature
By night she's incredibly daft



I've not yet had a response....

Notre Dame

I know, I know, it's nearly a month since I went to Paris and I'm still posting pictures from my trip.
Anyway; we went to see Notre Dame, all three of us, Nadia and Fiona and myself had been to Paris before and had seen a lot of the more famous touristy things, Nadia seems to be visiting Paris every six months of so at the moment. So going to look at Notre Dame wasn't really something new for us.

We were staying near to the Sorbonne on the left bank (I feel like it's south rather than left though) so we stopped by the square in front of the Church to take some pictures .

Around the side of the building, in addition to the long line snaking from the front doors was a queue to climb up the towers. None of us had ever done this before so we decided that this would be one of the toursity things we'd do. Not wanting to wait in line on our first morning in Paris when we had so many fun and exciting things to do, we hatched a plan to come back half an hour before the towers shut at five. This should give us plenty of time to fit in wondering around Paris and having fun before we joined the line. We went off and looked at many Parisian things and visited the Louvre before marching back to be in line at half past four. Well, friends, we just missed it. As we were approaching the queue, in sight of the the finish line of our self-imposed fast-walk from the Tuileries, the lady in charge shut the line. A sign was placed behind the last people informing us that they were the back of the line and no-one else would be allowed to join.

Disappointed but also rather cold we headed off in search of crepe and chocolat chaud vowing to return first thing in the morning.

Finally, Sunday morning, on our third attempt we managed to make it into the building and up the towers!
I'm really rather glad that we waited until then as we saw the only sunshine and blue skies of the whole weekend while we were at the top.

The views over Paris were amazing; I've really had to limit the amount of pictures, because I could show hundreds.

 

Notre Dame itself is a magnificent  building, the two large towers at the front form a sort of façade and the shape of the church with it's many spires is hidden, but from the top, the many details and plans can be seen. I was especially intrigued by the many grotesques and gargoyles  lurking around the edges of the towers, there were a lot of different types of both real of mythical creatures alongside angels and biblical scenes.
  

 

A little bit of sunshine

Oh I do like sunshine!
It's been such a lovely weekend, I've been out in the garden enjoying some brightness, doing some out door crafting, going for a nice walk through central Manchester to Salford Quays
1, dried out hydrangeas, looking bright again
2, grumpy Peel cat face
3, pretending I can paint
4, love all these bright colours
5, terrifying high swings in Picadilly Gardens, Manchester
6, Kathleen posing for The Voic, Media City, Salford Quays

WIP update TOAST inspired, not-granny-square, grey blanket

 Many months ago I showed you this crochet blanket that I'm making for a friend. It's nearly finished, It's been nearly finished for ages and ages because I've run out of yarn. I've also discovered that I'm using a discontinued yarn and that nowhere sells it on the internet for any cheap price, not even ebay. I'm in a bit of a quandary. I do have some more yarn of this type but in different colours, so I could maybe make the last square in a different colour or even striped and just hope for the best, or I managed to buy some yarn that is exactly the same shade and I think of a similar fibre but not as chunky, maybe I could use that

 

 If anyone happens to have a spare ball or two of Patons Silenzio Chunky in light grey laying around somewhere and is up for selling it to me, it'd be really, really great!