You'll know by know that I absolutely adore Attic 24. I think she has a lovely attitude, fantastic colour sensibilities and I like how she appreciates the little things like cake and vases and shopping at markets. Jealous? Me? Never!
Her post about the ripple blanket contained a link to Little Tin Bird and I've become a bit addicted to her too. Similar sorts of reasons but she's younger than Lucy at Attic 24 so I guess I sort of 'connect' with her more - if it's possible to 'connect' with somebody through reading her blog.
I read other blogs too but these two are based in England (Heather at Little Tin Bird even had a post which mentioned Huddersfield where my Dad's from, Barnsley where I'm from and Nottingham where we both are now - weird ey!?) and I that means more to me I guess than blogs from America and Canada I guess. Anyway, they have lovely lives. I'm sure it's not all like that, you put your best foot forward in a blog, but they do lovely things and appreciate nature and go and do things on their days off. So I planned to have three days like that over my three days off. Cue Attic 24/Little Tin Bird style post...
I made sure to wake up early on Saturday to take advantage of the light and the fact that little man wakes up early too. I fed him, washed him, clothed him and wrestled with his pushchair and we were off for a little trip to Wollaton Hall. For those who don't live near us, Wollaton Hall is an Elizabethan house built in the baroque style and filled with dead things. Haha. There's a brilliant museum attached which has steam engines and knitting machines and the like too but it seems to be usually closed and I didn't think little thing would like the noise so we avoided it and spent our time in the natural history part in the main house.
We were both wrapped up warm because, blimey, it's getting cold around these parts! Between us we had six hand knitted things! Didn't we do well!?
We only live five minutes away from the hall so soon enough we had our first peek over the wall and into the park. Doesn't it look lovely?!
I got him out at this point but he wasn't happy that I wouldn't let him crawl over the sodden leaves and up the crumbling wall so I quickly stuffed him back in the pram and we zig zagged across the grounds making our way up to the hall.
The big main doors were closed though, so we veered off course and headed towards the courtyard cafe. Along the way we saw loads of dogs ('docdocdoc' in little person's language). I didn't take photos of that because I felt a bit weird asking... But the courtyard was lovely, we had some tea and some milk and found out that the hall would be open in about half an hour.
We admired the architecture.
Got excited about a pigeon on the roof.
And had a little 'hooky time' in the words of Lucy.
At 11 o'clock we headed off to the hall. I made a big mistake by forgetting that prams are not as mobile as feet and trying to get up a steep hill with lots of tree branches was probably not a good idea. But we did get to see a squirrel. Can you see him?
Getting up the front steps of the hill was a bit of a minefield. The lift was broken and I was on my own so out of the pram he came and with him on my hip and all the bags of stuff (how much stuff do you have to carry when you've got a kiddliwink!?) on my shoulders, I dragged the pram backwards up the steps. Phew. A nice lady helped me up the last few steps, only after watching me struggle up three quarters of it though!
Anyway, it was worth it. We saw cockroaches:
Notice his gorgeous hand knitted trousers. Well done Caroline!
Ammonites:
Beautiful crystals:
Some warthogs, who didn't seem too impressed with our version of 'Hakuna Matata':
And THE gorilla!
Every now and then we got a bit lost but it was usually then that we saw some lovely views out of hidden windows.
And we were both definitely impressed by the magnificent ceiling in the main hall:
But I think the bit that was most enjoyable was finding some food shaped toys and two nice little girls to play with:
But all of that playing was thirsty work so we headed back home with a little stop on the way to play with the new tambourine. Just so happens that the bottle shaped cool bag was more interesting though...
It does feel good to drag yourself up with a hungry caterpillar though:
So, we said goodbye to the hall:
and hello to the walk home:
And in the end it was all a bit too much.
Later in the day Seb went to visit his great Grandmother and for a bit of retail therapy. I spent the rest of the day baking:
lovely lovely parkin:
and doing my hair, which more or less means brushing it but that effort doesn't extend as far as getting out of my pyjamjams:
in readiness for Saturday night when I went out with good friends, got a bit tipsy and had a dance. And Sunday afternoon when I spent time with other good friends knitting, crocheting and sewing whilst eating cake. Lots and lots of cake.
As I write this on Sunday evening, Monday hasn't happened. But the plan is figures for the shop and finishing a commission knit that will be detailed on the blog asap. Then making a big, tasty dinner.
Isn't that a wonderful weekend? I feel rested.
P.S. As I post this on Tuesday afternoon, I now know that Monday didn't go as planned but I did get about half the work I should have got done done and I'm onto the 'J' on my blanket. More on that later.
P.P.S. The winner of last weeks 'proof-reading' competition was Kate from Carlton. We've been in contact and she'll be on a lovely night out soon!! Thank you everybody for helping us, it's amazing how much stuff I missed but I feel confident that it's all coming together. Now, if only I could scrabble together some time to put more stuff up...
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