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Word of the Week 34 – Wet

August 21, 2020 by Anne Sweet 6 Comments

Hello and welcome to the home of Word of the Week. A nice and simple weekly linky, with everyone welcome to pop by and share. The idea of the linky is to reflect back on your past week and share it with us. It’s great if you can sum it up in a word or phrase, hence giving us your Word of the Week. My word this week is ‘wet’ and you can read more about that below.

I’m not totally strict on using just a word or phrase. But please try to stick to the theme of summing up your week.There are not too many rules with this linky, just remember to read at least another couple of posts in the link up after adding your link. I will read and comment on all posts and tweet them out for you. I also have a Pinterest board devoted to Word of the Week and I will add posts to Mi x Please add the badge below to your post so that others may find us and join in. If you comment or tweet then please use the hashtag #WotW

Word of the Week is open from 6am on Friday Morning to 12 noon on Monday. Plenty of time to join in!

If you are unfamiliar with the Word of the Week linky then please feel free to ask any questions. New linkers are always welcome, we love to hear what you have been up to in the past week.

MY WORD OF THE WEEK –Wet

Image shows rain dripping onto a pavement and the word wet in white dripping letters

Well, after an exciting week last week, this week has been boring and very wet!

We haven’t been anywhere, only Graham has left the house. He had to take the car in for its service which was possibly the most exciting thing that happened this week, but even that was boring.

It has rained every single day. We’ve had moments of sunshine, but mostly it’s either been drizzling or pouring down. This time last year we were in Cornwall and the weather wasn’t much better…so, note for the future..this week on the calendar can be marked as ‘wet week.’

So, what have we been up to? Well, I did have a lovely afternoon crafting with my Little Man. It took a lot of encouragement to get him off Roblox, but he had fun in the end. Of course, he started by drawing a picture of Roblox characters! We also did some paper mache and decorated a tote bag with fabric paint. I think the Little Man had fun, I did anyway.

I also baked some banana bread. We had four bananas that no-one would eat because they were over ripe. I didn’t want to throw them away so I made banana bread. My stomach has been faring much better since I left gluten out of my diet. (I did do a test at home and I’m not a Coeliac, but I definitely have gluten sensitivity.) So my banana bread was made gluten free and I didn’t tell anyone. Nobody noticed!

I’ve been busy with my crochet, I’m currently working on a cushion cover and a blanket so I’m alternating which one I do. At the same time I listen to my e-books. I finished ‘I know why the Caged Bird Sings’ by Maya Angelou and I’m now listening to a book that was gifted to me by someone on Twitter, so I’ll be reviewing that soon. It’s quite a dark murder story.

Back to food, we’ve been trying some new recipes from my new Mindful Chef cookbook. The adults have enjoyed them so far. Last night we had some delicious lamb kebabs and I made cauliflower rice. Everyone went urrgh! But it wasn’t wasted, I liked it best, but the others ate theirs too.

Tomorrow we are back at the farm, but this time we are going with another family who we haven’t seen all year. We have a lot of catching up to do, fingers crossed the rain gives us a break, we don’t want to end up getting too wet.

Now it’s your turn, what word or phrase sums up your week this week?

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My Sunday Snapshot & Ordinary Moments – Granny Squares

August 16, 2020 by Anne Sweet 13 Comments

Granny Squares

Yesterday it was Granny Squares Day. For those of you who don’t know, a granny square is a crochet square and it’s often the first thing you learn how to do. Generally the idea is to make lots of squares and sew them together to make a blanket. I’m not a fan of doing this simply because I don’t like sewing them together. I do however enjoy crocheting the squares. The picture above is a screen shot of my Instagram feed of the nine different squares I made especially for granny square day. They are not perfect and a I didn’t have time to block them to make them neat and flat, but I had fun making them and using up some scraps of wool.

Goats

We went to a farm earlier this week and I’ve already posted about it but it has certainly been a highlight of our Summer so far. We enjoyed it so much we are going back again next week. We hope it will be a little cooler, but not raining. Although the kids don’t mind the rain, my wheelchair is not a fan.

Anyway, I dug out a couple more photos for you. Here is a cute goat asking for some more food, and two of my kids feeding the goats.

A black and white goat looking over a fence for some food. — *Please feed me*

Image shows a girl in a blue t-shirt and a boy in a yellow t-shirt feeding a goat over a fence — *We have some food for you.*

With such a busy week last week I’m surprised I managed to finish my granny squares in time. But I also managed to finish reading a book (or rather listening to one) and I’m halfway through another. My biggest achievement of the week before was managing to watch the entire second series of The Umbrella Academy. Now, I just can’t wait for the next series. In fact I’m waiting to get the chance to watch the first series with Graham as he’s not seen any of it yet. Have you seen The Umbrella Academy?

Word of the Week 33 – Exciting

August 14, 2020 by Anne Sweet 4 Comments

I’m not totally strict on using just a word or phrase. But please try to stick to the theme of summing up your week.There are not too many rules with this linky, just remember to read at least another couple of posts in the link up after adding your link. I will read and comment on all posts and tweet them out for you. I also have a Pinterest board devoted to Word of the Week and I will add posts to Mi xPlease add the badge below to your post so that others may find us and join in. If you comment or tweet then please use the hashtag #WotW

Word of the Week is open from 6am on Friday Morning to 12 noon on Monday. Plenty of time to join in!

If you are unfamiliar with the Word of the Week linky then please feel free to ask any questions. New linkers are always welcome, we love to hear what you have been up to in the past week.

MY WORD OF THE WEEK – Exciting

This week has been rather exciting! I chose this image because it’s colourful, and it includes umbrellas, which may well be included in my exciting week.

image shows a ceiling made of colourful umbrellas with the word Exciting across the middle

We started the week off with The Little Man’s birthday, he has turned 10, so now I have no children in single figures anymore. No babies. He had a fantastic day playing with all his new toys and his excitement was caught by everyone.

On Monday, The Little Man wanted a friend around to play and I had a friend who wanted to visit too. Now, to be safe we decided to stay in the garden. The Little Man was super excited all day, and I was excited to see my friend who I last saw in February when we went to the ballet together.

Of course it was too hot so we ended up in the house for the last hour of the visit.

The Farm

On Tuesday we were really excited to have our visit to the farm. We had a session booked so that we would be the only ones there for a couple of hours. It was really exciting to be able to go out and know that we were going to be completely safe and not have to worry about social distancing.

I was worried the weather wouldn’t hold, but it was another lovely hot day. We had a picnic and fed the animals. The kids played in the play area which was really lovely, and we had a walk around the allotment. But it was too hot and in the end we were glad to get back to the air conditioning of the car.

In the evening we had thunder and lightening. I get excited about storms and I thought this would help clear the air and make it a cooler night. But the rain lasted all of two minutes and it was even hotter and stuffier afterwards.

The Real Deal

As we got hotter and hotter throughout the week, we decided to get the pool out on Wednesday. Everyone had a turn at cooling off in the pool. The girls didn’t get in but they did dip their toes in while sitting on the garden chairs. The kids had lots of fun and it was another exciting day.

The biggest excitement came in the evening though. We had a massive storm, thunder, lightning and lots of rain, cold refreshing rain. So much rain we even had some make its way through our patio doors, but there was no way were were going to close them. It still felt really hot though, another hot and sticky night.

Thankfully Thursday was much cooler, I don’t think I’ve ever been so pleased to see the sun have a break. I hope it’s not for good, it would be nice to have a few more hot days before the kids go back to school in September.

I’m not sure if I feel excited about the return to school. One day at a time.

Now it’s your turn, what word or phrase sums up your week this week?

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Spencer’s Retreat, a Day on the Farm

August 13, 2020 by Anne Sweet 2 Comments

We had a lovely day on Tuesday at Spencer’s Retreat in Coventry. We had booked a session which meant we had the place to ourselves for two and a half hours. We arrived on a blistering hot afternoon and headed straight for the picnic area as it was already lunch time. If the kids had been younger they would have loved this area. We chose it for the picnic bench and canopy from the sun, but it also had a big sand pit, a play house, ride on toys and a scarecrow. When fully open there is an indoor area with seating and books, snacks and drinks.

spencer's retreat play area with ride on toys and sandpit. — *Younger children’s play area*

The Animals at Spencer’s Retreat

We saw pigs, who were having a good time rolling around in the mud. There were also goats who really enjoyed following us around, as did the geese. There was also a pony who was really cute and in the end pen there were some little goats who were very playful. There was animal feed available for us to give to them and the kids really enjoyed doing this.

Image is of two goats at Spencer's retreat. One brown and one grey.

cute little baby goat at spencer's retreat

The Big Play Area

The kids had fun on the play area with a trampoline embedded in the ground and lots of logs and tyres to climb over. There was also a see saw. The kids would have spent a lot more time clambering over this if it hadn’t been so very hot.

Boo having a kick around with a ball in the play area

The wooden play area with the children and their Dad playing

The Allotment

We had a lovely time walking around the plants. I didn’t think my kids would be so interested but it’s really made me more determined to grow some stuff for next summer. There were lots of plants to see and a nice little area to sit for a rest. But again, it was just too hot.

Some plants in the allotment and the big trunk of the play area in the background

We ended up back in the picnic area where there was a little shelter from the blazing sun. I think the kids were a little frustrated because they wanted to do more but were completely drained by the heat. In the end they welcomed the cool air conditioning in the car on the way home.

Can You Help Spencer’s Retreat

Spencer’s retreat is part of the Langdale Trust and are looking for volunteers to work on the farm. You can find out more information on the website here.

They have also issued this request for help on their Facebook page. The work they do is amazing and it could be so much better too, so if you can help or know anyone who can then please get in touch, details in the post below.

Follow Spencers Retreat, part of the Langdales Trust on Social Media

Facebook

Twitter @retreatspencers

Instagram

But, oh, Those Summer Nights!

August 12, 2020 by Anne Sweet 1 Comment

Summer Nights.

I don’t know how it’s been for you but we’ve been having some really tropical weather here in the Midlands especially some really hot summer nights. It’s lovely to have a summer, but I wish it would cool down at night. Phew! How are you supposed to sleep when it’s so hot and humid?

Last night we had a thunderstorm, for about an hour we had thunder and lightning. Graham was outside in the garden making videos and he recorded at temperature of 31 degrees! That was at 10pm.

But it’s been like that for days now. On Saturday night, our next door neighbours decided it was too hot to go to bed so stayed up all night. They were mostly in their back garden, talking, drinking, laughing, squealing, keeping me awake until 5.30am when the sun was already up. I don’t know if I would have been able to sleep anyway because of the heat, but it would have been nice to try.

Sunday

It was the Little Man’s birthday and even though he got up early, he refused to get me out of bed before 7am. I managed an hours sleep between 6 and 7 so I was truly grateful, even though I hadn’t asked it of him.

He had a great day. I think he loved all his presents which included the new Lego Super Mario where you build a playable Mario platform game. He also had a new Roblox car and character, and a remote control car that works by lazer and can drive up the wall. He had a huge Connect 4 Game (one of his favourite board games) which can be played in the garden. He was so happy and excited all day. We had a BBQ instead of Sunday dinner. It was a lovely hot day.

Lego Supermario, photo shows a lego set with a Super Mario figure standing on a tall block and lots of other lego pieces around him. — *Lego Super Mario*

Sunday night could have been hot, but I wouldn’t know. Pure exhaustion made me sleep the whole night through! Despite the fact that some different neighbours decided to party until 2am. What is it about Summer nights that makes people want to party all night long. I am feeling the guilt of all those parties we used to have when I was younger…eek!

Monday

We invited some friends, just one adult and three young ones, to have a party lunch in the back garden. I worried that the weather would change and we’d end up having to shelter indoors. Well, we did end up sheltering indoors …from the heat! Just 20 minutes outside and we were all cooked. The kids had a lovely time though, they played Minecraft together and the Lego Mario course was a big hit. Again, The Little Man felt really special.

Monday night was HOT again. I knew we had a day out planned for Tuesday, and it had been a tiring day, so I did manage some sleep. Thankfully, I think all the neighbours were tired too as it was pretty quiet.

Tuesday

We had a couple of hours planned at Spencer’s Retreat, which I’d been really looking forward too. After such a lovely week weather wise, again I was worried that the weather would change. I mean, this is Britain, we don’t have day after day of nice weather here!

But again it was hot. We have air conditioning in the car so the journey was fine. Then when we got there, the heat just hit us. We arrived at lunch time so took a little shelter from the sun under a canopy and had our picnic. Then the kids helped themselves to some special feed and were off to feed the animals. My kids love animals and they had so much fun feeding them and watching them play. Then we went over to the play area where the kids had a play. It was set out like an assault course, and had it not been so hot I think they would have had a lot more fun here. But they were flagging because of the heat. We went into the allotment area where the kids were looking around at the plants, they seemed really keen to see what was growing. I think a vegetable garden would be a good idea at home, or even a little greenhouse. It’s a shame I’m not so green fingered.

photo shows a pig covered in wet sticky mud. Would wet mud be a good way of cooling down on summer nights? — *Maybe this pig has the right idea on how to keep cool?*

We made our way back to the picnic area to wash our hands in the sink and get a little shade. It was still way too hot though and as lovely as the farm was, the kids were happy to get back into the air conditioned car.

Wednesday

I can’t believe it’s only Wednesday, we’ve done so much this week. Today we will relax as much as possible and fingers crossed it will cool down a little. We are forecast more storms later, but last nights storms brought us very little rain and even more humidity. I didn’t get much sleep last night. I’m hoping that we get a cooler night, having summer in Britain is a rare thing, but oh, those summer nights are a bit too much!

Interesting Fact of the Day!

According to Jeff Wayne who wrote the musical version of War of the Worlds, he claimed that the aliens from Mars arrived during a storm on 12th August…watch out for those storms tonight..it’s just what we could do with right now after all the world is going through, an alien invasion!

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