Friday Smiles 2025 # Week 34

It is getting exciting. This time next week we will have the keys to our new home. We seem to have gathered quite a few new pieces since we arrived here, so I have started packing some items into small boxes. Our son Tom is collecting us in a hired car and we have to get our cases, lots of small boxes, and three bodies into it, so hopefully he will get one big enough to cope.

I have done a bit of baking this week though it has been too hot to do much, but I tried out a recipe I saw for rock cakes cooked in the airfryer, and they were fairly successful. Today I bought the first bramley apples (cooking apples) I have seen this season, and they are one thing I really missed in Spain, especially as I had a very prolific Bramley tree in my garden here before. So I bought a couple and mixed them with some plums to make a big family sized fruit crumble today.

Summer came quite early in UK this year and I am wondering whether Autumn will also be earlier than usual. One day I walked to the local park again and I took this photo. 

As you can see the wild rose shrub is already covered in ripe red hip berries, and in front of them there are some stems of cardoon cynara . These are a semi-wild version of the globe artichoke. First they have a big, purple thistle flower and then this very impressive seed head which does resemble a globe artichoke. The picture just shouts Autumn to me.

As I was walking through the park I stopped at the croquet lawn where these two were engrossed in a game, and were taking it very seriously. I watched for some time but never quite understood what the aim of the game was. I know they have to use their mallet to knock a ball through a series of hoops, but there was also a 'jack' ball which confused me a bit.

The garden continues to surprise us with plants we didn't really know were there. This week there was a beautiful pink lily. The first flowers are fading now but there are lots of buds, so it will go on delighting us for some time.

Last week I showed you the blanket that I made for our new baby in November. It now has a pink rabbit in each corner. I had quite a lot of wool left over so I made a matching cushion for her big sister, with one rabbit in the centre.

Another little treasure from the garden is this pretty butterfly that was flitting between the little daisies and coltsfoot on the lawn, and it actually sat still enough for me to take a photo. I looked it up and found it is a Gatekeeper Butterfly, also known as a hedge brown.

I wonder whether you have seen these funny shaped nuts on the floor near you. They are malformed acorns caused by a Knopper wasp laying an egg inside each acorn as it is forming. As the lava grows it causes the acorn to mutate, and then it crawls out and feeds on it. After some years when knopper wasps have been relatively scarce, they are making a come-back this year. Sometimes they only affect one tree, but around here nearly every oak tree is affected. Although long term it does not seem to harm the tree at all, it will severely affect the acorn harvest, so squirrels and other small rodents may have to hunt extra hard for their food this winter.

For obvious reasons I am unlikely to post next week. I am sure we will be very busy and will not have internet immediately, but I will publish this tomorrow and link with Annie's Friday Smiles. And I will be back as soon as I can. 

Friday Smiles 2025 # Week 33

Once again I have very little news except that today we exchanged contracts for the house, with completion still set as 21st August. So just two more weeks now.

It has been a bit cooler this week with a fair bit of rain but we have still managed some sessions sitting outside in the sunshine.

Yesterday I went to my daughter-in-law's workplace and sat doing some crochet while she did some necessary paperwork, and then we took a bus to Beckenham. So now I have seen another little town in the surrounding area, and it was a nice High Street, with a range of shops and places to eat. Jo and I visited all the charity shops, and came away with a few bargains, including a mid to late season dress with long sleeves, which was just my style, and fits beautifully, so it was a good find.

I have done some more of my hedgehog cross stitch picture and there is not been too much left to do now. It will be good to finish something, but I do need good day-light to sew, and it only gets done, 'little by little'.

In the evenings I have been working on another different project with crochet.This time it was making a blanket for our new grand-daughter due in November. I thought being a winter baby, a warmer blanket would be useful. It has turned out a little warmer and heavier than I expected, but I am quite pleased with it. My son and his wife aren't into pale pinks and white so I chose a pretty yellow for the main blanket and edged it with a deep purple-pink border. I needed to get it done as I bought the wool from a little shop on our High Street, and I had no idea how much I wouuld need.

I wanted to bring a little of the pink into the body of the blanket, just to break the yellow up a bit, so I made four pink 'bunnies'. When they have little white bob tails added, they will sit one in each corner of the blanket. So my next job is to get that done. 

Meanwhile I continue to make motifs for the colourful wall hanging, diamonds now, and also squares for the Winter jacket I am making. I expect it will all get shelved again soon, when I have boxes to unpack, and a house to arrange, so I want to get as much done as I can now.

So back to my hook now and this will be published tomorrow and linked up with Annie's Friday Smiles.

Friday Smiles 2025 # Week 32

I am back though I have very little news, but what I do have is making me smile, and that's what matters. This week we have been busy at home, dealing with more admin. and as a result we have fixed a date for completing on the house purchase and collecting the keys and it is Thursday August 21st. We won't be living in it immediately as we have no furniture etc, but all our boxes are arriving from the storage unit on Tuesday 27th. (The Monday is a bank holiday so they can't bring it then). So the first few days will be spent buying some essentials like curtains, fridge, kettle and paint! But it is all very exciting.

Last week some of you commented on my 'nice little bit of garden' at the front of the house, which I am sure I will be able to tidy up in no time, so today I thought I would share what is at the back of the property.

As you can see it is quite long, but not too wide. Mostly it is laid to stone slabs and gravel and there is quite a good patio just under the kitchen window with enough space for a small table and chairs. There is a usable, pedestal bird bath just by it which will be cleaned up and give me pleasure watching for visitors.

The rest is very overgrown, because the house has been empty for six months or so, but once it is cleared I will be able to decide what I want to do with it. One thing for sure, there will be a small area for a rose garden with my mum's favourite rose (Peace) as one of the plants. I promised her I would plant one when I could, and it will be a nice little memorial to her. She loved all the flowers in the garden, just like I do.

There is a long path running the length of the garden with a nice long washing line above it, and at the end there is a locked gate leading into a short alley to the road at the side. This will be the way to take out our refuse bins for collection, and will probably be our usual way out, to avoid the front steps, and the road with no pavement outside the gate.

And just to make you smile, here is one wall in what will probably be my craft room. It was previously a boy's bedroom, (from the name plate on the door), which may explain the wall. It is one of the reasons why Paint is on our first shopping list!

My other happy news involves some forward planning. Today I managed to book tickets for Chris and I, my son and daughter-in-law, and our grandson to all visit the Tower of London a fortnight tomorrow. Spaces are selling out fast so I am glad I did it today. I especially want to see the 'sea of poppies' that will be there until November.

Also we will be returning here for a weekend on the day after my birthday in October. Some friends of ours are getting married and their celebration party is on Saturday 18th October. It will be an opportunity to meet up with several of our friends from Spain who will also be there.

Then on the Monday Jo and I have tickets to see the stage version of Les Miserables. I have only seen the film version and loved it, but I have been told the stage show is much better. I am familiar with all the music as we sang a long medley from it with our choir in Spain, that made up almost half of the programme. Chris didn't want to see it but he bought me my ticket for my birthday, and Jo is happy to come with me although she has seen it before.

So that's lots to keep me smiling and plenty to look forward to. and now I will get this ready to link up with Annie's Friday Smiles tomorrow.

Friday Smiles 2025 # Week 31

I did miss posting last week although I was not anywhere that it was possible to do so. However we had a good visit back to Oswestry where we were able to take our time going around the house, measuring spaces and marking all the sockets on our floor plan etc, so we can start planning what we want to do.  The surveyor has given us a verbal report which was positive, though we won't have the official one until the middle of next week. Here is a photo of the front of the house that I took from the park across the road. It is a mid-terrace house which has the advantage of keeping it warmer in the winter. As you can see, the garden is in need of a little TLC but I will get it sorted by next spring.

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So what else have we been up to in the past couple of weeks. Well we had a visit to Greenwich market which is one of my favourite haunts in London. It was busy of course, as the tourist season is now in full swing, but I bought some lovely water glasses, and strong fabric shoulder bag. 

I love the way much of London is full of flowers. So many bars and shops have hanging baskets and troughs just spilling over with flowers.

We returned home via the water taxi down the Thames, and then the underground train.

I was even brave enough to return there on my own to pick up a few more things. I haven't done much travelling on my own since we got here and the underground is quite different from when we left with new lines, and changed names, but there are still some of the old trains running too. I am not a fan of the long downwards escalators, (I don't mind the ones going up), but the different lines are all on different levels, so sometimes the escalators are a better option to long flights of stone steps!

Another night our son and DIL took us to ABBA Voyage, and it was an amazing show. It took place in a purpose built arena by Stratford, which was mostly made of wood bolted together so that it can be taken down and moved to a new location next year. But of now it is still attracting huge crowds every night. 

I loved the ceiling of the foyer with all its coloured lights. 

This is where there was a selection of bars, cloakrooms, and merchandise shops. Jo and I couldn't resist the capes, so she she bought the blue one and I the red one, and we had a picture taken under the ABBA sign.

Then someone in the queue offered to take one of our 'other halves' as well, and for once we are all smiling.

The ranks of seats soon filled up as did the triangle in the centre for dancers, and I managed a quick photo before we were all asked to put out phones away.

There was a small band and four backing singers, but the main screens were taken up by avatars of Abba back in the day, and they were so realistic it was hard to convince ourselves that they weren't really there on the stage. They sang all their most well-known songs as well as a couple I didn't recognise, and throughout the whole show, there were moving lights coming down from above, and chasing round the outer wall. It was a lot to take in, and all in all it was a fantastic show. And you didn't need to be a huge ABBA fan to enjoy it.

This week Chris and I went back to the Outernet at Tottenham Court Road, and although the display I wanted to see wasn't showing that day, there were still some fantastic light displays to enjoy. Here are a couple of the photos I took though I couldn't catch all the sparkle. These were on the roof above us.

I took this one to show my daughter-in-law as all her family love pink flamingos!

This one was an animated under-water scene and little shoals of fish swam in and out of the reeds. I caught two little 'Nemos' I thought were cute.

We sat on a sunny plaza outside for a while and I indulged on a treat I find it hard to resisit - a frozen yoghurt bought from this bright red bus!

Here's someone else cute. This little fellow regularly visits the garden, and is not a bit shy. If we are sitting quietly he will come almost up to us.

This afternoon, for something different, I did some baking. So I made a batch of sweet potato, oats and almond flour cookies, and some Welsh cakes. In wasn't sure how well these would work as I always cook them on a heavy cast-iron griddle. But today I used Jo's skillet because it was nice and flat, and they came out just fine. So now I will go and butter a few for our tea and I will publish this in the morning and link it to Annie's Friday Smiles.

 

Friday Smiles 202 # Week 28

It has been another very warm week and last weekend the excessive heat brought a surprise we hadn't anticipated at all. Apparently a colony of honey bees has been happily living in his church roof and on Friday they started to come out of their overheated home. At first we thought they would swarm but an expert told us they were 'bearding'. According to Google, this is when some of the bees leave the colony and cluster around the entrance in the shape of a beard, to help regulate the temperature and improve ventilation. It is normal bee behaviour and ususally caused by very high temperatures. He confirmed they were honey bees.

After some searchying we found the entrance very high up around an old slightly loose brick, so some bees were flying around that. 

But many others had found a way out, indoors. Two windows, very high up in the church were covered in bees frantically running around and flapping their wings in an attempt to cool down. Sadly quite a few died, either from natural old age or from heat exhaustion, and the aisles and pews were collecting them.

Being an old building in the style of old churches, the roof is almost unreachable as were the two windows, so there was little we could do. Having sought expert advice, it was decided to leave them in peace and let nature take it course, with a warning to everyone attending services to take care, not intentionally touch the fallen ones, and to make sure they carried their epi-pen if they were allergic to stings.

They will have to be rehomed as their honey could potentially damage the roof structure, but it will need scaffold to reach them, and experts to handle them. In the meantime we are hoping the slightly cooler weather may calm dowwn their activity. Jim made a poster to warn folk as they entered and used a pitcure of this little crocheted bee to catch people's attention.

We look on them as welcome visitors in the short term, after all "All God;s creatures are welcome in His house"!

And while on the subject of insects, here is such a pretty moth that I spotted in the garden yesterday. 

I looked it up and discovered it is a Jersey Tiger Moth. Here is a Google photo of what it looks like with its wings open. It was the flash of bright red as it flew passed me that caught my eye, So I followed it until it settled but it didn't open its wings again until it flew away.

On Tuesday I decided I needed to stretch my legs so I walked to Meyow Road Park. I found it on google maps but didn't know what to expect. It turned out to be a lovely area, with wide expanses of grass where dogs romped together and chased balls etc, lots of different trees providing shade and well layed out foot paths. The air was filled with screeches that I knew came from parakeets, but I never spotted one resting to take a photo. They were however, flying between the trees and flashes of green were everywhere.

I was amused to find that as well as a children;s play area, there were well-used tennis coutrs, and  croquet lawn. The croquet club members were busy setting up the hoops. I associate croquet with "Alice in Wonderland" and had no idea it was still a popular pass-time.

In an open area I saw this tree skeleton. It is sad when a tree dies but I guess it leaves space for the others to grow. I just loved the shape the dead branches make and took this photo of it. When  I am back on my computer I will convert it into a line drawing and make an svg of it. Then I can use it as the background on a scrapbook page etc.

On a differnt note, yesterday I spent the morning in the kitchen making a family-size lasangne. Normally this would have been portioned up and frozen for future meals, but there are eight of us living here so it was all gone by bedtime.

So now I will link with Annie's Friday Smiles and hopefully visit you all tomorrow. But next week I will not be posting as we are returning to Oswestry to have another look around the house we hope buy, and have a quick word with the man who is doing the structural survey on Friday. I will not have my tablet with me as we are travelling 'light', but I will still try to visit you all.

Friday Smiles 2025 # Week 27

This week I am starting with the best news, we have found a house in Oswestry and our offer has been accepted. Of course there is a long way to go but we have engaged a solicitor for the conveyancing and booked a survey for later this month. So this week has involved a lot of time spent on the telephone, plus quite a bit of time sitting indoors or under the gazeebo feeling just too hot to do anything more energetic. I am sure most of you have shared at least part of the heat-wave. Here in London it has been stifling. But I am glad I am not still in Spain where they have temperatures soaring into the 40's.

But back to the house. Our choice may surprise some of you as it is a mid-terrace Victorian house with three floors plus a cellar!. However the stairs are fairly gentle with a good strong hand rail, and it won't do us any harm to go up and down them a few times each day. The sitting room and main bedroom are lovely and both have views over the back of the beautiful town park. The third room will probably be my craft room and I can see me shutting myself away up there some days. We are going to change the bath for a walk-in shower, and have a new kitchen installed, so plenty to keep us busy. And I will have  a garden. At present it is rockery styled with paving slabs and gravel beds, and the plants are very overgrown, so it need a bit of TLC, but that is something we can take our time over. It is all very exciting, but we will just have to patient while the legal wheels tick over at their own pace.

I shall enjoy watching the colours change with the seasons in all those trees.

Here is a picture I took on our travels last weekend. This is Ozzy the bull and he lives in Birmingham New Street station. Every half hour or so he starts to swish his tail, his head turns from side to side and his eyes light up purple and slowly blink. Almost menacing but I thought he was rather magnificent.

As I haven't got much news or pictures I thought I would give you a quick catch-up on my crafts. I have three projects on the go but the cross-stitch hedgehog is making slow progress as I don't work on it when it is so hot because I don't want to dirty it with sticky hands.

While I was still in Spain, I asked my son to buy a kit for a wall hanging before they ran out of stock. I was happy when I opened the box and saw all these lovely coloured yarns. I quickly labelled them for easy identification. 

The first bit of the project was to make 60 of these little triangles. Each one uses two different colours and there is a chart to tell you which two to use. When made you have to fix a small numbered tag to it to help place it on the final layout. 

I have completed all 60 of the triangles so the next part is to make 24 of these squares.

And my third project is to make a thick winter jacket. This one is done with a mixed yarn that changes colours randomly as you work. I needed to make 66m of these tiny squares which were quite quick to do. You can see the variety of colours that these have worked up as. They are actually darker green than they appear here.

Next I need thirty bigger squares and I have done the first two.

I am not good at sitting waiting patiently, so these are keeping me busy.

And now it is time to link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and publish this in the morning. I apologise if I missed anyone last week or was very late visiting. It was another very busy weekend!

 

Friday Smiles 2025 #Week 26

Hi all. A very quick one today. We had a very busy weekend. On Saturday our second son, Mike, and his two oldest children, my first grandchildren, came down on the train to visit us. It was a day of happy chatter, food and sunshine.

The next day we were up early on a train to Bognor Regis on the South coast. We had a reunion with some of Chris' family. His brother was over from America with his wife and one of our neices arranged a get together. Again the sun shone for us and it was lovely for Chris to meet up with his brother. We last saw him when we went to Arizona to visit them some twenty plus years ago.

It was also good to catch up with these three, our nieces and nephew who are the children of Chris' sister. My boys grew up with them but again it is many years since we saw them last.

On Wednesday I went to Borough Market with my son Jim. We both love it there. Lots of interesting food stalls and take away meals to choose from. We both had to be careful. It is easy to get carried away there! I took a photo of a girl preparing jack fruit. We saw these when we were in Thailand, but they seem to be gaining popularity here now as meat alternative in vegetarian food.

And that is all I have time for today. We came to Oswestry yesterday and are staying with Mike until Saturday, and we have five house viewings to get to.

So I will leave it there for now and quickly get over to link with Annie's Friday Smiles. I will get to everyone to visit but I am not sure when. 

Friday Smiles 2025 # Week25

Well I didn't expect to sit in the garden in UK and say it's too hot! But these last few days have been enough to really sap our energy and even driven us indoors to find somewhere cooler.

Last Sunday I went to the morning service at my son's church, and we were given the opportunity to take a white rose from a basket and place it in a vase on the alter as a tribute to our fathers who are no longer with us for whatever reason.

After the service the family all, (except one who had to work), went up through Crystal palace park to have a Father's Day lunch together. There is a long row of market stalls selling all sorts of street food, so we mostly all chose something different, but my grandson Marcus and I both stopped at the Afghan food stall, though we chose different items from the menu. We had a nice chat while we waited our turn, and tried a few photos too.

See how lovely and green it is in the park, and there is a wide variety of trees. My son told me he has sometimes seen these trees just covered with a whole flock of green parakeets.

The food was excellent by the way and well worth the wait.

On Monday I had another appointment with the dermatologist department at Guy's hospital. As we came out of London Bridge station I took this photo of a statue that caught my eye.

I also took one of the ever changing city skyline, this time showing the Scalpel and the Walkie-talkie. There is so much building work going on around there, and every block seems to go higher than the last one. When you see some of the weird and wonderful shapes it makes you wonder what the architect was thinking about when they designed them. But it does all make for an interesting skyline.

On Tuesday we went to Bromley for Chris to visit anyone eye specialist. Bromley is a very busy, bustling town with lots of shops, a big pedestrianised plaza and several street sellers where I bought some great value fruit and salad items. I loved the big flower displays all along the street. This one is right outside the train station.

Chris has been doing a bit more work in the garden to help Jo out, first thing in the morning and later when it has cooled down a bit. I am happy to sit in the gazebo with my sewing, crochet or a book. I have made good progress with all my projects but I will wait to show those when I have a week with no photos.

There are two cats living here. They are both laid out by the sun and often spend the afternoons layed out by me in the shade, but by evening they are ready to chase little field mice round the garden, and watch the birds in the trees all around. A couple of times I have seen a fox in the undergrowth. They like to walk on an old trampoline at the back of the garden, and at night they sometimes come out to play in the gazebo, throwing the cushions around, and even curling up for a nap there.  The foxes and cats seem to have a mutual respect for each other.

This is Ghostie. She is nosey and more active.

And this is Severina. She is genetically smaller and has huge, round golden eyes. She keeps to herself more but is always around when it is tea time.

Jo likes her garden ornaments and bought three more little cuties this week. These hang in a row along the edge of the gazebo, and each has a tiny solar panel inside it so they all light up in the evenings. It is very pretty out here after dark.

And that is another week gone. We have a very busy weekend ahead but next week we will be starting a proper hunt for a house. Lots to look forward to. But for now it's I'll link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and see you all over there.