Three little pigs

 Joining in with Ginny and her yarn along.  A bit of post Christmas crafting resulted in three little piggies and a big bad wolf.  The patterns are from Knitting Animals by Anne-Dorthe Grigaff, although I adapted the fox pattern to create the wolf buy basically knitting a different style tail, and obviously changing the colour.  The idea is to make a bag to put these in, along with a pocket to hold the story of the three little pigs.  Once the bag is finished, it will be popped in my shop, Aisling Designs to see if there is any interest for them.  My favourite thing about them is their little corkscrew tails! 

As for reading, I picked up a magazine when out shopping the other day, permaculture.  I have read a few of these before, and found them really interesting, and now I have a purpose, ie educating myself for the distant future when we get to build our hobbit hole, it is even more interesting. Also reading the Dalai Lama's new book, that I got for Christmas.  Again, another book that makes so much sense.

Looking forward to seeing what everyone else has been up to.

Look what happens when...

... you get asked to do some painting with your youngest, the day after watching Grand Designs!

Obssessed?  Me? Probably!

And just to prove that Sophie did some painting too, lots of pictures of submarines!

Dreams and inspiration

I came back from Cornwall full of inspiration, having spent time surrounded by such loveliness, as well as seeing many crafted goods for sale, along with lots of examples of renewable energy scattered around the place, I was so excited about getting home and getting started on a few changes. So, whilst nothing has changed yet, life seems to have a good way of slowing you down, I am planning on creating a few items to see if they will sell, as well as trying to make our home a more beautiful place. We have started talking about the possibility of solar panels, and most exciting of all we have a beautiful joint dream which involves land, wood, stream, sustainability, self-sufficiency and a hobbit hole!

Watch this space!

Dreaming

This Christmas had a few low points for me. Spending it in a gorgeous house, in a wonderful part of the world was lovely, but the house is up for sale (was for sale last Christmas too), but this time it was all too much. I had done all the dreaming the year before, but this time it just seemed to rub salt in a wound. It doesn't all come down to money (even though that is a big factor) there are other factors to consider, which all boil down to the fact that at this point in time, a move to country just simply isn't possible. I just wanted to stop dreaming, stop hurting myself with possibilities that just couldn't happen.

But, what would life be without dreams, what would be point?

I dream of ...
a Rayburn...
...a family garden and farmhouse...

...for the children to grow up with the freedom the countryside offers.So, with my dreaming head on, this would be a granny flat, or holiday lets.

and Stuart reckons a high roofed conservatory replacing the present one, and joining up with what would be his office.

But back to reality, to now, the only thing that I can do something about. I am going to treasure every moment this new year brings. Be grateful for having family close by, and the time to spend with them. Create a beautiful, loving home right here in the town, and get my nature fixes at every opportunity. This year is going to be wonderful, and as for that house, well I can dream!

New Year thoughts

What a wonderful time we had over Christmas. Spending our time together with extended family in the remoteness of the Llyn Peninsula. Once again, trying to work out how we could afford to move there and live there. This wasn't helped by the house we were staying in being up for sale, it has a dairy barn that could easily be turned into a granny flat, an acre of land with an orchard, so space for a veg garden, chooks, and perhaps a pig or goat. Even locals that we spoke to were saying "put a silly offer in, their desperate for the money!" It is a stone's throw from the sea, in fact you can see the sea from nearly every upstairs window. It's about as far west as you can get in North Wales, and Luke would even be in the same class at school as his cousin! You can see I have spent alot of time thinking about it! It's good to have dreams. Stuart doesn't have enough work coming in to maintain us in a working from home set-up, so at the moment it is a no-go, but if the house is still for sale next year, who knows?

What all this dreaming has shown me though, is that our life where we are is not too bad (apart from being so close to other houses!), we have our family around us, we have the allotment, we have the chickens, and the children are able to play out unsupervised. I have to be grateful for what we have, and to enjoy each moment with family, as these times will not last forever. This is my main thought for the New Year, live in the moment with your children and cherish them dearly.

Other goals for the New Year are to be more organised (yeah, yeah, that's always on my list!), learn to crochet, learn to needle felt, and do more down the allotment with more emphasis on preserving produce.

Wishing you all a wonderful new year, full of blessings, joy, friendship and fun.

Christmas

Well, we made it to the Lleyn Peninsula in Wales, and had the most fantastic Christmas. All the preperations had been done prior to our going, so all there was to do was unwind, and enoy ourselves. We had a walks to the nearest beach, which we had to ourselves, and the boys thoroughly enjoyed sploshing about in their wellies through the stream, the sea and generally exploring.

We had forays down the lanes and across the fields looking for wood for the fire, which brought out some primal instinct in us all, but especially the men! Hence Stuarts present of a firebowl and lighting steel!

Stuart and Luke decided one day to walk the 5 miles to his sisters house, and saw the sum total of 15 cars in all that time. I just wish I could have gone with them, but my pelvis still is not up to it. I'll have to save it for next time!

Stuart's sister and brother-in-law turned up with a couple of branches of scyamore and hawthorn painted white, which we were able to adorn with festive treats, and had pride of place in the lounge as our Christmas tree.

Evenings were spent with Grandma knitting jumpers for the boys (at a rate no-one could believe!), Nanny knitting a jacket for Sophie for when she is a little older, and the boys playing with toys that were at the cottage.

Christmas Day was lovely, the boys had their presents, as did everyone else, the food was prepared and cooked, and everyone ate heartily. The turkey was perfect, and from a local farm, but despite it being 21lbs there was not much left by the end of Boxing Day. We all descended on Stuart's sisters cottage on Boxing Day, after negotiating their drive way, which is a true test for any car! Needless to say, Stuart, the boys, Sophie and walked up it in Wellies and Sophie in the sling! Their house is as beautiful as ever, and I am so envious of the peace and solitude they have there. The night sky was truly wondorous that night, with no street lights to hinder our view, you could see stars that were so faint that they disappeared when you tried to look at them directly, it really was stunning.

We also went to their house a different route, taking us through Rhiw. I had never travelled this road, and was not prepared for the view as we went over the hill, it was breathtaking, with a view of Snowdonia, Hell's Mouth, Cardigan Bay. That has now become another place on our list of places we would consider moving to, if we could sort out the "work/money" problem! Everytime we visit the peninsula we go through in our mind how we could move there, exaccerbated by the fact the cottage we were staying in was up for sale. Perhaps a time will come, but we can always dream.

The feeling of coming home is never as happy as when returning from other trips out. Despite us living in a lovely community, with fantastic neighbours, friends etc, it is just not rural enough for us. I am sure our time will come...