Caravanning, dog walks and Halloween baking

We had a lovely weekend away in our caravan.
Some pictures of the dogs and boys settling down for the evening.
Soloman playing on his tablet.

Whilst eating bread sticks!

Later on he and Cody were snuggled up in their bunk beds

Chumleigh "resting" on Malc

Nieve watching the world go by!

We also visited Bradbury Rings I use to go here all the time when I was a child with my siblings and parents. Back in the old days you could park your car anywhere and go rambling over the hills, we often took a big old fashioned tray and sledged down the hills. Nowadays since it was taken over by the National Trust you can only park in the car park and dogs have to be on leads as they now graze sheep there.
I know the reasons why it's changed but it was so much nicer in the old days!!

We only took three dogs away with us so here they are with the four boys on top of one of the hills. Rubbish photo! Taken on my phone which has a rubbish zoom on it!

We don't take a TV or radio with us so we were out walking the dogs an awful lot and the boys made new friends at the campsite and were out playing in the park and the woods in daylight hours. When we were at the caravan we hardly saw them so I have now knitted both the sleeves on Clark's cardigan, I also had to unpick the back and knit it up again as I'd knitted the wrong size! Schoolboy error there!
Eden painted all the lounge whilst we were gone, it looks lovely.
Pictures to follow when I've hung the new curtains.
Clark went to fracture clinic today for another xray, it's all good, he has to go back in January to have another xray and discuss having the plate and screws taken out.
We have a Halloween party tomorrow with quite a few of Edens friends coming, so we thought you can't have a party without a cake so Clark made this Spiders Web cake

Callum made this Halloween one.

A lot of Edens friends are wearing  Halloween costumes so I'm hoping to take some pictures of them to post next time.
By the sounds of it some of them should be quite interesting!!

Cast off and newly cast on

The throw for my Mum as I was crocheting it together and sewing in the ends.

Forgive the wall behind it, it's been stripped ready for Eden to paint whilst we're away
A picture of it in situ on my Mums sofa with Cody and Topsy, one of Mums dogs.

Clark's cardigan, this was a couple of nights ago, the back and one sleeve has been knitted so far.

I don't think I'll be doing much of it tonight as I have a stiff neck probably through sleeping with my head at a bad angle or something along those lines.
So I'm off to have a hot bath, rub some gel on it and hopefully it will be gone by the morning!

October is for......

Visiting garden centers with all their Christmas decorations up!

All the beautiful twinkling lights

The fun of the singing/moving penguins, snowmen and Santa's

Clark bought this pack and made them yesterday afternoon.

He's put festive coloured tissue paper inside and he's going to use them to put presents inside.
He's actually put me to shame as he's made a load of Christmas cards already.

It's also time to burn some festive smelling candles, these really are gorgeous but as I've said many a time before, anything's better than the smell of damp dogs!

In other news, Eden and her band did their gig on Saturday night and they went down well.
I have finished the throw I was crocheting (Hurrah!) I have started on Clark's cardigan, pictures tomorrow hopefully!
We're hoping to go away in our caravan for a few days again soon and I've been told that my lounge will be painted by the time I get back! Something to look forward to!
Other than that a rather dull and dreary day in Dorset but as usual a hive of activity in my house!

Physio and weekly bake up

Clark had his physio yesterday and the lady was really pleased with him. The only thing he can't do is put his wrist back up to a ninety degree position, it goes to  about 75 degrees at the moment. She's signed him off on the understanding that we ring if it doesn't improve in the next few weeks but it's getting more and more flexible the more he uses it.
I figured baking was a good physio exercise so he helped me make these this afternoon,
We made two quiches, one for us and one for Mum

Two chicken pies, again one for us and one for Mum

Two pizzas, again one each

Lastly we made fifteen of these, six for Mum and the rest for us.
They are now history as we had them for tea!

Other than that was cleaning, sorting out doctors appointments and extra carer time for the neighbours which took ages and eight different phone calls to sort out.
We've just had our friend the youth worker visit and I'm now going to pick up my crochet for an hour, wind down and hopefully get an early night!

Wallpaper and stencils

When I was a child my Mum quite often got out an old roll of leftover wallpaper and cut a long strip off for us to draw on.
We'd get some large stones and put one on each corner to hold it down, two of us on one side of the table and two on the other.
So whilst I was ironing Malc was doing some odd jobs and Callum and Clark cleaned out the rabbits Soloman and Cody sat at the table and used some stencils. They were occupied for well over an hour.
I did suggest an Autumn picture and they came up with this which includes a flying plane on fire and a gravestone for a dead dog. Apparently it walked backwards onto a sharp pole and bled to death!
I must stop them watching "casualty"
When I mentioned that I thought it was autumn themed they told me that they had included trees!
Their masterpiece!

More of the same, speed fiends and wool

The thunder and lightening continued on for about two to three days after my last post. For some reason it always happened about five in the morning or three in the afternoon!
The 5 am one contained some really loud thunder and even managed to wake Malc up which is no mean feat I assure you!
Yesterday Eden and a friend went to London to see Ed Sheeran at the O2.

One of her friends had bought the ticket as an early Christmas present for her as she absolutely loves his music.
So they left on the 8-30am train and had an explore round London, queued for the concert about fourish and by all accounts had a great time.
The friends Mum offered to go and pick them up as we checked coaches and trains and they would have to leave the concert early to get the last ones.
Malc and I had already discussed picking them up in the minibus but we weren't sure it would make it there and back!
So the Mum picked me up at 9pm and off we set.
We got back about 2am. This lady was an extremely confident and competent driver but boy did she go! At times she was up to 80-85 mph!
I can't tell you the amount of times I was saying my prayers!
Not a journey I care to repeat!
I've taken today off work to have a layin which really didn't happen as I knew I would be grumpy without a full nights sleep so I'm still grumpy anyway!
Saying that I'm going to Mums in a bit to wash her hair for her.
I've also bought some wool for my next project when I eventually finish the throw for Mums sofa (now one square number five, only one more to go after that!)
Clark has chosen some blue wool with wooden buttons for me to knit him a cardigan. If I can remember how to knit that is as I've been doing crocheted projects  for what seems like ages now!

I hear thunder!

I have been since 3-30am this morning, we had no rain just the thunder and lightening.

It's been on and off all day, we had some particularly loud thunder about midday when I was at Mums and we've just had quite a bit of both with heavy rain at about 2o'clock whilst I was making a couple of quiches and a meat pie for our tea. I also had a couple of caulis that needed to be used up so I've made a big cauliflower cheese for tea tonight and a couple of smaller ones to go in the freezer.
I'm now sitting in beautiful sunshine streaming in through my window.
What a weird weather day!
What's it been like where you are?

77 Days!

Until Christmas that is!
So while we were away in our caravan last weekend as it was raining and we had four boys to occupy we went to a garden center. They were in their element!
There were so many lovely decorations to look at

Set out in all different colour schemes

I simply had to take a picture of the boys with these huge furry reindeer.

In other news, we had a lovely albeit wet weekend away in our caravan.
I've started crocheting square number four for my Mums throw and I came back to a newly painted hallway and landing with all the doors and doorframes glossed by Eden. I think we could be going away more often!

The cast is off!

It's "healing" but not healed!
He's had physio already, it's very stiff.
He's also soaked it in the bath to try and get all the dirt and dead skin off.
Back to hospital in four weeks for another xray to check it's still mending as it's meant to.
He's over the moon to have the cast off though.

The Great Dorset Bake Off

Who needs Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry when I'm in the house.
Mum and Ed are quite partial to my quiches, good job as I've made them three!

I made us two and I've made them two chicken pies and us a huge chicken pie!

Some of it will go in their freezer so on a day that I'm not around they can just heat one up.
Ours will be devoured at the weekend as we're off on a jolly in our caravan.
I wish
Clark's cast comes off tomorrow and we're hoping that will be the end of the saga that was his broken arm. I'm not sure if he'll have to have some physio.
I'm sure I'll let you know what happens tomorrow!