Back to rain again today, but at least I managed to grab a few minutes outdoors with my camera in between showers
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A quick pic of my sunglasses gathering dust on the shelf again. Judging by the weather forecast, I’m not going to be needing these for a few days sadly.
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I’d been stuck in all day looking after two poorly children. So, when Richard got home, I took the opportunity to make the most of the brief spell of sunshine to grab a few cherry blossom shots before it all got washed away. Here’s my favourite but you can see some more on my main blog.
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Now Z has discovered the joys of bike riding, we’ve invested in a bike carrier so we can go further afield. It was beautifully sunny this morning so we did our first family bike ride on The Greenway in Stratford-upon-Avon. It’s the perfect cycling venue for kids – flat, traffic free (mostly) and it’s got a cafe halfway that does perfect bacon rolls. We enjoyed ourselves despite encountering the father from hell who thought it was perfectly acceptable to lay into my son because his daughter rode into him, even though he was stationery at the time. D was so distressed by the injustice of it all, it took me 20 minutes to persuade him to get back on his bike. I can’t imagine speaking to someone else’s child like that. If my child had riden into another one standing in clear view, I would’ve been apologising to them not blaming them for the crash. Anyway, everyone else we encountered was friendly as usual and we had a fun time playing with the dogs at the cafe. So today’s pic is of the lovely little garden in front of the railway carriage that houses the cafe.
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Last day of the school holidays and the sun shone – hurray! We got lost a few times in Maze World and then explored the nature reserve – highly recommended. A great end to the Easter break. Roll on half term :-)
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Whenever we get something new, our cat is usually the first to investigate. And it was no different today – I put the table down in the garden, turned round for less than 30 seconds and there she is trying it out for size.
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What an interesting day! My daughter finally learnt how to ride her bike without stabilisers – hurray! (Not her fault it’s taken so long – our fault for not finding the time to take her out on her bike enough.) Then there was all the Warwickshire “big bang” fuss at teatime, which turned out to be a sonic boom caused by two Typhoon fighters responding to a duff hijack signal. And we rounded off the day with Compton Verney’s Bat Night, which was excellent. Saw loads of bats and learnt lots – a big thank you to the gentleman from Warwickshire Bat Group who ran it, and the staff at Compton Verney for staying late. Now being nagged by the kids to buy a bat detector :-)
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This image is straight off the camera – no editing at all other than the addition of my watermark – the sky really was that dark. If you’re wondering where the title comes from, it’s what my dad used to say whenever he saw a stormy sky like this. I assumed it was an old Warwickshire saying and referred to the sky being dark Stratford way (i.e. Bill was William Shakespeare), not that it seemed to matter what direction it was in when Dad used it. But I did a bit of googling a while back and it looks like it was widely used all over in England last century so who knows! Anyway, you might recognise the location – it’s Charlecote church as we had a family afternoon out at Charlecote Park again, this time to see the heronry. In fact, we saw more wildlife this afternoon than we did when we went to the nature reserve last week! I’ll post some more pics on my main blog later. And the good news is, they weren’t out of cream teas this time :-) (More pics on my main blog.)
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In all the years I’ve been visiting the Jephson Gardens – and that’s a lot of years as I was born and bred in Leamington Spa and I’ve spent most of my life living in Warwickshire – I have never seen a heron in the park before. I didn’t have my long lens with me so this was the nearest I could get but at least it gives the picture a sense of place. We had a good old wander round the Temperate House too – looking forward to photographing a wedding there in September.
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Entertaining friends today so visited Kenilworth. Here are the boys attacking the castle with a sword and a Nerf gun. Added bonus – an Easter egg hunt so they all won mini Lindt rabbits.
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It’s been an unseasonally cold and thoroughly soggy day with rain, sleet and snow all day long. Water and fake fur are not a good combination so Mr Scruffity had to stay at home while Z went to holiday club. Here he is waving her off. (And if you’re wondering what on earth I’m going on about, check out Sunday’s post.)
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We took a trip to Stratford Butterfly Farm today. We’ve been lots of times before so I’ve got loads of butterfly images, but we timed it just right this morning as they were transferring the newly hatched butterflies so I finally got a good image of the pupae in the emerging cage without having to worry about reflections in the glass. I find it amazing how tiny caterpillars can create these beautifully coloured chrysalises (or should that be chrysalides!)
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We’re looking after Z’s school monkey this holiday. He went to the cinema yesterday and today he wanted to go to the fair that’s appeared on St Mary’s car park in Warwick. He’s proving to be an expensive house guest ;-) He particularly enjoyed the bouncy slide apparently.
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[...] waving her off. (And if you’re wondering what on earth I’m going on about, check out Sunday’s post.) Bookmark It Hide Sites $$('div.d1039').each( function(e) { [...]
Been too busy photographing a lovely wedding in Warwick today to take any pictures for myself, so here’s my fave shoe shot from the day.
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Another glorious sunny March day today. Took a day off and had a girly day out to Avebury.
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Delivered two of my photos to the Royal Academy today as submissions for the this year’s Summer Exhibition. Then stood in the beautiful sunshine to queue for the Hockney exhibition for one and a half hours. Well worth the wait. Inspirational, particularly the film work.
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Loads to do at home today, so we rewarded ourselves with tea out at Charlecote Park. But the warm weather had brought loads of visitors so they’d run out of cream teas – disaster. Had to console ourselves with chocolate cake instead (which was very good I have to say).
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My favourite shoes came out of the wardrobe again today, this time for a Diamond Jubilee themed shoot for a magazine cover. Thought I take some detail shots while we’d got everything set up.
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You don’t realise how much you take electricity for granted until you get a four hour power cut like our half of the village did this evening (strictly speaking yesterday as I’m posting this later for obvious reasons). A big thank you to the men from Central Networks for digging up the road to fix it at midnight. It was amazingly quiet while it was off though – and we got to see a shooting star.
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Thank you to my family for a lovely Mother’s Day outing to Bibury, allegedly the prettiest village in the Cotswolds. We had a tasty Sunday lunch at the Catherine Wheel, followed by a walk round the village and the obligatory picture of Arlington Row then a trip round the trout farm. Here are some of the beautiful residents there.
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A family trip to the NEC this afternoon to visit the Big Bang Show (and an opportunity for me to quickly nip into the National Wedding Show to check out the latest trends while Richard and the kids were playing with the science stuff). Top tip – if you’re driving to the NEC at the weekend the railway station car park is cheaper to park in than the main NEC car parks (usually – check before you go but it was today). We thought we’d finish off the afternoon with a quick trip to the airport via Skyrail to watch the planes take off. We haven’t done this since D was 2 years old, but we discovered there’s no viewing area now – unless you want to stand outside on the Long Stay car park!
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Another lovely stay at the Blue Pig bed and breakfast in Kirkby Lonsdale. I’ve stopped there many times while doing the Bespoke course at Aspire CPT and since too and I can highly recommend it – friendly, comfy and a fab breakfast.
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Just got back from Families Warwickshire’s Yummy Mummy coffee morning at McKechnie’s in Stratford-upon-Avon, in aid of CLICSargent, the charity supporting children with cancer. There’ll be more about it in the May/June issue of Families Warwickshire, but in the meantime here are the beautiful cupcakes donated by Grants Bakeries in Sheep Street. And I can vouch that they tasted as good as they look.
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