We finally did Alhambra

We have been visiting A's M&D on the Costa Del Sol for a number of years now. We usually stayed quite local in terms of the places we visited whilst we were there. So we've done Gibraltar, Marbella, Jerez, Ronda and many, many white hilltop villages ( the roads to which usually make me very sick ). A couple of years ago, we made the effort to go to Cordoba so that's another tick on my must see Andalucia.
A's M&D are in the process of emmigrating to Australia. This summer might be our last trip to Andalucia. So my other must see ?

First is Granada and the Alhambra. (Did you know Granada means pomegranate in Arabic ? I didn't ).

We flew to Madrid and picked up our hire car. They definitely have a better class of cars at Madrid compared to Malaga but I am not sure why we decided to start from Madrid when Malaga is closer to Granada.

We arrived in Granada and it was a scorching 41C. I nearly melted walking up to the Alhambra that first evening. We wanted to pick up our tickets but it turns out the ticket machines were closed. Luckily we spotted the Alhambra bus so we took this on the way down. The next morning was an early start. We have booked the 8.30 entrance to the palace. We took the sensible way up was on the bus, queued for the ticket machine, queue to go in and after a short walk, got to the castle. We were one of the first in so the palace was still very quiet. If you are going to visit Alhambra, I recommend you book your tickets and try to go early to avoid the crowd.

Have you been ? What do you think ? Was it what you thought it might be ? I like it, but it wasn't as great as I thought but then, I have seen the "originals" in Morocco. I have also been to smaller Alcazars in Spain which are similar. My favourite Moorish building is still the Mezquita in Cordoba...now that is truly something ( and different! )

My son is leaving primary

H has just finished primary school and is excitedly waiting for September. In the mean time, he was set "homework" to present his autobiography. He has decided to make a mini book ( wow, what a surprised ? We reckon it could be one of the most original presentation at school! ). He asked me ( I am blessed! ) to take a photo of him on his last day at prep school so I get to make a layout too.

Next up are some elephants photos from Kenya. I am always amazed to spot a family of elephants, moving gracefully through the plain, hardly making a sound...practically gliding for an animal so large. And yet, if you spot giraffes or zebras, the sound of their hooves...I didn't expect that.

I have just noticed that I have made two layouts on yellow cardstock! The sun must have some effect on me.

Island adventure

This is another layout I made with the left over from Exhall. When I cut out the motifs from the Webster's papers, I saved the boats. I also had a spare map paper unused from which I cut out the legend. I had to pull out a sheet of cream cardstock from my stash and with the addition of Webster's lace and alphabets, here is one very co-ordinated Webster's layout.

J was quite brave, posing within snapping distance of these stuffed crocodiles whilst H was a bit unsure. There was also another photo where a couple of crocodiles were pulling a carriage. H was definitely worried in this setup but then he was only 3 years old.


The photos were taken many years ago, in the pre-digital camera years and were scanned, hence the patchy quality.

Challenge for The Studio

I forgot I was due to join in this challenge at The Studio. The last couple of weeks have been a bit manic but luckily I did the layout way back when Rebekah asked me. Here it is.

It is called "Listen to your dad". My boys didn't want to play nice when this photo was taken...hence the long face when A said, "You might as well look nice as she is going to use it anyway". Actually he might have said it on another occassion but hey-ho...that advice would have been perfect here too! This photo was taken in front of the John Lennon wall in Prague last year.

Exhall Summer Workshop layouts.

Sorry, I have been busy with end of term activities, I have neglected to post these layouts that I did for Claire and Tracie for the Exhall Summer Workshop.