The Duke and Duchess came to Cambridge

I was excited to see the date announced in the local paper of the visit by The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. I scoured web sites and read news papers religiously for the next few weeks to find out where and when. I contacted a friend to see if she'll come and gawp with me. We settled for 10am in the Market Square.

When I turned up at 10am, there was no way I could see her.  Everyone has turned up, lining up the Square. I am sure all the offices and shops have emptied out to the Square too. I managed to get onto the Square itself but with the market stalls all up as normal, there were not many places you could stand for a good view of the Guildhall. I resorted to standing on a disuse fountain in the middle of the square and managed to get this blury photo.

I managed to see both of them closer up when they walked from the Guildhall to the Senate House. The Duke was talking to everyone on my side of the road, got me very excited that he might get to me but they were told to move on just before he got to me. Boo! I only saw my friend after the group has dispersed.

I am loving the stickers from AC Soho Garden collection. I especially love the feathers.

A Day at the Beach

Fancy a day at the beach ?  Probably not right now. The new issue of Scrap365 came out last week.  I have been told I have a beachy layout featured...yay!

This is the first issue in the bumper, bi-monthly format.  I haven't seen it myself but here's a picture of the cover. I love that layout of the cover, sooo sweet. I am still attempting to do sweet, I have countless sweetness pinned on pinterest but haven't succeed yet.

 

Here's my layout, @the beach, with photos from our weekend in Cromer last summer.

 

What do you think of my fishies. It was inspired by the fish scale type pattern on this Studio Calico Heyday paper. In fact, Heyday is probably one of my favourite range from Studio Calico...I am still hoarding small pieces of scraps. Talking about small scraps, those fish are perfect for cutting out of scraps.

2013 Resolution

Happy New Year my friends.  It has been a few weeks since I blogged. I didn't get a lot of chance to be crafty or even sit at the computer to properly compose a blog post over the holidays.  Can you forgive me ?  Are we still friends ?

Have you made a new year's resolution ?  I don't subscribe to this "annual, make a promise and then promptly break it before January is out" event.  I figured, if I need to change anything that I am not happy with, right now is the right time for that change...not January the 1st. 

I am making one change right now, it just happens to coincide with the new year.  I supposed, you could say, I have made a resolution for 2013. This resolution was brought on by the January sales ( or we should now call it the December sale ). My resolution is, "No new dresses".

I have even made a layout about it LOL, I have handwritten my promise, my resolution. In some small way, if you write it down, it must be true mentality, I am hoping this will help me keep my promise to myself. What do you think ?  Am I deluded ?

I have a particular weakness for dresses, particularly from Anthropologie. All the three Anthropologie dresses featured in this layout have made their way into my wardrobe. Now I just need some appropriate ocassions to wear them.

Here are the dresses close up.

And the handwritten title decorated with butterfly sequins and sparklies.  Got to have some sparklies, right ?

A Segway Tour in Paris

We were in Paris last weekend for a bit of Christmas shopping. Initially we wanted to go to Germany for their famous markets but since A could get Eurostar tickets on discount ( from work ), we decided to go to Paris. In the end, we didn't buy a lot but it was fun nevertheless to see a Parisian Christmas market.

The market we went to is on the Champs-Élysées. We were first taken there on our Segway tour.  It was mainly food. Well, maybe we noticed these most as it was lunch time.  We didn't have time for lunch during the tour so H settled for a waffle. He couldn't resist all those Nutella jars lining up the stall.

 

We had a half hour training session on the Segway before we set off.  Jonnie, our tour guide made it looked so easy when he demostrated.  When a guy from our group jumped at the chance to be first to try and promptly performed a split, mounting the Segway, we were crestfallen.  Then H had a go and made it looked easy again so we were encouraged.  Fortunately I only wobbled the first time I mounted though stepping off took a few goes before I can stop the Segway running over my foot.

 

Jonnie had to run along with me, this first time because I was going too fast LOL.

 

 

Our first stop was the Military School and Champ de Mars.

 

 

During our tour, we visited quite a few monuments that I haven't seen such as the Invalides, the Golden Dome Church, even the Grand Palais. Here was our group waiting to cross the road. Fortunately we only encountered one French motorist who begrudged us using the crossing and decided not to stop for us. I am pleased to say hundreds others did, and this one car was not sporting a Parisian number plate.

 

 

We took the tour with City Segway Tours, based near the Eiffel Tower. It lasted approximately 3.5 hours.  We used pavements and cycle paths and I was amazed how we managed to control our Segway even around pedestrian. Apparently you can go up to 10 miles per hour though I am doubtful we achieved this but you can also go at walking pace.

 

When we finished the tour, we walked back to check out the rest of the market. We stopped off at Hagen Daaz for some ice-cream. H and A shared a fondue.

 

 

H and J both would want a Segway for Christmas.  H reckons he can go to school on it.  LOL...I am not sure our pavements are big enough. 

Sarah's Cards December Challenge

There is a new sketch posted on Sarah's Cards Blog, hosted by Tracy. I hope you don't mind, but I have gone with some summery photos;  I am desperately trying to counteract the cold spell we are having.

 

This is called "A tail from Cromer".  No, I know tale should be spelled tale and not tail but this is intended...H was playing the part of being a mermaid or should that be merman ?

 

Do join us for a chance to win £20 to spend at Sarah's Cards.

Something Blue ?

Emilie at Merly Impressions challenged us to use Blue on a layout for their November challenge.  I have been meaning to join in but my good intention stayed intention due to other commitments.  But I couldn't excuse myself seeing as this challenge is so broad and flexible.

I have decided to create a LO just using just blue.  Quite strange for me, I missed the splash of yellow or red that I would normally add.

This layout uses a photo from many years ago, when the boys were tiny, on our trip to Morocco.  It seems appropriate to use blue, to suggest a calm oasis and the pool area that this photo was taken in.

 

Coming Home

We live in a village just on the outskirt of a big city. The city ends, the street lights stop and a field is all we have before a road sign announced our village. On some evenings, returning home from the school run, I might see the full moon, low in the sky, a windmill in the foreground.  A left turn and you are greeted with a row of Conker trees. I always feel a gladness when I see these signs of the village.

Do you remember this photo of the village ? This is actually the view when we leave the village. Can we expect more cold weather this year ?

The temperature has plumetted in the last few days. I hear they are expecting the worst winter in 10 years. What do you think ? I thought that weekend in February half term this year was bad. The car displayed -10 C one morning.

I am sharing this story with Sian on Storytelling Sunday.  You can find more wonderful stories here. This layout was made for Scrap365, Sparkle gallery.