Horticultural Heaven

Oh my, oh my what a beautiful garden.

MrG and I took Guy to Newton Rigg College for his interview as he will be starting a horticulture course in September.

and we were invited to a tour of the gardens

Bursting with colour

everywhere you looked

stunning!

I'm actually quite envious.  I would like to join the course too.

♥ 52 Weeks of Happy (26/52) ♥

A tour, a walk, a climb and a trip.  My four happy moments this week...

1.  A tour round Newton Rigg College.  I will write a separate post as we took loads of photos of the stunning gardens.



2.  A walk along stone jetty at Morecambe.  MissG took some photos so I'll add those in a separate post too.



3.  A climb in to the attic.  The actual process of emptying the attic wasn't a happy moment but it does mean we're a step closer to moving so that makes me happy.  The whole house is littered with boxes and it looks like the home of a hoarder.  I can't wait to have everything in its place in the new house.



4.  A trip down memory lane.    While up in the attic I found a box full of old exercise books from primary school.  This one is dated 2003 - when MissG was 5.  She's now 15 (going on 25!) and will be celebrating her 16th birthday later this week.  Happy memories of my little family.

♥ 52 Weeks of Happy (25/52) ♥

My happy moments of the week include - 

1.  A lovely lunch with my sister followed by a trip (only a 5 minute car trip from my sisters house) to Talkin Tarn Country Park.  The tarn is set within acres of farmland and woodland and is a great place to enjoy a leisurely stroll.  

There were lots of school children walking round the tarn, limping and looking totally exhausted.  They were halfway through a 50 mile sponsored walk - 36 laps of the 1.3 mile track around the tarn!  Ouch, I did feel for them.  One lap was enough for us.

2.  My sister then mentioned that just up the road in Brampton, there was a shop with a half price sale.   She mentioned Cath Kidston so we just had to go and check it out!  These two pretty mugs came home with me.

3.  MissG went to her school prom.  All dressed up and looking glam!  A proud moment.

4.  MrG went to Holland on a business trip - it was on the same day as the prom so I couldn't go with him this time.  He came back with the most enormous cheese bomb.  This photo doesn't quite capture the size!  He has a bit of a 'thing' for cheese so he was very pleased with himself.

He brought me back some chocolates - because he knows I have 'thing' for chocolate.  It was very nice of him but I wish I had a 'thing' for something a bit healthier as it's not helping me waistline!

4.  And finally... on the home front.  We have finally signed contracts and have a date for moving house. Yippee 

Pigeon English

I'm reading Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman.  I bought the Kindle version from Amazon for only £1.99.  

Amazon Book Description

Newly arrived from Ghana with his mother and older sister, Harrison Opoku lives on the ninth floor of a block of flats on a London housing estate. The (second) best runner in the whole of Year 7, Harri races through his new life in his personalised trainers - the Adidas stripes drawn on in marker pen - unaware of the danger growing around him.

But when a boy is knifed to death on the high street and a police appeal for witnesses draws only silence, Harri decides to start a murder investigation of his own. In doing so, he unwittingly breaks the fragile web his mother has spun around her family to keep them safe.

Harri will come face to face with the very real dangers surrounding him. A powerful, unforgettable tale, importantly relevant for young adult readers of today.

Have you read it?  What did you think?

♥ 52 Weeks of Happy (23/52) ♥

I think summer has arrived - we have been enjoying the most glorious sunshine this week.

My four happy moments...

1.  I met my friend Helen at Catch23 Cafe.  Catching up, chatting and chilling - an indulgent couple of hours sitting out on the patio in the sun.  

2.  The sun has gently teased out the petals of my peony roses.  They look like giant pom-poms.  The flowers don't last long but they do put on a fantastic show.  This plant came from my Mums garden so I hope to take them with me to my new house.

3.  Yesterday I went over to the north-east to collect my son from Uni.  He's moving to new digs after his summer hols so we had to pack all his whole kit and kaboodle and bring it home to add to all of the boxes we've packed ready for our house move - what a mess!  I am pleased to have him home for the summer holiday though as he hasn't been home since Christmas.   

4.  Today to celebrate his home coming (and the fact that the sun shone all weekend) we had a BBQ.  It was soooo lovely to have all five of us round the table.

managing stress

It's a pretty intense time in our household at the moment, what with the house move pending and our two youngest taking their GCSE and A'level exams.  Oh, I can feel the stress levels steadily rising!

I am a bit of a worrier at the best of times so I'm feeling particularly anxious at the moment. Is our house sale going to go through?  Is our house purchase going to go through?  When are we going to move?  Will it all go smoothly?  Will the bedrooms be big enough?  Will we notice the traffic noise?  Will MissG settle into her new school?  Will Guy enjoy his college course?  Will they make new friends?  Will they be happy?   Will we be happy?

Last Monday, while walking to my office, I noticed a poster advertising a Managing Stress course and thought maybe I should take a closer look.  The one day course was being held at Mind, just round the corner from my office, and the poster said "learn and practice skills to reduce and manage stress in your life".  "I need to find a way to reduce and manage my stress" I thought so I booked myself a place.

I'm quite shy when it comes to meeting new people and attending social events so felt quite daunted about joining the course but it was very informal and everyone was friendly.  It really was very informative and we discussed stress, what is stress? what causes it? and ways in which we can reduce stress by being more conscious of the things that cause it, and learning to handle them better, using relaxation techniques and well as other lifestyle changes.  Some things that make us feel stressed are things that we can't control so we need to balance them out by doing things that make us feel relaxed and happy, whatever that may be - a leisurely walk, a jog, a good book, a bit of me time.  I left feeling much more positive.  I'm going to introduce much more me time, more happy moments, into my weekly schedule.  I'm going to counterbalance my stress level!

And to start as I mean to go on... I collected MissG from school and we went for an impromptu picnic. She had just finished an exam, the sun was shining and we had a free afternoon.  The fields around Kirkby Lonsdale are covered in buttercups and look beautiful and golden.

I bought some British strawberries and they tasted of summer.  They were the oddest of shapes though - a real rouges gallery of strawberries!

♥ 52 Weeks of Happy (22/52) ♥

This may be true but sometimes things are sent to try us.  Sometimes you get 'bad' news in the post on a Saturday morning and you know, no matter how hard you try, that it will put a dampener on the whole weekend.  


Sometimes you get 'bad' news in the post two Saturday mornings in a row!  This 'house moving' business is becoming really stressful and I just hope that if we steadily put one foot in front of the other we will eventually get there and it will all be worth it.

My little snippets of happiness this week...


1.  A new Boden polka dot scarf and notebook.  Sometimes you just have to buy a little something to keep your spirits up.




2.  A trip to Garstang to look at summerhouses and garden offices. 


We are in limbo at the moment, just hanging around waiting for a date for moving.  We've packed everything we can so far - I've already re-opened boxes trying to find the kitchen scales. We can't make any plans about the house move we just have to be patient and wait!  


One thing that we can do is dream.  We can dream about all the things we would like to (eventually) get for our new house.  So this weekend we headed out in the sunshine and went to visit Oakenclough, a local company who design, build and install summer houses, sheds, cabins and garden offices.  We would like to put a garden office at the end of our garden as we could do with the extra space to use as a craft room/spare bedroom.

3.  A trip to look at yet more summerhouses.

We went to Low Hesket to look at Morton Garden Buildings.  On the way we took a little detour off junction of the M6 to look around the Airstream showroom at Tebay.  Absolutely amazingly stunning.  They are built on site and you can see them from empty shell to modern, sleek 'state of the art' trailers - it's almost an insult to call them a caravan.