365 Days

A year ago today my entire world upped sticks and moved 90 miles south. That day I stood in the kitchen of my old home and wept. I left behind family, friends, familiarity and I was excited and shit scared in equal measure.

So what has the last 12 months been like?
If I am honest it's been the best of times and the worst of times.
I feel like I've come home. Of course I don't live in a rural village (more's the pity) but compared to the 'Burbs in the West Midlands it sure feels like it. The scenery is stunning, the people so friendly and best of all no scrap metal men endlessly trawling the streets blaring their hideous wobbly tape recordings of an unintelligible call.
However the move has come at a price and it's been a bit of a rocky road for the pups; trying to break into established relationships at a new school and adjusting to complete new surroundings. It's been a steep learning curve for us with Pup1's autism and dealing with his behaviour but hoping a recent purchase of a kick dummy will give Pup1 a target for his frustrations.

 Life has recently thrown us a mahoosive curve ball (I know it's a baseball term but it's such a good analogy) which are we are picking ourselves off the floor from. So the roller coaster continues but I wouldn't have it anywhere else. Where else would I get the joy of sitting inside St Michaels Chapel ontop of Glastonbury Tor watching Luna's ears flap in the breeze :)

Here's to the next 365 days and whatever they will bring :)

I just love.....

....this time of year. I do. I really do.
Of course Spring and Summer have their own perfect moments but something about Autumn and Winter really fills my soul. The weather (some of it) and the celebrations, the dark nights....all have me in seventh heaven.

There's interesting home decorating using vegetables.

The are lots of opportunities to go stand in a crowd and watch legally purchased explosives.

However what seals the deal for me is the weather. I know it can be wet (which I agree is the pits) but it can also be fabuously foggy.

I have blogged before about being a fog aficionado. The picture above was taken one morning with clear blue skies, the moon still visible and the rising sun was burning off the fog. Then we have my other favourite sort....more of a pea souper.

The gateway to the bridleway I use. Mud and a yellow labrador don't mix.

I love the sight of the empty crop field with the stubby stalks remaining. Its a reminder that the harvest has been collected and Nature's thoughts turn to hibernation.

Familiar views are obliterated by thick fog. I confess I was childishly excited when I saw this weather.

In fog I feel as though my eyes are blurry as though I have woken up from a deep slumber. That hazy veil that shrouds everything,

This could go down as one of the most boring blog posts in history. I really hope not but what the hell.....as I get older I find myself apologising less and less for who I am. 

I love foggy days, dark days, rainy nights and all this time of year has to offer. While others are bemoaning the lack of sunlight I am breathing in the damp air and enjoying the turn of the seasons. 

"I see trees of green"

Half term holidays were a few weeks ago and I decided, seeing as how we are so close, a trip to Westonbirt Arboretum was in order. I haven't been since I was a child and I really wanted to go before the majority of the trees were bare.
Being of the thrifty nature I packed a picnic and a flask of hot chocolate (I love autumn picnics) and we headed off to Westonbirt. Judging by the queue of cars waiting to get in and the sheer hoards of people we weren't the only ones who had the bright idea of a visit. That was borne out of the fact that afterwards the play area was HEAVING and I even managed to bumped into two friends in the toilet facilities.

Large number of people aside it was worth going, albeit probably a week or two too late to see the acers in all their magnificent glory but there were still some fabulous trees to see.

We were blessed with some stunning Autumn sunshine

I have no idea what tree this was but in the sun the canopy was a brilliant green

Some stunningly tall trees.

This was like a sky of green stars :)

Flaming reds and orange hues

Some fun guy's. Geddit?

This made me think of the Rock Trolls from Frozen. I have seen that movie waaaay too much.

The mighty redwood. Ah-mazing.

Pup2 collecting leaves. Both kids were fascinated with reading the Latin names and the countries where the trees originate from.

We are heading back to Westonbirt in December for the Enchanted Christmas trail. I really hope the trees look as beautiful in the dark as they did in the gentle Autumn sunshine. Happy days :)

Can you dig it?

Apologies for the lack of blog activity. I would really love to be able to say it was because I have been doing lots of amazing things. That would be a lie. Blogger being a complete PITA about uploading photos has made the last few blog posts a sheer nightmare. Uploading pictures off camera to computer, having to email them to myself to download said pics to a tablet so I can blog via there. Needless to say it sucked out the joy of writing a post. As I type this I am praying its been fixed......

End of September it was Pup1's birthday. Having swore I wouldn't make a 3D cake again he requested a cake for his birthday. A Minecraft cake. Well Minecraft is all blocks and squares.....how hard can that be.

That will teach me for being so naive! Cake and fondant icing isnt as easy to get dead square as it would first appear. So I opted for a Minecraft inspired cake. That way I could tweak the design to suit my needs and not have Pup1 questioning why it didn't look exactly like all those Minecraft videos hes addicted to.

I used one of Pup1's figures for handy referencing

A Creeper. Thankfully this one doesn't self destruct ;)

No cake would be complete without a Minecraft animal.....I give you Pig in case you couldn't tell.

Cutting the hipster beard for Steve was quite frankly a bloody nightmare. I kept cutting them too large.

The finished article. 

As you can see I decided to use different shaded squares to give the impression of that classic Minecraft block shape. I initially tried cutting individual tiles but quite frankly they only highlighted the fact that the cake is anything but a perfect square.

6 hungry boys however declared it a success and devoured it in a way only 9 year old boys can. Messily and with a huge amount of excess noise.

Roll on December when the annual Christmas cake decorating will commence......