Successful shopping trip.

We went to Inverness yesterday for the first time in ages.

Our main task was to try and find a light fitting for the front room. We trailed round the DIY places and a very swish lighting shop where I did find something that took my fancy - but at over £500 I had to leave it where it was!


Slightly more downmarket was Next where I fell in love with this Moroccan style fitting - the colours suit our room perfectly and so different from the shiny metal and twinkly lights that seem to be everywhere at the moment.







Some cursing this morning while Andy was trying to put it up - I'm not good up a ladder so I don't think I was much help!!

















We also managed to get Sam kitted out with some new clothes. Long gone are the days when I could put clothes in my trolley in Asda and Tesco and they be worn without comment. He has some definate ideas about clothes and thought he was in 7th heaven in H&M. Luckily some hoodies and T shirts met his exacting standards in Primark - and worryingly he now fits the XS size in mens clothing in New Look!!!

I treated myself to this little cupcake cookbook - £2.50 - a bargain at half price.

Mmmmmmmm

After hearing Erika waxing lyrical about these little beauties I just had to try them.

And they are oh so good!!!!!!!!!!

New magazines

My monthly magazine fix arrived today - Scrapbook and Card Trends and Simply Handmade - and as usual they are packed full of beautiful photos and inspiration.

I am going to give these gorgeous paper flowers a try out of Simply Handmade. I bought some old paperbacks from a charity bookshop in town recently which I can use.

Skywatch Friday

A shot from my solo walk last Sunday along Lossiemouth beach.

These are the lights that guide the Tornado aircraft in from the Moray Firth to their base at RAF Lossiemouth.

Love the colour of the sky against the lights - it was a gorgeous afternoon.

See more Skywatch Friday photos here.

Daylight robbery

Cal needed new shoes and some daps for school so we headed into town after school yesterday. Clarks were worse than useless as had nothing suitable in his size - they can order stuff in for you but you have to wait a week - and to be honest his shoes were beyond help and needed replacing straight away (there is only so long you can get away sending your child to school in wellies!!)

Another shoe shop had some perfect Clarks black trainers (that both looked like shoes and that Cal actually liked) so we said we would take them along with a pair of daps. My mistake not asking the price prior to the assistant ringing them up on the till - a grand total of £47.oo!!!! That's more than I would spend on a pair of shoes for myself - think they saw me coming.

I'll give them two weeks and they will look like his old shoes - a combination of the school playing field and a football will see to that!

Homework??

This is what passes for homework today!

Sam assures me this was for his art class tomorrow (which he thoroughly enjoys) His task was to draw the insides of a cupboard and a kitchen utensil. At least he picked on of the tidier cupboards in the kitchen - and not the one under the stairs!!!!

And now for the weather forecast!

Wasn't expecting this when I drew back the curtains this morning - must pay attention to the weather forecasts more closely.

This is the view from my craft room window towards the golf club.

Not that I am complaining though (although everyone else seems to be!) as I love it.

Scotland + winter = snow.

And there is more on the way!

Missing link

I said yesterdays photo was missing something which was a slice of homemade cake to go with my cuppa. Callum came up with the bright idea to make some Mars Bar crispy cakes - not that he was thinking of his own stomach of course!!!!

Halfway through the lengthy process of melting the confectionary he lost interest and went back to his XBox - but soon returned when they were set and cut into squares!!

Had to be quick taking a photo as the locusts soon descended and I don't think there are many left.

Must do some proper baking though - maybe tomorrow.

My favourite place

My favourite place in the whole house. Especially when the sun was shining like it was yesterday. Even had the windows open as it was so toasty and warm in there.

Perfect for curling up on the sofa with a cup of tea and a good book. All that was missing was a slice of home made cake!!

I am hosting next months book club over on UKS so while I was sitting in in the sun I came up with my book list. All of them are on my tbr (to be read) pile mainly from the library. Hopefully there will be something to appeal to everyone.

For this weeks walk it was just me and my camera - everyone else was either too busy or decided it was too cold to head off down the beach - light weights!!!



It was a glorious afternoon with bright blue skies and soon after starting my way down to the lighthouse I had to unzip my coat and take my gloves off.


There were loads of folk on the beach taking full advantage of the weather. In fact by the time I got back to the car the car park was just about full - unheard of at this time of year.

About an inch of snow on the top half of the sand where the sun hadn't quite got too - strange to see children having a snowball fight on the beach!!!!

Now where to go with my camera next week.

Am loving this challenge - and hopefully the exercise is doing me some good too!!

A thumping good read.

Have just finished Val McDermids latest book - it is the 6th one of the Wire in the Blood series. Tony Hill is back on top form (since watching the TV series I can only visualise Tony as Robson Green.)

I couldn't put this one down which I was surprised about as the previous book in the series Beneath the Bleeding was a real disappointment. A bit gory in places bit I wouldn't expect anything less from McDermid.

Just wish Tony and Carol would get it together!!!!!

Scrap Weekly - challenge #8

I was trying to decide whether or not I had an actual scrapping style. I didn't think I had but when I had a quick look back at some recent pages there seems to a theme (unfortunately I have get to put many of my pages into albums so they get put into pizza boxes and filed on the shelves. The thought of how many albums I would have to buy gives me the shivers!!)

I came to the conclusion that my style is quite minimal and includes what they call in the trade as "white space.) I find it impossible to cover a whole sheet of 12x12 in paper and stuff - I am more happy to scrap in just one corner of the card or just along one side.

For this page I used a sketch drawn by Louise over on on her blog - http://scrapbook-me.blogspot.com/ Loads of inspiration so go and pay her a visit.



















I used Bazzill Swiss Dot cardstock and the papers were scraps left over from a really old kit - they are 5th Avenue by Making Memories. The cute owl stamp is the one that came free on the cover of Craft Stamper and I have used him loads. The other stamps used are Sassafras Lass for the bracket and October Afternoon for "What a hoot" The trusty old Dymo came out again too.











Hope the challenge goes down OK as I have never set one before - and thanks to Louise for the sketch. You can play along with Scrap Weekly here.

52 Walks with my Camera - week 7

A bit late posting these seeing as my walk around Hopeman harbour was last week!

Love the weathered look of this fence.

Not sure what these birds are - cormorants or shags??


Colourful row of beach huts.

More unidentified feathered friends!

A couple of boats moored in the harbour. Apt name for the one of them.

Fab mural - shame it is painted on the wall of the publics convieniences!! But I suppose it brightens the place up.

A local out for a walk with his pooch.

Sketch Challenge

Spotted this sketch challenge while browsing on UKS yesterday. I love sketches and this one seemed nice and simple. The challenge is being run by Creative Moments which is an online shop and also have a blog.

























I used a photo of Sam taken earlier in the week (I prefer to scrap recent photos and have little desire to trail back through the hundreds of pics to scrap ones of the boys when they were much younger.)

I used scraps of Sassafras Lass Robotics papers (only have scraps left now which is such a shame as I love these papers) The round stamp is by Autumn Leaves and the arrows are by Scenic Route.















































I like LOs with lots of white space.

Skywatch Friday

The evening sky over the River Spey on Monday.



You can see more Skywatch Friday photos here.

Running Repairs

We are in the middle with our end of year checks on our house - so for the past week we have had workmen in and out. Painting, digging up bits of the patio and replacing the garage door.

One of the workmen noticed that our garage door had a lovely big dent in it - and he assumed it was a workman that had done the damage. So one garage door was ordered and delivered this morning and 3 chaps arrived to fit it. This is a new and improved door - more secure and a better fir so no more howling drafts.

I hadn't the heart to admit that the dent was caused by Andy driving his car into it. Ooops!!

My guilty pleasure!

Has to be Glee!!

It is a cross between Fame (for those of you who are old enough to remember the original) and High School Musical.

It's a feel good show with some belting tunes - perfect for singing along too!!

Pancake Day

We celebrated Pancake Day 24 hours early and paid a visit to Baxters yesterday. We haven't been in ages (usually only when we have visitors as it's too much of a tourist place) The boys love the big thick pancakes complete with ice cream and toffee sauce - Sam ate his in record time.

But to me these aren't proper pancakes - I prefer the thin ones that you eat with sugar and lemon juice. Problem id I can't make them to save my life so we had to wait for Andy to get home from work, roll up his sleeves and get cooking.

And delicious they were too - even with Cal helping there were none stuck to either the floor or the ceiling!!!!