Welcome 2015!

Good morning and Happy New Year!  A whole New Year spread before us - hopefully we can all make the most of it and grab every new opportunity that comes our way.

Yesterday was a lovely day.  First there was some happy pootling about with some crochet in the morning (yes, I was the first to get up again, I love that quiet time before the household wakes up).  I had quite a lot of scraps of yarn left after completing my challenge blanket (which will have it's own post soon) so I am making a lap blanket for me - this is my progress so far...

I will make it as large as I can with the yarn I have left.  The rows are completely random in order as I am going with the smallest scraps to the largest left over to make the most of every bit of yarn.  But I am quite happy with the colour scheme so far.

Then my 3rd eldest son woke up and helped in the kitchen to make some veggie sausage rolls...

I had some puff pastry and home made mincemeat left so had a go at making pinwheel pastries...

These little treats didn't hang around for long because the rest of the brood were woken up by the cooking smells!

Then DH suggested a little trip out to the Peak District in Derbyshire - neither of us had been out of the house since Sunday so we thought we needed a change of scene.  In-between days are the best, enjoying being at home and just having time to "be", but eventually even the best of loungers can start to feel slight cabin fever looming on the horizon!  We love driving up to Derbyshire, sometimes if we just want to get out for a couple of hours we just drive up to Bakewell and back, the route is so scenic and there is always something different to see.  This time, being the festive season, the little villages were all dressed up for Christmas.  We ended up at the Peak Village retail outlet in Rowsley.  This is based on the site of an old railway station, with the old buildings preserved as shops.  The courtyard looked so pretty with all the lights...

I love how the old stations were heated with real fires, just look at those chimneys...

The snow was still laying thickly on the ground as you can see, but on the way home the temperature started to rise and rain started to fall.  This morning all the snow has melted away.

Once back home, DH cooked tea (he is an amazing cook!!) whilst I finished working on a little heart for my bestest friend Sue...

I wrote "2015" on the larger of the two buttons in permanent ink...

We always go to Sue's house on New Year's Eve to see in the New Year with her and her family, and I like to make her a New Year gift in the shape of a scented heart as a little "thank you". 

As usual, we had a lovely time, catching up with the gossip news, talking about plans for trips in the new year, nibbling on delicious treats.  When the clock struck twelve, DH cracked opened the alcohol-free bubbly.

Then we watched the firework display from London on the TV, as ever these were amazing...



image courtesy of BBC News

I would love to go to this display one year, it looks so spectacular.

Later today we are going to visit my Darling Mum to have a New Year's Day meal with her, DH and I will prepare it as she is still fairly frail after all her recent illness, but thankfully improving.

Happy New Year!

Helenxx

Grand Day Out in Derbyshire

Hello everyone, hope you are having a great week.

Yesterday my bestest friend Sue, our two Darling Daughters and me had ourselves a road trip to Derbyshire, following the route of the Derwent Valley Mills World Heritage Site.  Our aim was to have a fun day out together, take in some lovely crafting supplies shops, do some small town browsing and have a bite to eat.  Three years ago Sue and I did a similar road trip, which I blogged about here.

Driving along there is much Industrial Architecture (which I love) to admire:

Rowsley -

Matlock Bath -

Belper -

Milford - 

We visited some lovely shops, including this one in Darley Dale, a veritable wonderland of all things related to embroidery, we all bought some lovely things.  The windows made great eye-candy too

I was drooling over this Midwinter coffee set, would look great with my growing collection

The staff are very friendly, it is a lovely place to visit, just be sure to save up some pennies first as there is so much you will want to buy!

We then jumped back in the car, and made our way to the pretty little town of Bakewell, which is only 10 minutes up the road.  We parked up and made our way to the little bridge - it is quite wobbly, rather like the Millenium Bridge in London, but quite safe of course.  And a great place to stand awhile and snap some photos

The river was running really quickly

But nothing could ruffle the feathers of these two stately creatures

We browsed some lovely shops, including the most amazing charity shops I had ever come across!  We stopped off for a bite to eat, and a bit more browsing.  We then decided to head back down the A6 to

it is a lovely little place to wander around, with a craft shop and mill museum.  But the things that took our eye on this visit were these little cuties...

The very essence of spring!

Some more feathered friends were there as well

The countryside was just beautiful, the green was so intense, so hard to replicate in photos...

There were even what I call Marimekko trees!

I think silver birch trees are wonderful, would love one in my garden

Driving back home along the A6 road I snapped some photos of the villages and towns we drove through (please do not worry dear readers, I wasn't driving!!)

Rowsley...

Matlock Bath...

and just had to take this photo in Belper, after all it was St Georges day!  And the building dates back to Georgian times too...

Thanks so much to Sue and the girls for a lovely day out, hopefully won't be too long before we can do something similar again!

Helenxx