Custard Pies!

If you ever want to get rid of pent up aggression in a safe(ish!) environment then organise a custard pie fight!

This event was organised to help Childrens Hospice Southwest here in Barnstaple. They'd also had a sponsored 24 hour space hopper-thon going on since the previous evening. Can you imagine how hard that would have been? Hope lots of money has been raised!

Before they got too mucky!


Emilia's school organised two sports days this year but unfortunately the weather wasn't playing fair and they only managed one. Emilia loves sports, she puts 100% into everything she tries and always enjoys herself. The teacher who was running the event below was brilliant, really good at keeping the childrens' attention as well as making them laugh. I hope he's still teaching when Emilia is in year 6.

Giggking away because of the way she threw the ball :o)

Cheering on the team 'Go Reds!'

On Saturday 18th July, Pilton held its yearly street festival. I love this day, it's how I imagine Glastonbury to have been in the early days. (In fact isn't Glastonbury held in a village called Pilton?). Mum and I were meant to have been spinning in the Rotary Gardens but I was told Sullivan had Swine Flu on the thursday before the festival and couldn't let Mum come down. Sullivan then sprouted two new teeth - little monkey!

It turned out fine though as I met a friend who had a gazebo in the gardens, she was making felt and her friend was making beautiful hand embroidered owl cushions. They let me join them and I had a fun afternoon answering all sorts of questions about spinning including whether I had spun cat fur as this couple had been keeping the combings from their cat...

We were in the parade for the third year, Sullivan slept through most of it, even the loud drumming couldn't keep him awake!

My next post may include some knitting or even some spinning!

Wet wet wet

Here's Elspeth from Rowan, designed by Laura Long. It's a gorgeous knit and fits beautifully. I had a little trouble keeping the pattern correct when shaping the fronts, in fact I frogged the first one 3 times but I was determined to keep going as I loved the finished cardigan.

Here's Bluey Louie - my VW van. He's great! As you can see the weather has been less than great today and Bluey is desperate to go to the beach! There are hundreds of VW T4's in North Devon but I'm yet to see another the same as mine. He is in need of some curtains and seat covers and some TLC on the bodywork, especially as some idle piece of work scratched him on the sliding door last week. GRRR!

I bought the girls their summer clobber today. Wellies and Macs! Blooming rain. It's good for my courgettes though, they are flowering nicely and we should have some good ones in time for sunday lunch. The snails have decimated my runner beans but my tomatoes and sunflowers are growing well this year. I treated myself as well today, I had to throw away all my eye makeup because of the eye infection I had last week so I went to the Clinique counter this morning as spent over an hour having different eye makeup put on. I settled for a lovely colourway called Victorian Pink as well as a few other bits...just a few *wink wink*. It's been a long time since I have used Clinique, silly really as it really suits my skin and lasts for ages so it is good value for money when you cost it all out.

You can see the remains of my kitchen in the garden in the picture of Bluey Louie, hopefully before next weeked I'll have a usable kitchen again, complete with new oven - I've been missing my baking!

I'm making myself some kind of felted hairpiece for the Pilton Green Man Day (Market and Festival). We are all in the parade through town in the morning, Maddie, Jez, Sullivan and me are wearing green man costumes (I need to make something for Sullivan, probably just a hat) and Emilia will be doing her cheerleading with the rest of their group. The cheerleading group also have a time to do their proper routines in the Rotary Gardens during the afternoon. The festival is happening on Saturday 19th June from 10am - late. There are always loads of things happening for children and adults, most things are free including the live music on the 3 stages along Pilton Street. See last years post for pictures of the day.

Hope the weather improves....

Green Man Festival and a spider

PICTURE HEAVY POST

Saturday was the Pilton Green Man Festival.
Emilia was invited to take part along with some other children from her school. It was a great day and it didn't rain until late afternoon!She made some wings out of willow and decorated them herself

The Green Man himself - so many children were scared of him! He wears stilts and is about 12 feet tall!
A view of Pilton Street from the top, it is very popular day :) We heard some great music, not least from The Liquidators . One Dh's work colleagues is the bass player.

Emilia and her friends ready for the parade through the centre of Barnstaple to Pilton.
Enjoying the parade!

Another of the Green Man Characters.
And finally! Maddie on the merry go round. Next year we are all going to get involved as we had such a wonderful day :)

We had a busy day yesterday. We tidied out the glasses and sweets cupboards in the kitchen. Look what DH found in the sweets cupboard - needless to say almost everything went in the bin

I've never seen a spider like this before so took a photo before dh had a chance to set him free. It is a Woodlouse spider (great because woodlice give me the willies more than spiders!) and causes a nettle like rash if it bites you. This is what the Natural History Museum in London says about them.

Body size
Female to 15 mm; male to 10 mm.

Appearance
Distinctive, with prominent jaws, an absence of hairs, and a reddish carapace and legs, contrasting with a cream or grey-coloured abdomen.

Habitat, range and season
In and around buildings and under debris. Emerges from hiding places on nocturnal hunting excursions; woodlice are its main prey. Originally a native of southern Europe; now introduced to Japan, N & S America, S Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Adults throughout the year.

Web
None.

First recorded in the UK
1861.

Bite reports
'Held on to top of finger, had to be knocked off; the bite was like that of a bee sting, leaving a white spot on finger.'
'Similar to a nettle sting. The pain subsided after an hour, leaving a red mark and two tiny puncture marks which persisted for a couple of days.'
'Suffered papular urticaria.'

At least it doesn't make webs for me to tidy up! I suspect it was drawn upstairs due to the water in the cellar below.

DH also removed the huge Georgian fireplace from our front room ready for auction next week. It upsets me to remove an original feature from this house, but it was so big and so black It just depressed me to look at it. We still have the original fireplaces upstairs and we'll eventually put another, smaller cast iron georgian fireplace back in.

It's a slate fire surround, with a handpainted marble effect. The fireplace itself is damaged and is cast iron with original tiles. Don't make me feel bad about removing this piece of history from our home, it just wasn't right for us and I hope that by sending it to auction we will be able to decorate the front room and that whoever buys it appreciates it more than we did.