Love the angel of the north pics, We drove past there a few months ago but didnt get the chance to stop, hopefully we will get to on our drive to scotland in March

It's very cool to be stood underneath it. You should definitely stop off and check it out!

My friend sent me some pictures she took of Ricki getting friendly with the farm animals at Beamish

Today we went to Beamish - It is a 'living' museum which shows how people lived in the North East of England in Edwardian times. It has a full working farm, village, city and mine.








Then on the way home we stopped off to see the Angel of the North, one of the most recognisable pieces of public art in Britain.

LOL I've never seen Dr Who but when I was scrolling thru RWP I thought it was the Wedding Singer  




Now that I've seen the original picture it all makes more sense and looks fab!  

We are nervously watching the news and hoping that the rioting happening in London and Manchester does not spread to our city. 

Yay! I'm glad Tesla was able to make some more friends 

I haven't been able to get out much lately because my poor little guinea pig (Tesla!) is sick and I've been having to watch over her. She has surgery on Wednesday so everyone keep your fingers crossed for her!

Still, we're trying to make the best of being sat at home so we tackled the letter C today and did some cooking...

First we went out to the back garden and picked some fresh, ripe blackberries


We brought our haul inside and had a think about what to do with them


Ricki came up with the idea of an apple and blueberry crumble. I made the crumble mix while she peeled the apples.


Then we stewed the apples in butter, water, cinnamon and brown sugar and when they started to soften up we took them off the heat and mixed in the blackberries (you can see the steam still rising)


Waiting for the finished product to cool


Time to eat!

I just bought my first sewing machine yesterday and I've been sewing non-stop ever since.

I've taken a sewing class recently so I kind of know the basics (i.e. I can make a mean tote bag) but clothing is a whole new ball game for me. I suppose the most advisable thing to do would be to read lots of tutorials and watch lots of videos but I'm impatient and I learn by doing so I thought I'd just give something a go (plus I absolutely cannot understand patterns).

I started out by trying to make something similar to this halter dress tute: http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=102879.0

I have a very long torso so I disregarded the call for a 4-5 inch midsection and decided to cut it 10 inches. Shockingly ( ) it was way too long and when I attached it to the skirt it, the top didn't sit nicely under my bust, but instead covered it. So I figured I'd just call it good and attach a halter strap.

Since it was all a bit of a mistake, I didn't get to put any darts below the bust to cinch it in all so if I ever get brave enough to wear it in public, the belt is a necessity.

Overall though, I'm happy with my first, rushed, hodge podge of a garment. I learned a lot from this and hopefully the next one will be even better

It was a beautiful, sunny evening so we took a stroll down to the local park. I've actually only ever jogged through it, not taken my time to check it out so it was a nice new experience thanks to Ricki.

Looking out over the war memorial...


A Ricki sized version of the Tyne Bridge


Some of the art dotted around the park


In the Japanese garden


Enjoying the bed of flowers

Our crafty picture...

Ricki was feeling a little lonely being the only microbe on the block so we knitted her up a friend. This is Collie.

They're besties now

Okay we're playing catch up because we've been away for the week.

Nearly all of our pictures are nature pictures because we did a lot of camping and a lot of hiking in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan...

We did a lot of driving and had to make a pit stop in Mackinaw City so we camped right on the shores of Lake Huron and if you look close you can see the Mackinaw Bridge in the background


Ricki was a dab hand at making camp fires and got them all set up for us to light


We took a boat tour along the Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore which is about 40 miles of exposed Precambrian rock which is all kinds of pretty colours due to the mineral seepage which has taken place


We did lots of hiking and on one of the trails Ricki found a throne for herself


She was also very good with directions and made sure to check the trail markers so we didn't get lost in the woods


During the evenings we relaxed on the beach and watched the sunset on Lake Michigan.



Ricki was useless in helping us set up the tent so it's just as well that she was such good company.


Lots of hiking...




We also visited the Lower Tahquamenon Falls.




To get to the falls we had to take a row boat out to an island and Ricki helped navigate the way


We also had a good dig around for cool bugs and insects in dark places

Hey I found the camera cord - Success! 

This is Ricki looking at our flight to Detroit, waiting patiently to board.



We had a 5 hour layover in Schipol Airport in Amsterdam so we had a lot of time to kill. The airport has a small exhibition as part of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam so we checked that out...





And Ricki signed the visitor book



Then after hours of waiting we finally boarded



and arrived in Detroit