Silver Birches are my favourite trees

next weeks photo is lights at night.

This months challenge was to make something something with paper ... I made some gift tags ...

I printed out a painting that I painted about 10 years ago and with my sewing machine, sewed wavy lines all over. I then cut up small rectangles and mounted onto some plain card, punched a hole and added ribbon ... voila!! ready to attach to some presents ;)

so did you make anything from paper? If you did I would love to see ... please link up below x

It has been a couple of years since I had a good old mooch around London ... and yesterday we did the 'total tourist thing' and spent the day wandering around and enjoying the fact it wasn't raining!



we managed to catch some of The Changing of the Guard at Horse Guards Parade ...




we were wanting to call in at Buckingham Palace, but the tickets to go in had sold out by 9.10am!! ..... ahh well something to do next year!




we had lunch in St James Park ...


I had forgotten how many birds there are there ...





we then wandered along to The London Eye passed Big Ben.


I have been up before, but its always fun to do and we were SO pleased it wasn't raining ...





we booked for a boat ride along the Themes too, but had an hour to wait so filled in our time but having a cup of tea (of corse!!) and watching the street performers along the South Bank ... some of them were brilliant!!



the boat trip was great fun, the guide was really funny and I learned a lot about London ;)

Tower Bridge

The Tower of London

St Paul's Cathedral


it was such a lovely day out and dilly-dog had a lovely relaxing day with Gran ;)

We spent a couple of days at Gran's ... she has been feeding a fox that comes into her garden every evening at dusk and I managed to snap a picture of it through the window ... Dilly loved going around the garden and weeing wherever she could smell it!!

Another day, another National Trust Property!!

Alfriston Clergy House, the first National Trust property bought by them in 1896 for £10!


I lived not far from Alfriston for a few years and visited the village many times, but had not been to the clergy house before.



This lovely old oak leaf carving on one of the beams may have been the inspiration for the National Trust logo.




I have also been enjoying cuddles with my beautiful new niece ... she is so like her big sister ... such a sweet scrummy little armful!

holiday time ... nothing too exciting ... a week away visiting family ... meeting my gorgeous 3 week old baby niece ... some shopping ... and some touristy things.

Dilly dog loves adventure and is good company wherever we go.


on our way to my brothers we stopped off at Avebury Manor ... you know, where they did The Manor Reborn.


Unfortunately it rained ... poured the whole time we were there


but it is such a lovely place and it was fun to be able to touch everything ...


... and see the hand painted Chinese wall paper, lie on the bed in the Queen Anne room and try out the exercise chair.


The garden would have been lovely to wander in if it hadn't been for the heavy rain.




and if we had had time and not on our way somewhere, and if the weather hadn't been so bad, I would love to have had a proper look at the village and walk around the stone circle.


have you been there yet?

my mum :)

next weeks photo is something with texture.