Skywatch

Another picture borrowed from my husbands travels north, south, east and west through England following his football team Leeds United.  This picture is of the Dartford Crossing when they went to Gillingham a couple of weeks ago.

I've been over this myself when we have travelled to Dover for the ferry to France and from the north it is bridge over and tunnel back.  The congestion is causes is horrendous at times and I remember one time we almost missed our ferry because it was crazy busy.

Only one more official away day left of this season (Charlton this weekend) provided they can avoid the dreaded playoffs so I will have to rely on my own pictures in future lol.

Tuesday Tag A Long

What is it?

Here's how it works:

• Create a new Tuesday Tag-Along blog post. Include the Tuesday Tag-Along button by copying and pasting the code on Twee Poppets.

• Add your blog name and the URL of your TTA post to the MckLinky on Twee Poppets.

• Follow Twee Poppets, the hostess blog listed in the first slot. Leave a comment saying you've followed, and Twee Poppets will follow you back!

• If you can, please follow the blogs in the three slots before you (e.g., if you're number 20, follow numbers 19, 18, and 17). This is not mandatory, but it will help ensure that everyone who signs up gets a few new followers!

• Follow as many other blogs as you want. The more you follow, the more that will follow you back! Be sure to tell them that you're following from Tuesday Tag-Along! You may also want to leave a link to your blog so they can return your follow more easily.

• When you get a new follower through Tuesday Tag-Along, be sure to follow them back! It's just common courtesy. :)

The weekly Tuesday Tag-Along post and MckLinky will be posted every Monday night at 8:59pm Pacific Standard Time (that's 11:59pm Eastern Standard Time), and the MckLinky will be open to add your blog until 11:59pm Tuesday night. You then have all week long to visit blogs and return follows!



There is a new list every week. The link you enter one week will not carry over to the next week's MckLinky. Please link up again each week to join in the fun!



Tuesday Tag-Along Blog Hopper of the Week:

Each week, one blog will be chosen randomly from all the links, and that lucky blog will be placed in the desirable second slot for the following week's MckLinky! Who will be the first TTA Blog Hopper of the Week? It could be you!

Crafting Amidst The Chaos

I have found a small amount of time for crafting (not much but some).

This was with the UKS mystery kit. 

This is the front cover and first page of a birthday journal I am making

and this is something I did when I found a Chatterbox Memory kit hiding in the back of a cupboard.

Loft Conversion Progress Report

We are now waiting for the staircase to be made so the builders have downed tools for a few days.

A hole was knocked through last week to enable the joiner making the staircase to measure up. 

It also enabled my husband to climb up and have a looksie at the progress.  I'm not that brave. I've been up the ladder far enough to poke my head up but not far enough to get in the loft. Anyway he took some pictures while he was up there

that green sheeting is covering the hole they have made for the velux window we are having.

He went up again a couple of days ago now that they have plasterboarded some of it

He is stood more or less where the window is.  There isn't anywhere near as much room as we anticipated but there is enough room for a bed and a wardrobe and maybe even somewhere to put a tv.  It's all to do with how they have had to place the stairway because our house is an unusual layout.

The joinery work on this picture is the doorway into the room and the stud wall for the landing.  At the back of that wall is, we are informed, a decent sized storage area but there isn't enough head room for much else - 5ft 7" apparently.  Storage isn't something we have ever had much of so it could turn out to be a very useful unseen area for putting christmas decorations/keepsakes/school work etc.  OR I could make it into a little craft room for me although I wouldn't be able to stand up so maybe not.

I'll have to get him to go up again and take a picture from the opposite side.

Look who I found trying to suss out why his sleeping place on the bathroom roof has been taken over by builders.

Skywatch

is it a plane?  Why yes it is! Yesterday, for the first time in almost a week because of the Icelandic volcano there was a plane up in the sky so I had to take a picture. You might need to squint to see it :)

I couldn't resist taking a picture of these clouds either.  Almost the type you find in kids drawings.

Lots more planes today.  These vapour trails evidence that they are making up for lost time and trying to clear the backlog of passengers.

loft progress tomorrow

G Is For ......

Just realised I am mega late with G since it ran from 26th March to 8th April which was well over a week ago.

Anyway my girl turned 18

my boy broke his glasses

the kids played on guitar hero

we went on green grass with a giddy dog

the builders brought girders

see those tiny white balls?  They are from a neighbours' bean bag that they put out with the rubbish and it split all over the street. 

I got lovely gifts in the post from Brenda and Nicole.  Some Galaxy hot chocolate from Brenda and a G bookmark from Nicole.

On the football front I couldn't let G go by without a mention of Simon Grayson the manager of Leeds United.  Hopefully he will get them promoted this season even if it is the hard way through the playoffs.

Chili Pepper G is Get On Top

Skywatch Extra

This week has been quite historic for the skies above the UK in that ALL aircraft has been grounded except for emergencies due to a huge volcanic ash cloud gatecrashing our airspace from  Eyjafjallajokull in Iceland.

This is my current view of the sky which to be honest make it hard to believe there is an ash cloud up there.

and these are some internet piccies I found of the ash cloud and the eruption. Obviously none are mine but they weren't copyrighted so I thought it would be OK to share.

We are told that it isn't dangerous to go out which is just as well now that I have a hole in my bedroom ceiling and can see the sky through the cracks in the slates not to mention the hole the builders have cut for the window which is sheeted over.

Progress piccies on that tomorrow.

Skywatch

Skywatch this week is Temple Newsam in Leeds

Farm Trip

This morning we went for a little trip to a local farm.

It is lovely to see all the new cute animals who are just beginning their lives.

These two lambs were in the bottle fed pen.

No mistaking who this pair belong to

These two kids were up to mischief

as was this one

This donkey foal was totally unbothered by anything going on around

Piglets having some lunch

The kids said this was a Daisy lookalike.  My dog is chunky but not that fat.

You should have heard the noise these ladies were making.

I think it might have had something to do with this chap staring across the farm yard at them

There was a sign on this pen saying brooding hen please be quiet but the brooding hen looked to have adandoned her eggs for a while as she was nowhere in sight.

Useful Free iphone Apps

Which free iphone apps do you find useful?

There are so many out there but I usually only find myself looking at the top 50 free ones.  I don't particularly like playing games so wouldn't find a use for those apps.

One really useful one (found vis my friend Rachael) that I can see myself using everyday is Runkeeper.  It tracks the distance covered during exercise - either running or walking. No way am I running so walking it is.  I have used it 3 times since last night and I can't see the novelty wearing off of seeing how far I have walked, how many calories burned, the pace I am going etc.

It was quite funny to see the zig zags across the field on the map when I took the dog for a walk. 

Beautiful Aromas

Laying in bed last night just inches from the new partition wall and smelling the smell of building work (not sure whether it was the wood or the plasterboard) made me think of the aromas I like. 

I can't say I like the smell I was smelling last night but it was a positive smell for me because it means that the work is progressing.  One really odd smell I like is when a road is being freshly laid with tarmac.  I have no idea where that one came from but it might have been pregnancy related at some point in time.

Another one is walking past the bakery nearby and smelling the freshly baked bread.

Most definitely coffee....need I say more

My absolute favourite perfume is Angel.  It is rather pricey though so I only usually get small trial size ones and even those are on the dear side.

One thing I can't get enough of at the moment is one of the new Comfort exhilarations fabric softeners - Blueberry and Jasmine Twist.  It is the most divine fabric softener I have ever smelt.

There is a smell I get a waft of every so often and I don't know whether it is a laundry product or a perfume or even something else but it is like a cross between the Blueberry and Jasmine fabric softener and Angel perfume.  I think next time I smell it I will have to ask the person what it is. 

Progress is Now Showing

Today we have gone from this

to this

via a lot of banging.  This wall is the partition which will house the staircase.

The Ultimate Blog Party

I just stumbled across the Ultimate Blog Party.  There are so many awesome prizes to win.  My favourite I think is international prize #16 which is a blog template made by premades for a purpose.  Lena does some fab digital work and I have used her templates for some time on this blog.

so if you are finding me from the blog party and are even slightly interested here is a little bit about me.

My name is Kerry and I live in Yorkshire, England.  I have a husband and 4 kids - 1 girl who just turned 18 and 3 boys who are 14, 11 and 6.  My youngest two have both been diagnosed on the autistic spectrum so I have quite an interest in strategies and coping with the demands that poses. 

We also have 2 dogs.  Charlie is a 3 year old black labrador patterdale terrier cross and Daisy is an almost 2 year old yellow labrador.  Not forgetting Oliver the 8 year old cat.

We are currently a few days into a loft conversion to make more bedroom space for our family so a lot of my posts are probably going to be showing the transformation.  If you want to see the progress why not click the follow button on the side.

My blog is titled Dogs, Socks and Scrapbooks because of my dogs, my dwindling passion for knitting socks (yes it was a big passion when I named by blog but not so much anymore) and scrapbooks which is my other crafting love.

I hope to see you again.

Skywatch

Back into the archives this week.  I took this at Mont St Michel in northern France in 2007

We Have Lift Off

The scaffold went up on monday.

The builders started on tuesday. 

After their first day the only visible sign of work was a hole in the roof.  Not as big as I expected either.


After the second day - well lets just say we have more than one hole. 

They put up some supports in the bedrooms whilst they put the girders in the roofspace.

They did the job they were supposed to until one of the builders lost his footing and put his foot right through my daughter's bedroom ceiling.  Not a massive hole but enough to cause quite a lot of mess right on top of her bed, her A2 level work and lots of other things in her room.  Just as taster of the mess to come I suppose but annoying nevertheless especially since that was the one room whether nothing was supposed to be happening.  We get a new ceiling out of it anyway.

On the plus side they have refused me making them a drink so they must be a rare breed among builders. Either that or they know that my tea tastes crap.   No toilet breaks either so maybe they don't drink so they don't have to tinkle or there is a bucket somewhere inside that hole in my roof.