21st August photo - their birthday party

OH DEAR!!!

My camera & I were not welcome at the trendy kids party - but Josh stepped up to help me out - by saying he was a good photographer and would take loads for me. So Steven & I went out for a nice meal and left him to it - and this is what I got!!!

I was so disappointed that I have not got many to choose a photo of the day from. I have managed to salvage a few by some selective cropping. I think this one will be POTD.

Just a little selection from the party - the lovely lovely Emily

Fun on the bouncy castle

Eleanor (I took this one before I was banished!)

Liam & his friend Daisy - rubbish photo - but look he has taken his hoodie off!

The party girl
They all had fun trying to eat donuts from the washing line!

Eleanor & James

20th August 2009 - the triple birthday!

Another busy day in the Taylor household:- Jessica was 21, Liam was 17 and Eleanor 25! Here are the 3 of them as my photo of the day - if only Liam could be persuaded to take that damm hood off - it would be a lovely photo!

Ross was home as well and I managed to get a very rare photo of all 4 of them together - I wonder how long it will be before I get them all together again, with Ross actually smiling and Liam without that silly hood up!

We had a nice family tea party - their grown up party for their friends is tomorrow - I am NOT looking forward to that!

19th August 2009 - a quick visit to Oxford - but still plenty of photos!

A flying visit to Oxford today to pick up a birthday present for Jessica. On our last visit I saw a beautiful traditional set of scales that I knew Jess would love - but my darling husband in his wisdom said I could not buy them then - to a man a set of scales is just a set of scales - but to a baker and Jess is another baker - these scales are no ordinary scales - so now I have had to make a special journey just to get them - thankfully Oxford is not far from my sister's so I could do it en-route home.

Oxford was just teeming with visitors this much busier than we see it in term time. I hope to choose one of the following photos as my POTD.

Bridge of Sighs - in a rare moment without tourists in the way!

A gorgeous Oxford Building next to the Sheldonian.

'The heads' outside the Sheldonian.

Afternoon tea on the lawn at Trinity College.

The fabulous Museum of Natural history.

Inside here is my favourite museum ever - The Pitt Rivers. This is an anthropological museum - filled with artefact's from many different tribal communities - I have been many times and each time I find something new to marvel at.

This is the new animal research lab. Eleanor's lab is just next door and her college is the red brick building at the end of the road - so she was right in the middle of all the violent and nasty protests by the Animal Liberation Front when the lab was being built. We thought it may have to stay behind its protective scaffolding forever - so this is the first time I have seen it in all its contemporary glory and very nice it looks as well.

Talking of modern - I visited St Catherine's College today and was very pleasantly surprised. It is Oxford's modern college and we did not even consider this one when we were choosing a college for Eleanor because it was 'Modern'. How silly were we - it is beautiful and I would have been very happy if she had come here.

18th August photo - 2 lovely lads

Another busy day walking the Chiltern Hundred - I finished the course - yay! and found 103 caches altogether. I did not get chance for many photos again - so my lovely nephews stepped up for the job and are the willing victims for today's POTD.

I stayed with my sister whlist doing the Chiltern Hundred - but still couldn't get any willing volunteers to come walking with me - '10 hours - no way!' was the response I got - so I think they felt guilty about this old woman going out by herself - so were happy to indulge me this little request! Graeme & Peter are my sister's boys and lovely lads they are. So I had Janet & Sian earlier in the year as POTD - just need my brother in law's photo to complete the family - hopefully I can persuade him next time I visit in September.

17th August photo - Out & about around Chesham

Today was day 1 of my 2 day challenge to do the Chiltern Hundred series of geocaches. I walked the Chesham Ring today and was out for 10 hours solid walking - from 9.15 am to 19.15hrs in the evening. I did very well and found 46 out of 49 caches so I was pleased with that - lets hope I can reach the magic hundred tomorrow. You would think that being out for so long in such beautiful countryside that I would have taken loads of photos - but in fact I was so busy concentrating on my route, finding all these - sometimes very pesky caches and writing everything down, that actually I did not really bother with my camera - so only a few snaps today.

Today's photo is going to be this hale bales one - its a bit dull I know - but I have been trying to take a photo of the lovely round hay bales for a few days now - to show the changing seasons in my album, but the farmers are being very efficient this year and taking them out of the fields as soon as they are bound - so I have not been able to find any - so when I saw these rectangular ones - thought I better take it.

The countryside was beautiful - but I only have this one photo of the landscape, taken when I stopped for some food.

I was quite excited to spy one of these - a Huff house - nestled amongst the Chiltern Hills. I LOVE Huff houses and when I win the lottery - one of these gorgeous buildings will be at the top of my shopping list.
I also spied these ostriches - but the photos are rubbish - because they are such nosey birds - they all came up to see what I was doing - the cache was right next to their field - but being so close they were all stuck right up behind the awful looking fencing - so no good for my POTD.

Another hay bale photo - will see which I prefer when I get home to print them out.

right an early night is in order - I need all my rest for tomorrow's 10 hour walk!

16th August photo - crafty stash scrapbook workshop

Unfortunately scrapbooking has had to take a bit of a back seat in my life lately, which I have not been happy about. But when I heard that Tracie Hudson was teaching at a Crafty Stash summer workshop - that was all the inspiration I need to drive 200 miles to take part, as I really admire her style of scrapping.

I have had a fab day - I have produced 5 layouts, met some lovely people, had great food and even won a prize - not for my scrapping skills I must admit - but the luck of the draw!

Tracie had designed some brilliant classes and she is a very good teacher - so I enjoyed them all even though we worked at quite a pace.

The venue was a lovely hall in Welwyn Garden City. I have never been there before - but my trusty Tom Tom - got me along the M25 and there without a problem.

Tracie designs for Sassafrass & Prima and our first class was with Sassafrass products. They are quite whimsy - so not my usual type of papers - but it was nice to try something new. This layout invloved a lots of free hand cutting and I have used a photo of me at the top of Snowdon taken in June. I just need to add a title and some journalling at home and then there is another layout finished for my album.

This second layout also uses Sassafrass products and is uses a picture of Dad and the girls taken recently in Liverpool.

The 3rd class was using Prima Printables and I did get quite messy with the paint - but had fun and really like this layout using a photo taken at Jessica's graduation.

This 4th layout is made with Prima's gorgeous papers - again a lot of handcutting and some painting. It is not quite finished. The title was made with the same black alphas as above but they look too big and don't quite fit on the page properly - so I am going to see if I can find something else at home.

The 5th layout is back to Sassasfrass whimsy papers - but is not finished so will post it when I have finished it. Below is my prize - a crate of Prima flowers - flowers are going to be appearing on all my layouts from now on!

I really hope that today can kick me back into scrapping action as I have lots of stories to tell and a ton of photos than need to appear on layouts.

15th August photo - kite fetival

Shrewsbury hosts a kite festival once a year - so I popped down this afternoon to try and get some snazzy photos - its not that easy!

This one is going to be my POTD- only because its quite unusual to see a pair of legs flying through the air - not for any photographic quality - sorry.

The park where the event is held is quite large so there was plenty of room for large kites pulling racing cars!


This orange octopus kite was huge - but they had real difficulty getting it off the ground.

They managed to get it up for about one minute then.....

it came crashing down to earth! Wrong type of wind for this big one today.

Just a selection of the other kites flying today.