Sunday Sevens #63

Posted on March 31, 2019 by Christine Lucas

It’s Sunday again! Time for a quick Sunday Sevens (devised by Natalie at Threads and Bobbins.)

Earth Hour:
Last night I observed the annual Earth Hour by WWF. For the past seven years I have joined in this world wide movement by turning off my lights between 8.30pm and 9.30pm. Did you take part in the initiative?

Earth Hour 2019

Winter – Ali Smith

Book I’m reading:
I’ve picked up Winter by Ali Smith. Have you read this book? What were your thoughts?

Flowers:
Inspired by the lovely Sharon from Sunshine and Celandines, who shared pictures of wild flowers she had seen on a recent dog walk. I decided to do the same and take some snaps of the flowers I see on my walk to work.

red deadnettle

rapseseed

forget me not

Daisy

Family walks:
This Sunday’s family walk with Riley was a 2.5 mile walk around a spring resplendent Sefton Park.

Eros

Sefton Park

Band Stand

Riley and daffodils

#Walk1000miles:
My miles this week has been 39. Bringing my annual total to 550 miles.

New Friends:
On Tuesday David surprised me with two more friends for the aviary. Helen a female owl finch and Rize a female Lady Gouldian finch. How beautiful are they?

Helen the Owl Finch

Rize the Lady Gouldian Finch

That was my week, how was yours?
Thanks for reading,
Christine xx

12 Hours of Day #7

Posted on March 27, 2018 by Christine Lucas

Thanks to Louise from Ramblings of a Roachling, for giving me the heads up on this weekends #photoanhour on Instagram. It’s been a while since I participated so without further ado, here’s what I got up to during my 12 hours of day!

Photo an Hour – 24th March 2018

8am to 9am:

My Saturday began like many other Saturdays, at 8am. I fed Artie before making breakfast and coffee to ease myself into the morning.

Clock

Shopping

9am to 10am:

We took a weekly trip to the local Asda to do the big shop.

10am to 11am:

Once returned from the supermarket, David and I headed back out towards Speke Retail Park and Dobbies.

Driving

Orchids

11am to 12pm:

It was mum’s birthday on Sunday and as a gift she requested an orchid. There were many to chose from in the shop!

12pm to 1pm:

Back home, we had lunch and I enjoyed a cup of Costa coffee before the hard work of spring cleaning the house beckoned.

Break

Cleaning

1pm to 2pm:

There was no getting away from the spring clean this week. I like to clean the windows in March before the clocks go forwards, which happened to be the Sunday. So I tied my hair up and gritted my teeth. Three hours+ work was ahead!

2pm to 3pm:

As expected, David and I were still working hard at cleaning. I took to cleaning the windows, while David tackled the mold on the walls. The washing machine worked splendidly and cleaned the voiles, curtains and even the settee covers!

Clean Windows

Clean curtains

3pm to 4pm:

By 3.30pm the bedroom window had freshly washed voiles and the spring/summer curtains were up.

4pm to 5pm:

David, took a breather from cleaning and fed the pigeons. Hoppy, who has visited for the past two years and comes to David when called, enjoyed the food offered.

Feeding Hoppy the pigeon

Salad

5pm to 6pm:

While David was cleaning the settees, I turned my hand at making a salad to go with the evenings meal.

6pm to 7pm:

It was nice to finally sit down and enjoy a warm meal. We had pizza. I am sure I had the same dinner last #photoanhour. However this time, dinner was in daylight. The longer days of summer are on their way! Yippie! 🙂

Dinner

Cleaning finches’ cage

7pm to 8pm:

There wasn’t much time to digest dinner as I remembered that it was the day to clean the finches. *sigh* So I cleaned the Blue-faced Parrot-finches’ cage while David cleaned the aviary.

The rest of the evening:

From 8.30 to 9.30 (local time) David and I observed #earthhour. I turned off all the lights, lit a candle and we snuggled together to watch All the Money in the World. We left the candle burning ’til 11pm

Thanks to Janey and Louisa for setting up the challenge.

How did you spend your Saturday?

Thanks for reading, Christine x

Sunday Sevens #25

Posted on March 26, 2017 by Christine Lucas

Wow! These week’s come round quick! It’s that time again! Time for some more Sunday Sevens, devised by Natalie.

Walk 1000 miles: The beginning of the week saw my #walk1000miles badge arrive in the post! I am excited to take it on my future walks.

My Walk 1000 Miles badge

My total for this week has been 26 miles bringing my overall tally to 277 miles. A culmination of getting off the bus earlier to enjoy the warm sunshine and to look for signs of spring.

Wild Swimming: With the help of David, we put up my Lake District map. We used string as pointers to pictures of the lakes I’ve swam in. Thanks to Sharon from Sunshine and Celandines for the inspiration. Her dog Hugo has a map featuring all his dips, I thought ‘what a great idea, perfect for my wild swims!’ 😀

My wild swim map

Wildlife: This week I signed up for the Great British Bee Count, an incentive by Friends of the Earth. Much like the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch, it is a survey to track the health of bee populations in the UK. The count this year will be between 19th May to 30th June 2017, just in time for the Wildlife Trust’s 30 Day’s Wild! Will you be joining in?

The Great British Bee Count

Earth Hour

Earth Hour: Once again David and I participated in WWF’s Earth Hour. For an hour between 8.30pm and 9.30pm on 25th March 2017 we turned off all the lights and used the time to reflect. It made for a very calm hour.

Did you participate in this years Earth Hour?

Afternoon Tea: This weekend it was Mothering Sunday here in the UK and the day before was my Mum’s birthday. To celebrate both, I surprised my Mum with an afternoon tea at Jam.

Afternoon Tea at Jam, Liverpool

The restaurant was busier than last time I visited with David, you can read my review here. The afternoon tea had some changes. Mum had beef bread rolls and thankfully there was no egg to be seen. The cake selection was a little different too. There were slices of red velvet cake, bakewell tarts and small doughnuts. The scones went down very nicely with cups of Assam tea!

Reading: The book I have begun reading this week is Birdcage Walk by Kate Riordan. It is set at the turn of the 20th century and is based on a true crime. However I think the adapted story is a little far fetched but I am over half way through so will persevere to the end.

Have you read any good books lately?

In the kitchen: While I was out with Mum, David was busy in the kitchen baking another cake. This time he made a classic Victoria Sponge, with yummy fresh cream and strawberry jam.

For this Saturday’s dinner I made a Brown Lentil Chili and served it with oven baked tortillas. I adapted the quantities for two people. It makes for a gorgeous, healthy, filling chili. I have made this recipe several times this year.