Chrimbly Countdown – Tree

Linking in with this Friday’s Hawthorns December Photo Hunt. Today’s theme is: Tree – a snap shot of your tree, this year’s, last year’s, the black and white one of you as a tiny tot helping to decorate,  the one on the village square, that shiny white one in the shop, a native tree bedecked with lights and bird feeders – any festive tree 🙂 

2020 Christmas Tree

Due to 2020 being a dire year and with stresses at home, I decided to put up my little 4′ Christmas tree earlier than the usual 1st December. So mid November, out came the tree and decorations. I spent the next two hours decorating the tree with polar bears and birds, it was very therapeutic. I know black trees are not in fashion at the moment, but I like the striking contrast between the black boughs and the white twinkling lights.

What do you think of my little tree?

Thanks for reading,

Merry Christmas!

Christine x

Sunday Sevens #43

Thanks to Natalie at Threads and bobbins for creating the series, Sunday Sevens. Here’s a quick update on my week.

Fashion:

This week the long awaited reflective dog jacket I ordered for Riley arrived. You have to admit it looks fantastic on him!

Romance:

This Wednesday was Valentine’s Day. David and I took a trip to the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall to hear the RLPO perform passionate pieces of music. The auditorium was full! My favourite pieces in the programme were Prokofiev’s retelling of Romeo and Juliet and Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto no. 2 performed by Chinese pianist Zhang Zuo. It was a lovely night!

At the Philharmonic Hall

Zhang Zuo

Designer Art:

For the past five years David has wanted to purchase a table lamp created by Hebden Bridge based artist, Hannah Nunn. We just couldn’t justify the cost, however this week I noticed there was a seconds sale being held for only a few days. The lamp David had had his eye on for so long was half price! We decided to order it. A few days later we took delivery of the lamp. It doesn’t look much unlit, but once the bulb is switched on the etched design comes to life. It is a fine addition to our bird inspired living room. What do you think?

Coal Tit Lamp by Hannah Nunn

The Pier Falls – Mark Haddon

Book I am reading:

I am currently reading Mark Haddon’s collection of short stories, The Pier Falls. So far I have read two of the short stories and feel rather unmoved. I loved The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time and his play Polar Bears. However this collection of stories is falling flat. His writing makes me think Tom Hanks‘ collection is far superior. Have you read this book? What were your thoughts?

Gardening: 

This weekend I purchased some potato chits to plant come spring. I bought maris peer potatoes. They are new potatoes to me, but I have read that they are good in salads, much like the maris bard. Even though we had blight on our potato harvest last year I will continue to try and grow ‘our own’. I will document how we go with these second earlies.

 

#walk1000miles:

This week I have managed a good 39 miles, bringing my overall total so far to 235 miles. It hasn’t been a bad week of walking. I’ve enjoyed a few good walks to work with the sun shining and the scent of spring on the air. Monday I thought, would have been a perfect day to go wild swimming. So I walked to work, smelling the air, hearing the birds singing and dreaming of slipping my cool body into an even colder body of water. It made my spirit soar! Spring/Summer can’t come quick enough!

Christine and Riley

David and Riley

Riley at Otterspool Prom

Snowdrops by Otterspool

David and I have also embarked on many evening walks with Riley as well as taking him on a good three mile walk today around Otterspool. We have all enjoyed the exercise, Riley and myself most of all. 🙂

So, that was my week, how was yours?

Thanks for reading,

Christine x

 

Polar Bears, Traffic Jams and Ducks!

It’s been a busy weekend!

Friday, David and I both had the day off work and we drove the two hours to Doncaster to, Yorkshire Wildlife Park. We had visited preciously but this time I wanted to see the newly arrived Polar Bears. YWP has two at the moment, Victor and his grandson Pixel.

Pixel was the more active of the two as can be expected and I enjoyed seeing him frolic in the huge lake they have in their enclosure. We stopped to listen to the Polar Bear talk and the keeper said they hope to house up to at least eight male Polar Bears! That will be something to behold!

In their collection YWP also have shy Amur Leopards and Tigers. There was one Amur Tiger on show, (the other is off show nursing cubs!). The Tiger showed a spectacular Flehmen response to a smell on a bush. This is when the cat smells a scent and shows its teeth by scrunching up its nose. Even domesticated cats do it as well!

We spent 4 hours at the park and left at 3 pm, ‘in plenty of time to miss the rush hour traffic’, I thought! We were not so blessed as when we visited Yorkshire Sculpture Park the previous weeks as it was intermittent driving and then stopping from the M1 to the M62! We hadn’t even reached the dreaded M60 before it was 5pm and David was starting to feel dizzy!

I managed to get David to agree on stopping off at a service station. Birch was only 1 mile away when the dizzy spells started, probably brought on by too much driving, sun stroke and hunger! We both had a Costa each and then David had a Burger King chicken sandwich and I had a very fattening vegi burger. At 26g of fat I would have opted for the salad if I had known! I wish fast food could be healthy as well as convenient! The break did us both good. It roused my spirits and as we hit the motorway again, the traffic jams eased so it was a straight, none stop route back home! Poor Artie was left alone for 11 hours straight, he must have thought we had deserted him!

On Saturday, not content with walking for miles the previous day, we headed into Liverpool city centre to wander the streets in search of ducks! We followed the Aquaducked map and snapped the 20 ducks on display. They each informed of 20 firsts that had happened in Liverpool! Amongst one of my favourites was the Beetles Duck. It was indeed colourful!

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