Sealed Pot Sunday

This week is week 31 of the Sealed Pot Challenge, so with only 21weeks to go before the grand opening at the beginning of December I thought I would try and promote the challenge.

I joined in with this challenge last year and was amazed at how much I had saved just by popping loose change into a sealed tin, over the course of the year it totalled £209 !! this was enough for quite a few lovely treats at Christmas plus a family treat of a nice meal out at our favourite eatery. It was definitely worth the effort.

At the moment we have 95 members, wouldn't it be great if we could get another 5 lovely people to join and make it a magical 100, it's not too late, as I said we still have 21 weeks before we open them. Just think if you started today by popping oddments of change in a pot you could have an extra few pounds to spend at Christmas with the minimum of effort. Any kind of pot will do, it doesn't have to be fancy, a gravy tub will suffice, just seal it up with a bit of sticky tape and off you go!  It's just a bit of harmless fun and lets face it we all enjoy having that bit extra to spend at Christmas.

If you do decide to join in with the fun you can pop over to Saving for Travel's blog and have your name added to the list, of course it doesn't have to be spent on Christmas, maybe a nice treat for yourself :-) 

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

Family gathering

The birthday boy 

The 10th of June was my Dads 80th birthday and the week before we had a lovely family BBQ at my brothers house, it was also my sister in law Amanda's Dads 80th so it became a joint party and the birthday boys shared a gorgeous cake.

We took Mum and Dad out to our favourite eatery The Mayflower for a birthday lunch on his actual birthday, we had a really nice meal and came away stuffed!

me with Mum who is 80 in November

  Last Friday my son and daughter in law and her daughter came up from Plymouth, Danielle Louise is starting Sheffield Uni in September, it was open day on Saturday so they spent the day looking round and sorting out accomodation on the campus.  It's been a bit of a worry for Julie (my DiL)  which is understandable when your first one leaves home, especially when there are going 300 miles away. I think it makes things a little easier with us being close by, at least if Danielle is feeling a bit homesick we can bring her here for the weekend and pamper her. We will also be able to pick her up and take her to Plymouth when we go visiting. Lots of questions were answered and it put their minds at rest and gave them lots of positive feelings.

While they were all doing that I prepared a big buffet and all the family came, we had a lovely get together and I even remembered to get a photograph of us all.  Everyone enjoyed themselves and it was about 10pm by the time they all went home.

My lovely family.

Dad, Mum, Hubby, Me, Amanda (SiL)  Rebecca (niece) Michael (brother) Danielle Louise (step grandaughter) Daniel David (sons) Julie, Louise (DiLs) Willow (grandaughter) 

As Sunday was another nice day Philip took Danielle and Danny flying.  It was the first time Danielle had been and she absolutely loved it, she had a go at flying it too, I think the smiley face for the rest of the day spoke volumes :-)

It was quite an exhausting weekend but I absolutely LOVED it, it was over far too quickly. I can't wait until September when we will see them again, although it might be a tearful one for Julie as they will be taking Danielle to her new home.

The rest of this week has been catch up time, the usual housework and gardening, also we have a big event at the local  Austerfield Study Centre and I'm doing the refreshments so lots of baking being done.  More about that tomorrow!

Have a lovely weekend

Love

Southwell Folk Festival weekend

Whilst we didn't actually go to the festival this year we did take advantage of the fringe entertainment which was all for free :-)

It all started with the procession of Dance Teams and musicians parading through the town to start off the dancing which would last about 4 hours.

The Rattlejag Morris started the procession.

The Bourne Borderers Musicians

The Earl of Stamford's Mascot

The Witchmen Dancers and Musicians

They look really fierce but under the black stuff they are just normal guy's having a good time.

The Witchmen are our favourite dance team, we love border morris, we did a workshop  with them and got told off for laughing too much, we just had such fun :-)

The Earl of Stamford Morris. Mainly dancing Cotswold Morris dances

These are the Anstey Morris Team and in this particular dance they fall down dead at the end and have to be revivied by the Southwell Virgin picked from the crowd, and they just happened to pick my daughter in law Loubi, she had to kiss them all back to life! She was a great sport and got a good cheer at the end.

Well Done Loubi xx

Not very often you see people dressed like this enjoying a lunchtime pint!  These are part of the Molly Dance team called The Rhubarb Tarts

On Sunday it was a lovely day and we spent the afternoon watching it all again in the courtyard of a pub called The Final Whistle.

Bourne Borderers

Earl of Stamford

The Poacher Morris  from Lincoln

One of the Witchmen taking a break.

Golden Star Morris  Musicians

The dancing was followed by a short programme of entertainers from the festival.  This was The Butler Family they sang mostly their own songs in a bluegrass style, they were very good.

The courtyard was quite full, people enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere, a few beers and a lovely BBQ and of course the entertainment was excellent.

There was even a Sea Shanty Session going on inside the pub and that's not easy to say when you've had a few!

This was Philips video he put onto You Tube. Enjoy!!

The end of a busy weekend and it's glasses off and the most unflattering photograph of me ever!!

 I LOVE my Kindle :-)

Sorry it's taken a while for me to get these piccies on here but life has been a bit full on this week and we are getting the garden ready for when we go away again :-)  quite soon....

Thank you for popping by

Love

I'm back!!

Hello my lovely bloggy friends, I'm back from my little caravan jaunt with my lovely hubby.  The next week is going to be manic and I have so many lovely photographs to show you, I will try my best.  I did try to mobile blog while away but.... well lets just say it didn't work.... I'm not very techie and just couldn't understand it.

We only went about an hour away from home but its a lovely place to go for a de stress and it was also the folk festival at the weekend so lots of free entertainment :-)

This is Newark Castle on the River Trent, its only a ruin but still looks impressive.

 and the bridge over the Trent, it wasn't a particularly sunny day but we spent a good few hours having a nice wander round.

 The rest of the week was spent travelling round on these! we managed a few miles trundling along the country lanes, until disaster struck and I managed to fall off mine into the biggest juicest patch of stinging nettles I've ever seen.  Somehow I ended up on my back in the hedge bottom laughing, I did get a bit upset when I saw my new Radley bag had mud on it LOL. Philip couldn't help me up for laughing, it was so funny and I wasn't hurt. I did get a few stings on my legs and arm... ouch!!

Southwell Minster (Nottingham)

and a free lunchtime concert, the minster filled up nicely and everyone seemed to enjoy the music.

This was the start of the festival weekend, the sun shone and the relaxed atmosphere really uplifted my spirits.

I will tell you about the festival over the next few days.

Take Care