Beach combing, frisbee and messages in the sand

I have taken a complete blogging break over the school holidays. Magoo likes to be out and about as much as possible. Plus my Mother-in-Law came to stay for a week, so I wanted to give them both my full attention. Our holiday was filled with trips to the park, meeting up with friends, walks to the allotment, bike rides, ice creams and lots of trampolining.

We seem to be a little bit out of step with our Easter Holiday break. Most schools had their holidays around the bank holiday weekend. Ours started a week after the Bank Holiday weekend. Although it has been a bit grim and grey at times, we have enjoyed the occasional burst of Spring sunshine.

Saturday was a bright and beautiful day, so we decided to make the most of the sun and head to the beach near our home. We love this particular beach because there are lots of places to explore. Along the tide line you can often find interesting pieces of drift wood, pebbles in a hundred and one different shades and sometimes the odd fossil.

Due to high tides and Winter storms, the sandbanks were more exposed than usual. It looked like large chunks had been washed away. We could clearly see the exposed layers of sand, stone and shells in the bank. Magoo and Mr M couldn't resist having a dig around to see if there were any fossils or interesting stones to be found. We particularly love finding pebbles containing quartz because they glitter in the sunshine and look like jewels.

We took bucket and spades, beach mats and a frisbee. Magoo loves the frisbee, and spent quite a while throwing it into the air just for the fun of it. I really wanted to try and capture a photo of the neon pink frisbee against the blue sky and Welsh coastline in the distance.

We also spent some time collecting stones to write messages in the sand. I though it might be nice if another family or a dog walker found our 'LOVE' note later on in the day. I hope it survived the tide coming in...but if it didn't, there's plenty more pebbles to write a new message next time we're on the beach.

This week I'm linking up with these lovely blogs:

"Country Kids" over on www.coombemill.com

"Twinkly Tuesday" over on mummascribbles.com

"Point + Shoot" over on youbabymemummy.com and www.snowingindoors.com

"Whatever the Weather" over on www.lifeunexpected.co.uk and monkeyandmouse.co.uk

"Let Kids Be Kids" over on letkidsbekids.co.uk

"Blogger Club UK" over on www.cuddlefairy.com and mudpiefridays.com

September on the allotment: super sunflowers and losing the battle against the weeds

Alongside vegetables and fruit crops, many people like to grow flowers on their allotment. Cut flowers from the supermarket can be expensive & often flown halfway around the world. It's nice to be able to cut a few flowers to take them home with your veg. My Mum had the great idea of growing a row of sunflowers on our plot so that we could cut them to have in a vase at home.

However, it didn't turn out quite as planned, we have had a couple small enough to put in a vase, but most of the sunflowers have grown to a massive size. The seed packet didn't say they were giant sunflowers, in fact the actual plants are pretty short, about hip-height, but the flower heads are huge!
It doesn't matter that we haven't been able to take many home to put in a vase because the bees have loved them. Vegetable crops can survive without pollinators, so we've been more than happy to see bees all over the sunflowers. Also, if you leave sunflower heads to dry, birds like to eat the seeds too. Spot the bee in the photo below!

Whatever the size, I love sunflowers. You can't help being cheered up by their sunny yellow petals. I also love the intricate pattern of the seeds in the flower head.



My Mum seems to think the sunflowers have grown so huge due to the volcanic ash she put into the soil last year. Whatever it is, the flowers and the vegetables have done well. But, so have the weeds. I always say that as long as we are getting more vegetables than weeds, then we're ok, but we're on the verge of losing the battle. This Summer has been really wet with burst of warm sunshine inbetween the downpours. Not great for camping or picnics in the Summer holidays, but the plants have loved it. We only need to turn our backs for a few days on our allotment plot and the weeds become rampant.
I think we need to have a major weeding session soon and then cover the unused parts of the plot for Winter. We do still have parsnips, purple sprouting and kale growing and they will stay in over the colder months. I can't wait to try my first ever home-grown parsnips, even if some of them look like curly ram's horns...which will make for an interesting time when I peel them.

I'm linking up with Country Kids over on www.coombemill.com, Whatever the Weather over on www.lifeunexpected.co.uk and monkeyandmouse.co.uk, Point + Shoot over on youbabymemummy.com and www.snowingindoors.com, Image of the Week #IOTW over on www.trulymadlykids.co.uk and Let Kids be Kids over on letkidsbekids.co.uk.

I'm also linking up with How Does Your Garden Grow over on the beautiful mammasaurus.co.uk

Heartlands in Cornwall

Back in May we took a week long holiday in Cornwall and I've been meaning to blog about Heartlands ever since we returned!

Essentially Heartlands is an industrial museum with a twist - I think labelling anything as a 'museum' can often be a turn-off for people, so it's being marketed as Cornwall's "cultural playground". We saw a leaflet on the campsite we were staying on and the marketing material was so engaging and interesting, we had to go and have a look!

We were so bowled over by Heartlands, we can't stop telling everyone about it. We were very, very lucky that the sun chose to shine on us the day we went.

We started our visit with a picnic in the Diaspora gardens, they were full of plants from countries Cornish miners and their families migrated too. I had no idea so many people left Cornwall to work in mines as far flung as Australia, New Zealand, North and South America and South Africa. It's such a clever idea for a garden and it made a refreshing change from the usual cottage garden or twee bedding plants you often see in public gardens.

We then moved on to the artists studios and pottered about for a bit, everyone was really friendly and welcoming. I'm often reluctant to take my attention-span-of-a-flea toddler into places with crafts and art on display, but everyone working in their studios positively encourage us in. I particularly liked the crochet-covered bicycle propped up outside one of the studios.

Even though we'd had a picnic, we couldn't resist going into the Red River Cafe and indulged ourselves with a cream tea, there's always room for cream tea, isn't there? The cafe was smart but also reflected the industrial nature of the building - formerly the old Carpenter’s Workshop - the exposed beams and original machinery dotted about kept visitors in touch with the heritage of the place.

We then took a quick look in the World Heritage Site Exhibitions - with a toddler in tow, you can't really amble about reading all the information in-depth, but we were all drawn in by the enormous 270° film projection at the far end of the building. It was such a innovative way of conveying the Cornish story that we were completely enthralled, in fact my husband went back in to watch the film again...

And finally, we couldn't keep our daughter away from the enormous playground any longer. It was most definitely the highlight of the day, she loved every minute of it. Cleverly designed, built with robust materials and suitable for a large age range, I hope many more children get the chance to enjoy this place over the Summer holidays.