Corner View - Self

This week's Corner View is the unveiling....posting a picture of your true self......a chance to meet everyone out there posting the world around them... there are a few photos of me about on this blog but I guess there's no harm to have a few more.

So here's me atop a mountain.......it was a long hard slog to get to 12005 feet............from the car park at 11500ft!

This is where I like to be - out in nature...

Or perhaps wearing it.....

Me.....never losing that inner child!

Hello everyone!

Blankie in Progress

Word light post (that'll be a first!!)

Corner View - Places of Reflection

This week on Jane's Corner View, Caitlin chose places of reflection, place you go to just be.....

I have a few favourite places where I relax and go to think, clear my head (helped by the wind that usually blows) and enjoy nature. The first ......you've seen it here before on corner view - Tentsmuir Beach. A 15 minute drive from home, the sea on 2 sides and the forest on a third, the smell of the sea, the crash of the waves, the wind blowing through the maram grass and shifting the sand, the seals barking on their sand banks and squirrels, deer and woodpeckers in the forest, the primeval feeling forest with it's carpet of ferns and it's towering Scot's Pine....

Or I could climb to the top of a mountain and feel like I am on top of the world....

And here's my gratuitous photo for this week - someone considering their thoughts, thinking of their family - lighting a candle in the duomo in Milan.

Go and check out all the other posts - list at Jane's blog - Spain Daily. 

Woollie Weekend!

Had we listened to the weather forecast during the week, we would have spent the weekend indoors, that hatches battened down....luckily by Friday evening the forecast had lightened and I managed to spend a lot of the weekend outside. Where did I go? On both Saturday and Sunday afternoon I ended up at the fabulous Cairnie Farm....home of strawberries and raspberries, a great cafe with homemade strawberry cakes and ice cream and the best kids play area ever......it was quite amusing that we adults had to pay to get into the playpark but the kid (being under 3) got in for free. But hey, I enjoyed the trampolines and the giant pedal go-karts and trikes just as much as the kids! 

Long live the big kid!

I also managed to pick strawberries on Saturday which I took as dessert to a friend's house that night, have been eating for breakfast and lunch and will turn into puree. On Sunday after lunch with friends visiting from Edinburgh we headed back to Cairnie and luckily for me the raspberry canes were open for picking!  A berry tastic weekend!

If you are in NE Fife, it's definitely worth a visit - pick your own strawberries, raspberries, gooseberries, tay berries, redcurrants, blackcurrants and soon cherries and blackberries! Let your kids play to their hearts content on the giant stack of haybales, the trampolines, the electric tractors, the go-kart track, the crazy swings and the flying fox......eat great food in the cafe or take a picnic.....and it's open all summer. More excitement when the giant maze opens - this year shaped like a polar bear!

Talk about farm diversification! Cairnie Farm have found their niche!

Pay it Forward and My Butt on TV

A little sneak of my latest blankie.......

Well, it would appear that the Pay it Forward idea is circulating in blogland again. I enjoyed taking part the last time so was excited when I managed to get signed up on Bricolagelife's Pay it Forward....now it's my turn to pay it forward. 

Here's how it works.....

I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment here requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

Now for my butt on TV........I was playing badminton tonight when my phone beeps and a text message arrives. When I was leaving to head home I checked my phone......the message (probably one of the strangest I have ever received) said...."I have just seen your bum on national TV!"

Now that was quite a shock, but before you all leave this blog for safer places, let me tell you it was fully clothed!

A few years back I went on a National Trust working holiday to the Lizard Peninsula in Cornwall and they had their photographer on hand to take some photos for their future publicity. Little did I know that one of the photos would turn up on an advert for the Sunday Times newspaper which is providing free entry vouchers to National Trust properties this weekend!

Corner View - Staple/Local Foods

This weeks Corner View over on Jane's blog is staple/local foods. Hmm....the Scottish diet.....famous for deep fried mars bars, haggis neeps and tatties and irn bru!

Anyone that knows me, knows I love to take photos of food. Indeed, on my trip to Rome I took one photo of the colosseum and 30 photos of fruit and veg in the Campo di Fiori market. So photos of food, even Scottish food, are not a problem!

13 miles from Dundee is the small Scottish town of Arbroath, famous for it's smokies....2 haddock tied together at the tail and smoked. Visit the town and you can buy your fish direct from the smokehouses and touring Scotland's annual events and festivals you can often find smokies in barrels! 

Or how about fresh strawberries you picked yourself...yum!

Or my previously posted pictures from London's Borough Market...no longer can British food be described as boring or bland....

Go and check out food from around the world over at Jane's blog (all the participants are listed in her side bar!) Or some fabulous foodie blogs....one of my favourites is Canelle at Vanille (because I like to indulge my sweet tooth!) I know I will be....

Woolfest 2009

Yesterday morning, at the crack of dawn (OK a slight exaggeration since at this time of the year the crack of dawn is at about 330am but it was 6am) Louise, Laurence, Andrea and I left to make the 400 mile round trip drive to Cockermouth in the Lake District to go to the 5th annual Woolfest.

The location: Mitchells Lakeland Livestock Centre, Cockermouth

The reason: hundreds of mad keen fibre fanatics want somewhere to see an buy all that great yarn and fibre

It's a great place to see lots and lots of happy fibre fans and to see what's new in the world of knitting, spinning, felting and weaving. We saw alpaca, angora goats and rabbits, various breeds of sheep. You could buy sheep at the sheep auction (ok they were of the knitted variety and the auction was raising money for charity); you could watch sheep shearing; take classes and be inspired.

And if you bought too much to carry you could always leave it at the wool creche and collect it later - encouraging you to buy more than you can carry!!! Now that made me smile!

Our favourite yarn store Twist Fibre Craft were there with the best looking stall (we are not biased!) Their biggest seller was pre-felt....white, coloured and hand-dyed.

After our spending our money and before we headed home we took a little drive through the northern corner of the Lake District National Park. We thought it only fitting that we at least see a lake whilst we were in the Lake District.

Here's Louise and I cooling off our tired feet in Bassenthwaite Lake and some cute cottages in the village of Caldbeck - great local ice cream to be had and home of the Wool Clip (the organisers of Woolfest and Social Enterprise of the Year 2009). Definitely worth a visit for a wander along the bubbling stream, looking at the stone cottages and beautiful gardens, watching the local sheep and taking in the fibre goodness at the Wool Clip, housed in a restored water mill.

This is the home of the Wool Clip. There's also a jewellers, a second hand book shop and a cafe. 

Corner View - Music

Jane's weekly corner view project moves to the theme of music today. There will be many views from around the world to check out. All the participants are listed in Jane's sidebar. Music exists in every culture but our definition of music also varies.....

Here's some local views of music in my area:

Here's a view of the modern, from the new concert hall in Perth - Horsecross - where you can go to listen to all sorts of music from jazz to folk, from choral arrangements to rock.

And this one is the traditional from Gardyne's Land, the oldest building in Dundee, a 16th century merchant's house, recently restored and turned into a youth hostel. The top floor of the building retains evidence of its former inhabitants.  Stay in room 14 and this is the door! An old green door from the early 19th century, which used to be the studio of Mr MacLeod, the Bagpipe Maker...a truly Scottish (and Celtic) craft.

The view of the hostel is the one I see from my office every day!

Craft Continues

It's funny how my baby blankets have developed over the past year or so. I think I have made about 15 or 16 in total now......they started out fairly plain with little tabs here and there.....the shapes being the important part, but then coloured pre-felt entered my life and inspired me even further......now the colours are important and the embroidery too....

I've gone through a bunny rabbit phase........a car theme.......

........and fairy tales......the last 2 have had an alien theme and another fairytale....now I am on to the yellow submarine....

The squeaker is inside the big space ship and it says "take me to your leader!"

The latest finish:

Here the squeaker is inside the tower - I think the prince got lost on his way to rescue Rapunzel! Like any good women (as suggested by a 6 year old after hearing the story and declaring it to be stupid.....) she would probably think the whole thing is just silly, chop off all her own hair, weave a rope and climb down - who needs a prince to rescue her!!

 Corner View - Street Fashion

I am struggling with today's corner view as I don't really like taking pictures of people I don't know. And also the weather has been so miserable these past few days that there haven't been many people just out enjoying the fresh air!

Here's what the streets were wearing when I was in Fife last week (not quite the remit but hey, a little bit of artistic license doesn't hurt!)

Street wearing washing!

Street wearing lobster pots

Street wearing a fishing net!