A Wedding, A Birthday, Two Hen Nights and a BBQ!

So another six weeks or so have passed since my last post and another packed six weeks it has been!

Firstly back in mid July I had one of my oldest school friends Hen Nights, for which she went to a pottery painting class during the day and then went out for a meal and cocktails in town in the evening. Unfortunately I couldn't attend the day due to the fact that we have now hit out peak time at work with the schools now having broken up, so I was unable to get the time off for this as well as the wedding itself. I did however enjoy the part that I was able to attend, and especially the cocktails! Below you can see a particularly spectacular one that I had!

I wasn't quite expecting it to turn up alight though, and it continued to stay that way for about five minutes after!

The hen night was then followed by the beautiful wedding a few weeks later, which was held at a breath taking neo-gothic manor house that is now a hotel. The ceremony was a lovely intimate affair that was so romantic as well as being rather emotional, due to the fact that the Bride and her family had faced a massive family trauma just over a month before. But this just highlighted how close the couple are and how much they truly are made for each other.

The ceremony was then followed by drinks outside in the grounds which they were incredibly lucky that the weather held out for, being that it had literally chucked it down with torrential rain throughout the day before. This was then followed by the wedding breakfast which was set on one long table rather than lots of individual one's, with candle lit chandelier's that made it feel rather like we were in a scene from Downton Abbey! The wedding party was then joined by a number of other guests for the evening reception, where we danced the night away to numerous different songs including a number from our college days. All in all it was an amazing day that was enjoyed by everyone.

Below you can see some pictures of the wedding as well as those of the beautiful house and grounds:

The week after the wedding was my mum's birthday, which not only fell on a gloriously sunny day but also on my day off. So mum, dad, and myself decided to make the most of the weather by visiting Arundel for the day, which is a place that I haven't visited to for years! It is also very rare for us to go out together without my sister or hubby too, so it was good to spend some quality time together.

We started off the day by having a drink in a little café by the riverside, before going for a walk along the river in order to get to get to a lovely little pub/restaurant where we stopped for some lunch. The pub/restaurant was also situated along side the river and as it was such a nice day we were able to sit outside and watch the world go by, which was lovely minus all of the wasps that kept trying to invade us! (I swear that wasps have some kind of magnetic attraction to me at this time of the year!)

After lunch we walked back towards Arundel town and stopped along the way to go out on a little rowing boat on the lake. We left the rowing to dad whilst mum relaxed and I took photos of the many ducks! We then continued our trip into the town passing by Arundel castle. Once in the town we had a little mooch around the shops, bought some lovely fudge, ice-creams, and visited the Arundel Brewery shop, where I bought some local cider for my hubby before we returned home.

Below you can see some of the pics that I took on the day:

Top left and right: The view from the café that we stopped off at in the morning.

Bottom left and right: The view over the countryside on our river walk, and some ducks on the river.



A little Robin that I spotted on our walk and the river a little further inland

Top left and right: The view over the river from the pub/restaurant, and the view of Arundel Castle in the distance.

Bottom left and right: More views of the countryside on our walk, and of the river further inland. 

Some duck pics taken from our little rowing boat. We found the duck on the right rather scary looking with it's red eyes! 

 A couple of signets on the boating lake, as well as another duck! 

Top left: Another duck from the boating lake and top right: The now closed and abandoned trout farm

Bottom left: A closer view of Arundel Castel and bottom right: A couple of signets that we saw further up the river.

Another view of the castle and river  

A preening swan up river along with it's signets

A sleepy little signet, and a Moorhen with her baby



The day after mum's birthday I had another Hen Do! This time it was for my mother in law, and involved a girls night out drinking and dancing the night away in a reserved area of a pub in Croydon. Everyone was in good spirits, we all thourghly enjoyed ourselves, and the DJ was fab and played lots of old records on turn tables rather than laptops as they usually do these days!

The Stag Do for the same wedding also took place that night in London, which my hubby attended and also thourghly enjoyed. Whilst out he randomly bumped into Richard Winsor who play's Dr Cal in the BBC drama Casualty, and ended up having a chat and his photo taken with him! I have to say that I was rather envious of him as I rather like Dr Cal!

A couple of days after the Hen and Stag Do's we had a Blue Moon, which was the 2nd full moon that we have had in a month. During a blue moon the moon appears larger than usual, so after hearing about it I went out to take a look. Below you can see what I saw. I was quite impressed with this shot considering it was only taken on my bridge camera.

Whilst we are on the subject of space and stargazing, there were also meant to be a number of my meteor showers visable over the past week, but unfortunately and I were unable to see any due to there being too much light pollution or cloud cover which was a shame. It's typical since we have had so much nice weather lately, but over the last couple of days or so the weather has definately turned. We have had a lot of heavy downpours and muggy weather with a bit of thunder thrown into the mix, but that doesn't seemed to have got rid of much of the mugginess which I am not a fan of!

Below you can see a rainbow that I managed to catch on a walk home from work during one of these downpours.  

I hope that you are all well and that you had a fab weekend! I worked as usual during the day on Sat, then the hubby and I had a chilled one on Sunday as we were both pretty knackered after a family BBQ in Redhill on Sat night.

It was held a my hubby's step-father's brother house, who sadly passed away after a battle with cancer earlier in the year. He, his wife, and kids used to entertain a lot and would have massive garden party's every summer, but since he got ill this obviously hadn't happened. Due to this it was the first get together that they had had in years, and the first since he passed away. There was a lovely hog roast, and all of the neighbours were there too. Everyone enjoyed themselves and there was lots of fun and laughter. They were also incredibly lucky with the weather as we had torrential rain again once again throughout the previous day. Everyone was saying that it was Alan that had made the weather nice, and that he was looking down on us all.

Below is a pic of the gorgeous sunset that we had whilst at the BBQ. If you look closely in the distance you can see that the garden overlooks the Surrey Hills.     

 

Thanks again for bearing with what has been another long post, and for visiting. I am hoping to start blogging more frequently again in the near future, as well as picking up with my Bobby Bunny work very soon. The work on our new place is getting there now, and my craft room is taking shape! Have a good week! x 



Download Rundown & Days of Sunshine!

Hello everyone! I just thought that I would drop by and fill you in on the goings on around here over the last month or so, the most notable of which was the fact that I went off to Download Festival! 

For those of you that have been following my blog for a while now you may remember me blogging about this back in 2013, but for those of you that don't know Download Festival is the biggest rock festival in the UK, which is held annually at Donington Park race track in the East Midlands. It is always held for three days across the middle weekend of June and attracts some 80,000 per year, hosting some of the biggest names in rock over it's over 30 year history: Including acts such as; AC/DC, Aerosmith, and Alice Cooper to name but a few!

This year was my sixth time at Download, all of which I have attended consecutively minus last year when we opted to go to Readings Festival for a change. I have to say though that having been to Download for so many years, returning back this year was like going to a home away from home. I and I think that it will always be my festival no matter how many others I go to! I look forward to it every year that we go as we always have an amazing time, plus it is the only form of holiday that I get to go on.

However I did um and err over going this year partly due to the expense not long after buying our first home, but mainly because my best friend and her Fiancé were unable to come and I have never been without my partner in crime before!

We also normally have a number of other friends that come with us to as it's not really my hubby's thing, so there usually ends up being between 6-8 of us in total. However this year there were only two of the male friends that I normally go with that could attend. I worried that it wouldn't be the same without my best friend and with only a few of us going, but I was desperate to seeing one of the headlining acts MUSE, who are a band that I have loved since I was eighteen but have never seen live as they don't tour very often. Then even when they do tickets are very hard to come by!

So in the end I decided to go and I am so glad that I did, because I literally had the time of my life! Granted it took me a while to recover when I got back after five days of camping, (as we arrive on the Weds when the site opens,) partying, going to bed as the birds woke up, and surviving on a few hours sleep. Before we would then get up, go and see the bands and do it all again. But it was so worth it! I did miss not having my best friend there, but being that there were only a few of us it gave us the opportunity to make new friends, of which there were many! All of whom we are staying in contact with, and hoping to meet up with again and some point. This is despite the fact that we live at opposite ends of the country!

When we arrived on Weds 10th June the weather was lovely, which was lucky as we had to queue for 2 and a half hours to get into the site, which is something that we have never had to do before!

We thought that this may have been due to the fact that they were trialling "dog tags," which were basically little bits of plastic that were fitted onto your wristband that had chips inside them to enable you to pay contactless like you can with a card. I was a little sceptical about this to start with to say the least, especially since they were the first big UK festival to be using them! It meant that you could only pay for everything on site with your dog tag, which you pre-loaded with you ticket before leaving and could top up whilst there. It took a little getting used to just bleeping a wrist band on a machine as payment, but I have to say though that by the end of it I was converted as it all ran smoothly and made paying very easy, maybe a little too easy! But then coming back to reality and using cash felt very odd, it's strange how quickly we get used to different ways of doing things!

The queue ahead of us when getting into Download just as the entrance tent came into view

 

  My Dog Tag Wristband

My tent and our camp complete with the Gazebo! 

The stunning sunset on the Weds evening! 

 

So anyway back to the weather, like I said it was lovely on the Weds when we arrived and remained that way until 8pm on Friday and then the heavens opened! When I say opened I mean rain for 24 hours straight until 8pm Saturday night, which isn't really what you want at a festival but equally it wouldn't be a British festival without it! Luckily it stopped raining just in time for MUSE to play which meant that I was able to use my camera, which I was most worried about not being able to do if the weather had persisted. MUSE didn't disappoint and were literally the best band that I have ever seen live, and it was made even better by the fact that myself and a girl that I had met there managed to work our way really near the front. It was a pretty rowdy crowd of predominately men, and we were all packed in like sardines keeping each other up as we all jumped about. I am not sure how I managed to get out of that crowd without breaking myself or my camera, but again it really was worth it and an experience of a lifetime.

 

Waiting in the crowd for MUSE to start

The crowds behind us whist we waited for MUSE!

 

Matt Bellamy MUSE's lead singer!

The confetti balls above our heads that were thrown into the crowds before and after they burst!

Images from during MUSE'S set

Some more images from during the set including the fire blowers at the end. We were so close to the front that we could feel the heat from them as they went off!

On Sunday the weather was once again not particularly fabulous and the site was a sticky mud pit, but it certainly didn't dampen anyone's spirits! I know that festivals aren't for everyone but I love them! I feel most alive and relaxed there, watching live music with friends in the euphoric atmosphere. Yes the mud and the rain aren't the best, but it makes you feel quite free and at one with nature. Plus you definitely appreciate the creature comforts of your own bed, toilet, and running water more when you get back!

The crowd at second stage on Sunday night, and back at the Doghouse the rock club on the campsite

 The amazing end to the headliners Kiss's set on Sunday night, which ended the festival

The sunrise begining to break though at the campsite village on Monday morning before we returned home

 

The sunrise as it broke through further on the Monday morning 

 

Typically on the day that we left Download and ever since I have got back, the weather here and across most of the country for the last few weeks has been just beautiful! The summer has now well and truly sprung for now at least! 

However it is probably a good thing that it wasn't this hot at Download as I managed to burn quite badly with little sun and cloud cover, despite being careful and having factor 50 on! I now look like a bit of an idiot with my burnt chest and thighs complete with short lines! So I definitely won't be going out in the sun anytime soon! Not that I am a sun lover anyway, but it is nice to have the brightness even if it is rather on the warm side!

So you are now nearly up to date with the goings on around here!

Last week my hubby had the week off to recover from a stag do from the previous weekend, and I was off on the Weds which turned out to be the hottest day of the year so far here, so we took a jaunt into town. I am not sure exactly how hot it hit here in the end but I think that it must have got to the mid 30's, as whilst sipping on a cooler in a local café I recorded the temperature at 32 degrees in the shade at 4:30pm! This for those of you that don’t live in the UK is practically unheard of even in the summer!

On the way back home we went via the river walk and came across this little fellow below:

There are usually a lot of squirrels jumping around this walk but on this day I think that the heat may have been getting to the squirrels too, as he was practically the only one about! He caught our eye not only for this reason, but because of the fact that he seemed particularly tame. These shots don't really do justice as to how close he was as they were taken on my phone, but he was cute little thing and kept posing for the camera. In the shot on the bottom left he reminded me of a little fox.

Further along the river walk we saw lots of Blackberry bushes all beautifully in flower, with the start of the Blackberry fruits beginning to form as you can see below: 

We will have to go back Blackberry picking in a few months once they are ripe!

Once home we finished off the day by having some lovely raspberries, meringues, and ice cream! Perfect for a summer day and Wimbledon season even if it wasn't quite strawberries and cream!

  

Since last week the weather has continued to be lovely and rather warm, minus the odd bit of heavy rain and electrical storms on Friday night!

I hope that the weather is good where you all are and that the heat is not getting too much for you! Stay safe in the sun and thanks as always for popping by and bearing with another long and picture heavy post! I got a bit carried away with all of my Download talk! x