Sunday a Little Different ~Beach Day in Wales

I thought instead of going through my week I'd rather just write about the bit I found most interesting- a daytrip Dad & I took to go to the beach on Monday!

Our first stop was Porthmadog, a beach town Dad hasn't been to in quite a while so we had a little look around, mooched the harbour and even saw the steam train come into the station across the main road (weird!). This is the view inland off one of the towns bridges.

We moved onto Criccieth and went to go look at the view from the castle, but you had to pay to go in and I was still dying of sleepiness so we just had a look over the walls there before looking further up the coast.

Our next stop was Pwllheli, where we stopped at the Asda and grabbed some lunchy snacks and then headed to the beach to watch the sea and eat, exactly what you're required to do when you go to the beach X3 I always used to dislike stone beaches when I was a kid as they weren't comfortable on the feet and you can't build much. Now I prefer them I think as I don't get sand everywhere and if there's a breeze you don't get whipped with sand! I also like building little piles of stones :x

We went off then to a part of the coast we've not been before, I can't remember the name of it now, but we went down this tiny road that led to the beach and found this bay area. The little village across from us looked so sweet tucked in front of the hills with the sea to look at. We tried to drive over the hills behind it to see if we could visit, but got totally lost on some back track XD It was a good tiki tour though!

It had got quite late by this point so after stopping for some dinner back at Criccieth beachfront (the breeze had got a bit nippy by this point so we ate in the car!) we headed back home. We went back a different way to normal though, past these reservoirs. We stopped at this one to look over it as the sun set.

We had a really good day exploring the coast, and the weather was stunning for the time of year x3
Where do you like to go to the beach?



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Tiki Tour ~Around Ludlow

There's not much point doing a Sunday Catch-up this week as I hardly took any photos through the week. My mind has been thoroughly preoccupied with other things and I just haven't had much will to go out when I can just sit and doss on my PC, reading webcomics! The weather has picked up as the week has gone on, which has been nice, but I sadly have been a little too distracted to enjoy it.

On Monday I had a day off though and Dad said there were some local breweries he wanted to check out, so away we went. First stop was at Craven Arms, then we got some snacks and sat outside Stokesay castle to eat, but I forgot to take a photo! Very unlike me. When we moved onto Ludlow we hit the brewery there and got some mats then went onto our usual parking spot and walked up into town.
Ludlow is one of those places I go where I just take the same photos over and over again, it sems to change so little and the things that catch my eye only have so many angles. This time I was determined not to get repetitive photos, so went going past the castle i climbed up one of the walls as high I was brave enough to and got this pic. To be fair, I don't think I have been in the castle itself since I was a kid, so I could probably pay to go in and get a different shot...but I'm a cheapskate like that.

I passed Dad my camera down and took a couple of pics to show how high I climbed XD

As we were going through the town, the Specsavers had this banner in the window, which I thought was pretty cool. Nowhere else in the town has any monuments or memorials like this, so I'm not really sure about the backstory on this one, just that it's a nice gesture.

Couldn't help myself in the end. Just before we went to go back home we went up to the Ludlow viewpoint, where you can look over the whole town. And you can't really take different photos from a viewpoint, but hopefully you'll enjoy the shot anyway XD The castle and church are in the foreground, and off in the distance are the Clee hills, which are an interesting visit too. We didn't have time this time, but I do need to go again x3
So, that was pretty much my most interesting day this week, have you got anywhere you like to visit locally? I need some inspiration to get out and about!



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Sunday Catch-up ~Summer's Ebbing

Well, here I was putting off writing this last night (on an ACTUAL Sunday) in favour of reading through some webcomics, when as I go to look today, I don't even have that much to show you. Go procrastination.

This was taken on our trip to Worcester early in the week, I didn't really know there was an Abbey/Cathedral here! Aha shame on me for my terrible home-country knowledge. We had a good explore around Worcester, it's nice to visit a new town every now and then rather than looking at the same places over and over.

For Dad's birthday I gave him a brazier, because he's a firebug! He was waiting for a nice evening to use it when I was home, which are two things that very rarely coincide, which is why we only just got to do this last week! I dragged out some massive marshmallow and we toasted them for a while, then I suggested to Dad that he grill (rotisserie?) the tomatoes that were turning red in the greenhouse and he actually did! And they were so good! Definitely something to try again x3

On Thursday we ran around work to finish up as quickly as possible so my friend and I could go to Wetherspoons for curry night! Sorry for the food pic, but as you can see, it was awesome and we ate far too much. I really like hanging out and just chatting, it's not something I do very often so I really enjoyed this impromptu late night meal x3
And that was my week really, there wasn't much more to it than work, yawn! Did you have a busy week?



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This Time Last Year ~August

August. Well, I always write something about how the time has jumped up on me and I totally can't believe that it's come around so fast, but it's true. I swear as I get older the time goes faster x.x (more clichés...) Hey ho. This August is going to be a busy one for Face and I, I think, but i'll let you know more about that soon. Last August was also busy, but more with daytrips with Dad, which is always fun ^^

Early on in the month we went to Gloucester as Dad had to go get his electric bike fixed there. While we waited for it to be repaired we explored the town a bit. I'd not been there before and although it wasn't a great weather day I had a really good time, there is a lot to see! I particularly liked this boat that was docked up on the river, I think inside it was a cafe? But we didn't go in, just admired it X3

Another day we went to Bridgnorth because that's something we do fairly regularly when we're not sure where else to go tiki-tour XD This engine isn't seen very often in the station so I got a few shots of it. I quite like this one as I obviously had to lean pretty far out off the platform to get quite a forwards-on shot of it.

On the way home from that trip we stopped at a local beauty spot where you can sit at a lake and watch some carp. As we sat there this massive storm cloud rolled over and I guess that reminds me that although the weather doesn't seem as nice this year as it was last year, last year had its chilly summer moments too.

Looks like August last year was all about daytrips cause this picture was taken out at Ludlow- another spot we enjoy travelling out to see. We don't come here as often though as it's a bit further out than a lot of our local haunts. Judging by the rainbow, the weather wasn't ideal this day either XD

And last is this one I quite like. Taken in Shrewsbury, I often try to get a good shot of these cannons that sit outside the castle gates, but it's one of those I take so often I feel the picture is never really up to much, it's always a bit dull. But i do quite like this angle on it, I guess I haven't taken this shot much and so with the old house in the background too it kinda has a bit of something different :]
So that was August 2014 for me, do you remember what you did?



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Project Wednesday ~La De Dah Finale

Project Wednesday again, huh? This week I thought I'd go through my final pages of my La De Dah Smashbook, can you believe it? I'm sort of surprised it took this long actually, I'd really not realised how many pages I'd had to do to complete this book XD
Let's jump straight back in then with this two-page spread:

These were about my spanish holidays I took around September/October. (Last year was a really good year for holidays...) both Face's family and my Dad wanted us to go with them, so we went twice! First we went to Mallorca, on the left. It was a good holiday we spent not doing too much, just checking out the town we were in really. I still managed to collect a bit of stuff for this page though. The right hand page was the Ibiza/Eivissa page, where we did practically the opposite with a lot of touring around the island in a hire car. I even went swimming in the sea! On the right hand page is a bracelet I bought to wear for a while, but it quickly wore down to copper and turned my wrist green...so now it lives in here XD

This page was done towards the end of the year about all the places we'd been on daytrips that I didn't really have enough stuff for to make a whole page X3 I used my instax camera quite a bit on these trips and so I lined them up overlapping slightly, but they lift so you can see the pic under it too x3 The trip to Gloucester was really cool actually, I did have quite a bit from that trip so it was a bit of challenge to get it all on the one side XD

This page was completely an odds and ends page. Right at the end, as I was so close to finishing the smashbook I had so many random bits of paper hanging out in the pages waiting to find a home. I didn't really know what to put on this last page anyway so I did a 'true' smashbook on it and just smashed it all in! It has everything from pictures I drew, cut out or took to a DVLA notice that I don't own my old car anymore XD

The finale is a little boring- the very last page and back cover I didn't do anything to, though in retrospect I'm not sure why not. The pocket is full of other pictures I couldn't find a proper home for, to maps and stuff that were just too big to fit in.

And so that was my 2014 La De Dah Smashbook. I hope you enjoyed taking a more detailed look at the pages as much as I enjoyed creating them. I guess I'm going to have to look into a more detailed view of another book now. Which would you like to see more of? My Thai holiday smashbook, This is Not a Book by Keri Smith, or something else? Let me know x3



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Sunday Catch-up ~Tiki Tours Galore

Another week gone already? It's been busy, but I'll let you know more about that another time :]
In the mean time, what did I get up to this week? Well, Monday I went to help our sister hotel set up their till banks for a new promo we have starting. No one there knows how to program the tills and so I get the privilege, but to be fair, I don't mind xD It's something I enjoy doing anyway and being the needed person is fun too x3

Tuesday was a work day, so without much time to myself I just dossed around the house and played with the pets :] The gerbils are getting so much bolder now! They are mostly fine with the lid of their tank opening now, and even come out to get sunflower hearts x3 I'm so proud!

Wednesday was a busy day. Dad and I were supposed to going out to Derby for an arranged flight he got for Christmas, but the weather wasn't quite right so as I was up and I'd managed to get the day off we went out for a tiki tour anyway XD
Dad suggested Llangollen, his go to spot for days out, and I usually try to steer him into something else cause it feels like we always go there XD But I thought that I've not been there for a while now so away we went. We had a really good day too! We checked out all the usual spots and yeah the weather wasn't always at it's best but we had a good day exploring and seeing what we could find x3

Dad managed to rearrange his flight for Friday, which luckily I already had off work. We set off pretty early and ate some breakfast sandwiches in the car on the way there x3 Dad's Christmas present was a 30 minute microlight flight and he seemed to really enjoy it! He saw some good countryside and got to try an experience he'd not done before.

The flight gave him an idea of what to explore next and we headed to a local town he'd flown over...and the name slips my mind. It was a lovely little town though, but we weren't parked in a great spot so moved on to look at a place called Dovedale. It was very similar to some Shropshire beauty spots, but of course it's always fun to explore somewhere new x3

We moved onto a beautiful proper English village called Ilam then. This is the kind of place people imagine when you talk about England I think, just look at it! There was also a national trust manor house there which we checked out, as the gardens were free to get in X3 The sun was out in full strength by now though and it was really sapping our energy, so we headed back to the river that ran through the town and found a nice shady tree to sit under- where we promptly fell asleep for 20 minutes XD

On our way back towards home we spotted a random car park in the middle of nowhere, so out of curiosity we went to see what it was about and found this massive ex-train tunnel! We were not expecting that XD It was a good way to finish off our day of exploring though x3

Today was our local area's funday. It's always quite a small affair, but I love that they put the effort into putting it on, even though we haven't always got the best reputation as an estate :x It started out raining but luckily brightened up to give them a lovely day for a fete-like event x3 After me and Dad were done checking it out, we went cherry hunting around the estate. It always astounds me that people don't realise that cherries off a tree are the same things they buy in the shops, but I'm glad as this way I get to eat them all! (Okay I'll share with Dad & Face ;p) This year has a bumper crop going on too so I'm soon going to have more than I can manage I think XD
Have you had a good week? Get much exploring done? ;3



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July Photo-a-Day ~Week One

I realise that my photo a day for July was supposed to be updated on Saturdays, but I didn't predict how busy I was going to be this Saturday! So far I'm 11½ hours into a 16 hour shift, but thought I would type on my break :]
So, let's jump straight in, shall we?

A Statue of a Dog or Horse
This one was taken while over at Wolverhampton racecourse checking out a camera show :3 You'd think the photo for this day would be 'camera' right? But no, it goes to this statue of a horse I found while there and I thought it seemed like a good chance to tick this one off the list as you don't come by statues of horses or dogs very often, right?

A Pond with a Fountain
Another thing I don't see very often, so took the opportunity while in The Quarry, Shrewsbury. The Quarry is a beautiful spot and we sat and admired it's wonderful landscaping and gardens, this pond and it's surrounds reminded me of some of the Japanese gardens me and Face found while over there x3

Transport
Some of these prompts I already had an idea for when I started the challenge, but I didn't see this for this one XD While out and about in Wales, Dad and I stopped at a aqueduct next to a viaduct and while we were walking next to the canal a train came over, he even blew his whistle and waved at us as he went past! I was pretty impressed!

Camera
Heeeeere it is ;p I knew it wouldn't be long before I managed to fulfill this prompt, the question was just with which camera? This camera is borrowed from a friend in Wolverhampton who also likes to collect old school analogues and I took it out while visiting Horseshoe falls in Wales. Hopefully I'll have got some good shots when I get the film processed x3

Reflection
This was taken at Ilam house (manor?) Friday, a beautiful day and perhaps a little too warm to be wandering around some old house's grounds XD Still, finding this spot was a bonus and we watched the reflections of the river under the bridge for a while in the shade before moving on again.

A Castle Turret
I'm not entirely sure on this one, if it counts or not. It's a decorative part of the gardens at Ilam manor, but it is distinctly a castle turret, isn't it? Let me know if you think I cheated on this one ;p

Free Shot
I thought I would use this week's free shot on this adorable greengrocers in Llangollen x3 I always take a photo of this place if we pass through as I just find it so...authentic? I imagine back in the day there would be a shop like this every couple of streets with displays outside to make people buy from them, but you rarely see it these days. What really topped this place off was the lovely cherries they sold! We had to get more on the way back the first lot had been so good XD
Hope you enjoyed the beginning of July's photo a day, which was your favourite shot? Are you doing the challenge with me? Let me know x3



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This Time Last Year ~July 2014

Anyone else in the UK experiencing this mental weather? Wednesday was so hot the oven at work broke down because it overheated! How does that even work? And then Thursday everything was back to normal as it rained most the day...

This time last year was also looking pretty sweet in the weather department, though a little more consistent! I took quite a few day trips last July and my pictures show it as I didn't take my camera out for a lot else. This picture was taken overlooking a local abbey whose name has currently slipped my mind, it's one you should pay to go in but I was more interested in just getting some shots with the nice scenery in the background. It always makes me wonder what these buildings have seen over time.

One of our favourite things to do when it's really warm and you've been home all day dossing on the lawn is to go out for a drive in the early evening to make it feel like you've done something that day XD Me and Dad did this fairly regularly last year and sometimes I'll even go by myself if everyone else is busy. Driving round the country lanes in Shropshire gives you some lovely views and helps me relax as I can go where ever I want under my own steam, and take pictures of the journey, of course!

On yet another tiki-tour we stopped by Atcham and saw loads of dragonflies fluttering around near the riverbank. Every time I would get the lens close enough for a really good shot they would flit off, unaware I really didn't want to get any closer as they were perched on nettles ;p I think this one turned out okay, I seem to remember I didnt have my telezoom on me so I must've managed to sneak pretty close!

Being well into summer brings the garden right on too and I got these pictures a little later into the month as the plants were putting their efforts into the best blooms. These passion flowers even got fruit later in the year! Not bad for a young plant, but to be fair, it has taken over the whole left side front of the house. I guess the house must shelter the plant a lot as I didn't realise they could even produce fruit in our climate!
So July was pretty sweet, though I'd unknowingly begun a dry spell with my photography which lasted right on into 2015. I'll have to see what I can bring together for next month's round up!
How's your July been so far? Warm as mine I hope!



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