September Blue Skies

Heart Shaped Cloud

We had a lovely blue sky on Saturday.



Cronton Cross

 Perfect day for a stroll.

I went to visit my mum and after a pub lunch we decided to walk around the village of Cronton. We walked past the old stone cross, no one knows how old it is, but it was recorded in the Parish Records to have been repaired in 1734.

Then on past Cronton Hall. A Queen Anne Style house dated to the early 1700's. The wrought iron gates and stone gate posts are Grade II listed.

We followed the footpath past the side of the hall and into a grassy narrow lane.

at the end we watched a farmer ploughing his field and the seagulls flocking behind his tractor.



It was like a summers day.

Back down the lane and I found this fungi.


Town End Farm built in 1705 but parts are thought to be dated 1560

Then back home in time to walk the dog.

Sunday couldn't of been more different. Dull, grey and damp all day.

The Green tomato has a nose!

I gathered the last of the tomatoes and dug up the last of the potatoes.

I picked some apples and made a crumble for pudding.

Anemones

Some things in the garden were putting on a show still.

Can you see all the windfall apples on the lawn?

Living with brick dust

My drive home today

Well the builders had to remove part of the kitchen roof the other day. Everything in the house is covered in a layer of muck. The kitchen was a right mess and I was still trying to clean up at 9pm.

The builders were very apologetic, it didn't go quite as planned you see, they had cleaned up as much as they could but the dust and muck had crept into every cupboard and drawer.


The extension-Looking good from the outside

 I know it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better!

I had a lovely drive home today though.

The leaves on my tree are starting to turn.
There is going to be less and less crafting going on around here I am afraid, due to me having no where to do it. Every room has boxes and stuff piled high. I wanted to do one last day of sewing on Sunday and make a Bunny Rabbit, If I can find the calico that is!

Look at him, and who is that cute baby he's holding?

What I have got to do though is make a special book for my Big Brother. He will be 50 in November and I am collecting lots of old photos and compiling a 'This is your Life' book for him.
I am so sorry if I have not been to visit you lately, I have been cleaning!.........I will try and pop over during the weekend. X

Celebration

The day dawned sunny with just a hint of Autumn in the air.
I popped out to take a few photos of the growing extension.

View through my new workroom/study room

It seems to be larger inside than we thought it would be, which is a good thing.

View through our new kitchen window

It's moving on at a pace and the scaffolding goes up on Monday. There is still a long way to go yet though.
I took my entries down to the Conservative club in the village ready for the Michaelmas show. Remember last year?

Everybody would like to take one of these home!

The standard was much higher this year and the entries had tripled so I wasn't holding my breath.
We went to Andy Thornton's to find some 1930's doors for the interior of the extension and we found two that were just right.

It's a great place to walk around.

Then we went back to see if any of my entries had won anything.

Everybody got some sort of award.

The photographs on display

It was very busy as we moved around to find my entries.


Silver Gilt!

My painting of Clemmy got a Silver Gilt Award.

Lots of lovely awards!

My damson jam got Gold, my lemon drizzle cake got Bronze and I got lots of different awards for the photographs.

Sunrise at Cunning Corner

My photo 'Sunrise at Cunning corner' won gold and Best in Show!!!!
I was very pleased, hubby didn't take a photo of me getting my trophy from the Mayor, he couldn't turn the camera on - Men!

lovin it

I am loving The Great British Bake Off on BBC 2 at the moment.
I made a carrot cake last Sunday.

Spicy Carrot Cake

I made two actually, one for us and one for the builders!
Hubby and I also went for a walk on Sunday.

I forgot my camera!

I did take a few with my phone camera but they are not very good.

It was a wonderfully sunny day, a perfect autumn day.

Perfect for picking blackberries.

Now what do I make with them?

I have update the school log blog if you want to pop over to read the latest post from school.

Look what came in the post!

Look what came on Thursday....

goodies from Anne

I must say it was hard not to just rip it open, but I took my time and remembered to take some photos. The Scottish Tablet is so sweet and so delicious Anne! I offered a piece to each of the builders as they were packing up to go home. They had put the post in the house for me.
I said" would you like a piece of homemade fudge my friend sent me in the post?"
daft question, of course they did,"was that in the post today?" builder boss said?
"yes" I replied,
"Well if I had known that, we would of ate it at lunchtime!"
The enclosed card is also beautiful with a lovely unusual illustration. The pencil tin, note book and post it notes will all come in very handy, thank you Anne.

This was the sunrise on Wednesday morning with a typical Pennine divide. Very foggy and grey over in West Yorkshire then as you climbed over the tops to brilliant sunshine and just a few wisps of mist in Lancashire. Sometimes it's the other way around and we leave a beautiful morning at home to find rain over the tops!

As you can see the extension is coming along. It will follow the same style as the house with the bottom quarter/third in brick and the top in pebbledash. I didn't use to like pebledash but living here for 5 years it has grown on me. So we decided to try and make the extension blend in by making it look the same as the house.

The heather on Norland moor

I am off to get my haircut then on to visit my mum this afternoon then tomorrow I plan to do a bit of baking, ironing and cleaning and supervise Hubby moving some plants that are living in fear of the builders boot!

Rushbearing

Sunday was quite bright but a little windy.

We could see the procession going through Millbank across the valley

We walked over to Saw Hill in time to meet the Rushbearing there. The procession had left Cottonstones earlier and as we walked through Millbank we could hear the music and see a steady stream of people walking following the sounds.

Rushbearing dates back several centuries to the time when church floors consisted of little more than stone flags or beaten earth and rushes were used to cover the floor.

The top of the Rush Cart

Over the course of the modern day festival weekend, stops are made at the local parish churches and token rushes are presented.

In deference to the old custom the cart also stops off at many local public houses, where the cart pullers can refresh themselves after their exertions.

We caught up with the cart at Saw Hill just as it was setting off again to make its way to Triangle and it's next stopping point at Triangle Cricket Club.

'Ma' in the mummers play

When we arrived there The Bradshaw Mummers put on a traditional play. This year it was about 'Old Barleycorn and the demon drink'

The mummers play

There was entertainment from the Hebden Bridge Hill Millies

Longsword Dancing

and Persephone Morris Dancers.

It was so sunny and warm in the valley.

I bought this years Rushbearing badge,

I don't have a hat to put it on though.

There is a fair maiden on to of the cart!

Then after 50 minutes it was time for the 60 men in white shirts, black trousers, panama hats and traditional clogs to get into position

and start to haul the 16 foot high, one ton, thatched and decorated rush cart on the last leg of it's 10 mile journey.

The last leg

The cart will finally stop at St Bartholomew's in Ripponden.

Now does anyone out there do cross stitch?
When cleaning out my fabric cupbourd at school I came across this-

Free to good home

It has been started and from what I can see all the threads are there to finish it. It's a picture of two dolphins and I wonder if anyone wants to finish it? It's going free to a good home!
Let me know if anyone is interested.