Little Longstone Well Dressing

In summer, the tiniest of villages hold "Well Dressings" where the old wells in the village are dressed with pictures made with flowers etc.

At Little Longstone, there were 2 - one made by the children,
and the other made by the elders.
The soldiers jacket was made of sunflower seeds.
The pretty little church in the village was open for a flower festival - and tea and cakes. So in we went.

Should you find yourself in Sheffield on Saturday , do pop into the Vintage Fair at the Town Hall and say hi to my pail Nicola who is dipping her toe into the Vintage market. You can find her on her "Be Beau " stall where she has a selection of wonderful goodies. Tell her I sent you. xxx

Monsal Dale

I heard on the news this week that whilst the national average increase in tourism is 5%, the increase here in Yorkshire is a whopping 14%. I like to think I'm playing my part.

Whilst technically in Derbyshire, Monsal Dale is only about a thirty minute drive from Sheffield and could possibly be the most beautiful place in the world.

I knew that once I had a full year under my belt as a blogger, I would start repeating myself, but stick with me, as although I have taken you here many times, this time, there's a twist.
The walking around here is great, always something to see, and so many wonderful pubs, cafes and tea gardens to call in on route too.

The wild flowers are plenty,
and the air was filled with the scent of Wild Thyme.
This area of the Monsal Trail is called Water-Cum-Jolly.
This place would have looked very different a hundred years ago when the area was an Industrial site - nowadays, Mother Nature is back in control.
The trail follows the old railway line and features a fabulous viaduct which spans the valley.

And here is the new feature. They have opened up all the tunnels on the trail. These have been closed for a few decades and now they have been restored so that you can cycle or walk the whole 8 miles of the trail.
Now some of you know that I don't do heights, and I don't do tunnels either, but I gripped the big lads arm, and was very brave and managed to walk through two of them.
It'll be better when I'm whizzing through on a bike though.
I may be gone a while. I'm expecting visitors from oversees and I am also taking a little trip myself, so see you in a while. xxxxx

And so on this fine Sunday morning, hubby and I set off across the Pennines to a foreign country - Welsh Wales (not to be confused with the tiny village of Wales in South Yorkshire). Its always a spectacular ride across these hills, but it was a dream early on Sunday morning with not much else on the road.

We had been invited to John's "Open Allotment Day" and being a girl who can't say no to meeting bloggy friends, off we trotted. We had a brilliant day - and I didn't take as many photos as I ought to have.

I took a photo of this poppy John in the hope that you would send me some seeds - its is a gorgeous colour.
We arrived early in the morning to give a helping hand, but John assured us that all was in hand and he sent us off to have a lovely morning at the seaside. When we returned at 1pm, I discovered that the Bric a Brac stall was in disarray, with boxes unpacked - which caused me to have to visit it several times as more and more boxes were unpacked! John at this time was rounding up errant geese - which continued to escape throughout the proceedings.
It was really lovely to meet Johns family and other animals. His twin sister Janet did a sterling job on the tea tent. They served over 500 cuppas! (that's her in the stripey top).
I can honestly say that I have never seen such a fine array of cakes and buns.
Johns allotment is a perfect little place - hubby and I loved it and were very envious of this lovely space.
It was great to meet the characters from Johns blog - I must apologise to the poor little hen that I stood on!
We had to name the pig - I don't think I won (I called her Betty - like the pig in Alan Bennetts " A Private Function". The funniest part of the day was talking to 2 lovely ladies who were willing the pigs to escape - just so they could watch John round them back up. Those Welsh ladies are wicked!
We eventually sat down with 2 very large pieces of cake. Mine was the raspberry cake - quite possibly the best cake I have ever eaten (and I wanted to bring the plate home too - John, if these blue plates are for sale - let me know).

I don't know how John kept going all day - he had worked a night shift at the hospital until 8am!
And because on his blog, John posted a photo of our ugly mugs - I thought I would get revenge....
But what really amused me - was that both John and my hubby were both sporting "surfer" tee shirts. They need to be careful - some one might mistake them for cool surfer dudes!

Seriously, John we had a great day and you raised a phenomenal amount of money. You live in a beautiful place and your family, friends, neighbours and animals are wonderful. I'm so glad that the weather was good to you. xxxxxxx (read John and Janet's versions by clicking the links)

Dear Points Of View,

Last Saturday morning was the first Saturday Morning in ages that I found myself with nothing to do except lounge around in my PJ's waiting for hubby to get up - as he had been working a night shift. So I sat with my cup of coffee waiting for a morning with James Martin - only to be HORRIFIED to discover that the powers that be at the BBC has scheduled GOLF!!! from 10am-5pm!!!!!!!!! on BBC1.

I became "Very Disgruntled of Rotherham" and moaned loudly about this ALL DAY - I mean, can you imagine the furore if Kirsty Allsopp had been scheduled for 7 hours non stop all Saturday, sewing cushions etc??!! I begrudged my licence fee all day I can tell you.

However this morning, I was a happy and inspired bunny as James Martin was back in his normal 10am slot. So hubby got a "Black Pudding Hash" for his brunch - using lots of leftovers in the fridge.

So stepping down from my soap box - I have been having a massive clear out and de-clutter recently. I have been horrified by how much stuff we have had to take to the tip, I have been thrilled to see how much a novice can make selling on Ebay, and the charity shop has had about 12 bags of goods from us too (The DQ says she feels as if Ive thrown her childhood away - as if I needed any more guilt piling on!). I had been good and let hubby take the bags to the charity shop, but the last one, I took yesterday - which meant I had to have a nosey around, and I came away with 3 brilliant cook books - £1 each and a really lovely French porcelain souffle dish for only £1.75. Made my day.

The lady serving asked me if I had a cafe - "No, but at times it feels like I have" was my reply.

Temptation

Here in Sheffield, we hold the best music festival in Britain - because it is FREE! I think that this is the 3rd year that TRAMLINES has run - and this year its bigger and better than ever. The city has hundreds of pop up stages and music venues and every one of them is free. Hubby was in town for a colleagues leaving party straight from work, so I said that the DQ and I would pick him up and take a listen to who ever was playing at one of the many stages that are dotted around the city this weekend. Its a very civilised idea for a music festival - what you save on buying tickets, you can spend on a hotel room instead of camping in a muddy field! I took one look at the many bands playing - and spotted one that I knew!!!! So off we toddled.

We had a nosey in the Millenium Galleries as it was "buzzing". They had a rock band on (they were really loud, and semi clad!). The 2 girls obviously on a hen night made me laugh.

Nothing to do with music, but I snapped away anyway - The Heeley art group have some fantastic art work displayed in the Winter Gardens - these were 2 of my favourites.

and on to our venue - via the front of the town hall where we spotted the latest addition to the Sheffield Hall of fame.
Our target venue was a stage in Barkers Pool - between the city hall and John Lewis. It was a great atmosphere and lovely to see so many people in the city on a Friday evening having a great time.
And then they came on - and I was instantly transported back to the early 80's - and Josephines night club - also in Barkers Pool. (Tucked away in the corner).
Yes the act we had come to see was Heaven 17. And they were Brilliant. One of Sheffields home grown bands.

And we oldies danced away around our imaginary handbags once more!!

The festival is on all weekends, and I'm hoping to catch the "Buskers Bus" at some stage as it looks good fun.

Evening Stroll

On Wednesday afternoon - after I finished work, hubby and I had planned to do a longish walk.

But after a quick diversion into the pub (this is becoming a regular occurence!),

and the threat of an approaching storm, we decided to cut it a tad shorter.

From the top of the hill, we can see our village in the dip. The hills beyond are the start of the Peak District, and Sheffield is tucked into the dip in between.
It looked very threatening all way around! But we were lucky and it seemed to rain all way around us, but not on us.
Our walk took us over the bridge at the start of the lakes on the Wentworth Estate

And look who I found wandering around at the edge of the fields. It was only a baby and so sweet.
I love to extend my day by taking a stroll after work.

Hillbillies

One of my favourite TV Shows when I was little was The Beverley Hillbillies, and so my eye was drawn to this vehicle that someone had created at Harley Gala. You can't see how authentic it looked from my photos. The woodwork on it was gorgeous.

Someone had obviously spent a lot of time on this project.
I loved the attention to detail and practicality.
And the owner obviously loved his 70's music as snippets of song words were written all over it.

I love novelty items like this.

Harley Gala

My planned trip to a foreign land that had been arranged in an attempt to meet a couple more bloggers, had to be postponed - re-arranged for next weekend hopefully. So hubby and I found ourselves at a bit of a loose end, so we decided to walk to a neighbouring village to support their village gala.

Harley Gala has grown over the years. It is held on their lovely playing field and has something for everyone. The local pub does the beer tent, the village shop organises the BBQ, and there are some good little stalls to look around. Its a proper little community event.

One of my fave events was the police dog demonstration.
Hubby has taken part in a few of these events, and even with the precaution of having the arm padding on, has come away with a nasty nip or two - generally on his derriere!

The star of the show though was this young officer in training. I could have brought him home.
The vintage cars were smashing to look round too - we spent ages looking round them.

Something else I had my eye on!
The couple who owned this had it from new - for 37 years. It had all its original features and was in tip top condition. The lady showed me her photo album of their trips to the South of France. I told her that I loved it, and she confessed that she hadn't really liked the vehicle much until people had started telling her how lovely it was.
They had a great folk band playing, and being Yorkshire - a lovely Brass Band (always brings a tear to my eye).
We had a look at the birds of prey - who had a look back at us! The owls owner just looked like Bill Oddie!
Then it was time to walk back across the fields and home. A grand day out.