Wartime Elsecar

The young man and I discovered wartime happenings in our next village this weekend. It was 1940's Wartime Weekend at Elsecar Heritage Centre. It was poorly attended, but then again, it was poorly advertised - if we hadn't seen a German soldier in the car park, we would have never known! But for those of us that did discover it, it was wonderful!


These nurses outfits reminded me of the ones I used to love dressing up in when I was little.


We had a great and lengthy conversation with these two chaps.

Everybody loved having their photos taken.

As well as stalls where you could buy old uniforms, magazines and memorabilia, they had some exhibitions and items on display.

I once worked for the company that made Izal toilet roll, and my Auntie (and she reads this and may never speak to me again!) was Miss Izal 1964!

Rations for a week - totally shocked the young man who could easily shift this lot in one "snack"! In fact you only got one egg every 4 weeks!!

Most nations were represented. English, Germans, Americans, Canadians and French.

George Formby (and also Vera Lynn) were singing to.....

... a very appreciative crowd.

I loved the kids that were dressed as evacuee's with little brown suitcases and labels pinned on them.

It was great to wander through the little scenes that they had set up.

I'll watch out for this next year, and may even dress up!!!

Kicked Out

One night last week, the young man, hubby and I found ourselves kicked out of our own home. The dancing queen was cooking a meal for a friend (she never cooks for us!!!), and she wanted us out of the way. Perfect excuse for us to have tea out then! So we headed into Sheffield as we hadn't been into the city all summer.


We arrived to find the place EMPTY!!! Hardly anyone around. It will be all change in a couple of weeks when this place welcomes back its inhabitants. We have two universities in Sheffield, and the student population has certainly helped the city to survive.

Come with me, I'll show you a bit more.


This is Sheffield's newest building - it is a block of very swish and expensive apartments - many months behind schedule as they were started just as the credit crunch hit. It will be Sheffield's tallest building, and has caused lots of controversy, but its here now (although not finished yet). The views from the top of here will be amazing as you can see right out to the Peak District - all though with my head for heights(!!) I might need a Valium to help me get to the top!.

The apartments are right in the heart of the city, with the Millennium Galleries for its next door neighbour.

And next door to that, is the city library, with the Graves Art Gallery on the top floor. For some reason, the Graves Gallery is not very well publicised, and I didn't realise it was here for years. Now its one of my favourite places for a wander round (and its free!). I particularly love the Egyptian on the top of the lovely building, and the lovely 1930's architecture and features of the building itself.

The library and gallery has the Lyceum theatre for a next door neighbour, which in turn has the newly refurbished Crucible Theatre for a neighbour.

All this sits around the newly refurbished Tudor Square.

As you can see, it all sits very nicely together (along with the Winter Gardens - bottom right) to make a very pretty, interesting and cultural heart to our city. There are a few bars - in fact the one at Crucible Corner often has actors and actress's who are rehearsing for plays etc eating and drinking there. There are also a couple of hotels here too, along with a few restaurants. But it all needs more visitors. Sheffield is not a tourist city like Bath, York, Oxford etc It has been a heavily industrialised city in the past, but it has great charm and is very friendly and its trying harder than most city's to be appealing.

I also spotted this lovely frieze on the Catholic church (more a cathedral really) which I had not seen before.

And we discovered a lovely exhibition of sculptures by George Fullard in a pretty little square. This one is called Mother and Child.

All in all a lovely evening stroll with a bit of a difference. We must do this again soon.

A gorgeous gift.

After a stressful day at work, it was lovely to come home to discover that the postman had brought me more than just the usual wad of bills. I had won the giveaway over at Sandies Patch, but didn't know what this would be as she was putting it together especially for whoever won it.



It was packaged beautifully, and inside was a sweet pouch - with a heart on it.

As you can see, the contents were simply gorgeous. I still keep opening the packet of hearts to examine them. Everything is so wonderful - it was better than Christmas!

The dancing queen has her eye on one of the corsages and the beautiful bracelet - so I need to hide them quickly!!!
Many thanks Sandie - I never expected the giveaway to be so lovely.

And for all those who were interested, my survival embroidery last week was these two heart shaped designs that I picked up in Cabourg in France - in a wonderful craft shop where I could have happily spent all day in called "A La Recherche du temps perdu" Which means "In search of lost time"and was apparantly the name of a body of work written by Marcel Proust who often holidayed there.

Don't look too closely at the very "naive" stitching! I made one of these into a pocket for a bag, but I don't know what I am going to do with these two yet.

Rufford Country Park

One receent incredibly hot weekend - and with hubby getting a Sunday off, we didn't want to waste the day, but we didn't want to travel far either. So with inspiration from a few fellow bloggers, we realised that we hadn't been to Rufford country park in North Notts for a while (actually BC - before children!). So off we went. Its free to get in, but the car park charge is £4.00. Since we visited at least 18 years ago, the mill buildings by the side of the lake has been restored (but sadly they have turned them into shops and hospitality spaces - I would have preferred a working mill!).

The old building had initially been a priory, then at a later date it was turned into a huge country residence which was eventually pulled down in the late 1950's - what a shame.

The remaining buildings are now in better shape though.

I loved the old Orangery.

The gardens have had a complete overhaul too and they have special sections which are great for young children.

Some of the flowers were passed their best, but the gardens are still very pretty.

They have plenty of sculptures dotted about.

All in all a great day out and worth a visit.

As you can see, in its day it played host to some high end visitors!!

Also in my garden.....

.. at the moment, are :
Red Apples - It has been a really good year for apples. I have plenty on my one tree.

Leaf's turning red.

New plants. One of my neighbours is having a new conservatory and needed to clear some plants out of her garden - she knew where they would be loved.

She also gave me loads of these too. They will look lovely next year.

Does anybody know what this is called? My kids nursery teacher gave me this about 13 years ago and it looks stunning every year.

As you can see, it grows quite tall and I have to cut it back every year.

And I am always surprised when these miniature cyclamen flower at this time of year. I always thought that they were a winter flowering plant.

Just shows you how much I know!!!!