Street Party

We had a street party today to celebrate the wedding of William and Kate. It was a lovely day with everyone joining in and having fun. We had a live band who played on the roundel and the atmosphere was happy! The top picture was taken from our house and the bottom picture is of part of our table.

Bike

We went out on our bikes after watching the Royal Wedding to stop ourselves from watching all the highlights as well!

Substitute creme eggs!

I bought a tray of eggs from Makenade today - I can eat this type!

Serious weight watcher

Well I happened to have my camera on my desk and glanced out of the window only to see Mark on the way back from his run - he is serious about getting in shape!

Quick snap

I did a quick snap of Karen in her bedroom tonight as I have loads of marking to do now that I am back at school and have less time for the fun things in life. Yay!

Bank Holiday stroll

We went to Perry Wood with Neil and Emma this afternoon; we walked the dog and ended up at The Rose and Crown for lunch in their sunny garden. The bluebells were all out and I snapped Neil and Emma strolling along!

Creme eggs

It's Easter Sunday - time for chocolate!

Welsh wildlife

We found this spider in the bath - pretending to be a tarantula! Good job we were leaving today!

Table mountain

Another sunny day, another mountain to climb!

Relaxing at the cottages

After the tiring day yesterday, we stayed in and enjoyed the sunshine at the cottages.

Corn Du, Pen y Fan and Cribyn

We walked all day, mostly uphill it seemed! The weather was glorious (can't see it here but the sun shone all day). We conquered all three peaks. The first pic shows the Scurr family at the top of Pen y Fan.

A day by the river

We went into Brecon today and had a stroll round the town and a coffee in the churchyard - I snapped Elliott and Kitty sitting by the monument. We walked for a long time along a river and a canal watching this heron flying along with us. Bramble jumped straight into the canal as soon as we arrived, and then into the river as the picture shows, She had a wonderful time! When we arrived back at the cottages, she was shivering so the children tucked her up! She stayed still, fast asleep for over an hour!

Mint sauce anyone?

These lambs were so sweet - I might become a vegetarian!

And we're off...

The first real walk of the holiday, climbing hills and mountains

Are we nearly there yet?

One happy little dog. Her bed is in the car along with all the suitcases so it can only mean one thing - walks and life revolving around Bramble!

Twinkle twinkle

I bought a string of 50 of these tiny solar powered fairy lights for the garden for Nigel's birthday. They looked so pretty that he ordered 120 more!

Grandma's Recipes

I needed to make some goodies to take away to Wales, for everyone to share, so I thought I would use Grandma's recipes. It was her method for the shortbread, which is delicious, plus her pastry recipe for the jam tarts. (That is not in her book, but I have always used her method). I also made a banana cake, but I didn't want to cut it before we leave. It smells delicious!

Warhol Dove

I saw this pure white dove in the garden and snapped it through the window - it was a little out of focus, so I played around with the colours!

A productive day

This picture shows the pond at its next stage - the first two courses of bricks have been laid ready for the decorative 'anti-Bramble' wall to be put on top. That's only another 21 courses to go then Dad! This picture also shows the view of some of the windows I cleaned today - you can see my reflection they are so shiny. I did the windows at the front of the house and cleaned the inside of the car thoroughly too! Oh and I mowed the lawns and dug my vegetable patch over. And filled up all the bird feeders. Yesterday, I wire-brushed and painted the white table and chairs seen here. I love the Easter holidays! So productive!

Pond

Nigel and I are just in the process of building/creating a pond - clearly Bram is looking forward to it being filled with water. She has been sitting in it at every opportunity, eyeing up the deeper bit where the 'stagnant' part may be! Luckily, it won't be stagnant and she won't be able to easily get over the raised brick walls we are going to build round it!

Neighbours

Now that the gap has been filled with a 6ft fence, the neighbours have to peer through this little space above the old fence when they want to see what we are up to!

12 hours of fun!

Yes, the day arrived - a long day of catering for 120 guests for the wedding breakfast, followed by the evening buffet. We had fun but we are all aching now!

Some of the team!

Wedding

We went up to the hall to get everything ready for the catering for Holly and John's wedding tomorrow - there was a team of people decorating the hall, including Holly, who was very pleased with the result. We arrived back home late because we went for a pub meal with John and Gill after we had set up.

Light

We went out for a post-ofsted celebratory curry tonight - all the pics of people were not suitable for publishing (people wouldn't have been pleased!) so this was a section of the light cropped from one of the photos! It has a certain arty feel!

And again...

I was out on the school field doing playground duty, when a bunch of kids came running over. 'Mrs Wallace, Mrs Wallace, come quick! Tyler's caught a huge spider in the classroom. He's put a cup over it but you have to come!' To which I replied 'Tell Tyler, I am on duty so can't come in, and he should be outside and not in the classroom without an adult! Tell him to leave the cup over it and come out!' Anyway, I did think it was a really good specimen so we had fun photographing it and then Tyler took it up to show the head teacher, who loves all wildlife. I think he set it free in the school wildlife garden.

Karen

Cooking for Nathan

Sunset

Another beautiful sunset from our bedroom window

Mark doing the garden

Mark doing what he does best! This was the long awaited day when a fence was put up between our gardens - it's very sad that we can't see each other now that it's finished and there are two six foot panels in place, but good for privacy really! We are putting a gate in halfway up the garden so that Pimms on the lawn can take place in the summer whenever we feel like it! You can see the evidence in the background that we have already been supping tea in the lovely sunshine!

Disco

Had a little dance at Rachael and Jonathan Christopher's joint 40th birthday party. (The girl on the left is not me. I wish it was as she is very slim - I am taking the picture of course)

Babies

These are the tadpoles in my classroom. They are in a blue plastic tray (the bottom of an old hamster cage which makes a good pond!) I don't know why they always line up all the way round the edge of the tray just on the water line but it's funny to see - there are hundreds in the tray all lined up like these! You can see their gills quite clearly.