We met up with friends recently in the glorious Oxfordshire countryside. The meeting point was the Great Barn in the village of Great Coxwell. The barn is the sole surviving part of a thriving 13th-century grange that once provided vital income to Beaulieu Abbey. Built from Cotswold rubble-stone walling, the barn is an impressive reminder … Continue reading Great Coxwell Barn
Hughenden Manor is one of our favourite localish National Trust properties and having stumbled across their 1940s weekend last year, I was pleased to see that it was being run again in September. This year, with a little forward planning, I wore vintage-style clothing ... the trousers need at least one pocket. (I bought my … Continue reading A Return to Hughenden Manor | 1940s Weekend
A few more spreads have been added to my One Little Word traveler's notebook. Becoming Irish was always going in there: Gold shamrock covers my personal details As was the road trip to Luxembourg for the wedding: And, obviously, the wedding: I have room for just more 5 spreads in the traveler's notebook, and it … Continue reading OLW | Thrive and the Traveler’s Notebook
As I've said previously, when making travel mini-books my goal is always on the stories, photos, and memorabilia. I don’t experiment with a lot of creative techniques, because I want to highlight the photographs and keep the album fairly simple and clean. Obviously the wedding commands the largest number of pages ... ... but there … Continue reading The Completed 6×8 Summer Travel Journal
The Luxembourg American Cemetery was established as a temporary cemetery for the casualties from the Battle of the Bulge. As fans of Band of Brothers, The Brainy One and I were keen to pay our respects to the five men of Easy buried here. Sgt 'Skip' Muck of Easy Company The Walls of the Missing … Continue reading Summer Road Trip | Luxembourg’s American Cemetery
Having received an invitation to the wedding in Luxembourg, we decided to build a city break around it. The Brainy One has visited several times for work, but it was a new destination for The Boy Child and me. It didn't disappoint. A landlocked country, squashed in between Belgium, France and Germany, Luxembourg is beautiful. … Continue reading Summer Road Trip | Luxembourg
In 2012, our nephew, The Brainy Boy, married The Colombian and if you're a long time reader, you might recall that the wedding was in two parts: the civil wedding was held in the UK, with the church wedding held in Cartagena, Colombia. The Colombian is one of five siblings. They are an extremely close … Continue reading Luxembourg Wedding
I was a little concerned that as August rolled by, I wouldn't have enough numbers for a round-up - I didn't go to the pool at the gym once, I didn't scrapbook (apart from working on the Summer travel journal) and the Year of Thanking project was all but ignored until the last day or … Continue reading Month in Numbers | August 2019
Summer travels are afoot and, as with our stay in Guernsey, I'm recording the details of our holiday in a pre-prepped 6x8 album full of pocket pages. I began by printing a selection of journaling cards (purchased from In A Creative Bubble) and mounting them on either blue or yellow cardstock. I varied the pocket … Continue reading The 6×8 Summer Travel Album
Back in 2014, I wrote three posts where I mentioned The Boy Child's difficulties with learning to ride a bike without stabilisers (you can find them here, here and here). So you might now think that I'm about to tell you that The Boy Child is fully-fledged on two wheels. Not so. But we might … Continue reading The Wheels Go Round | Revisited
