2014 ~ Looking Back

It's that wonderful time of the blogging year that allows you to go through your archives and have a look back at all the lovely everyday things that might be otherwise might be forgotten if they hadn't been blogged about. Here is my yearly roundup for 2014.

January 2014 ~ I started the year by trying to get out and about a bit more in the fresh air and took some very nice, but bracing walks along one of our beautiful beaches.

January 2014 ~ Taking inspiration from my walks along our beautiful local coastline, I had a play about with some neutral, blue and green yarn and made some seaside coloured Granny Squares. These squares are destined to eventually become a seasidey blanket.

February 2014 ~ My birthday month :: My daughter made me a wonderful birthday cake ~ a lemon Victoria sponge with a lemony mousse filling and decorated with my favourite green and yellow jelly sweeties.

March 2014 ~ I enjoyed some more lovely springtime walks along the beach. Our town has two beaches and this one is the West Bay looking towards the harbour. 

April 2014 ~ we spent a week in Disneyland in Paris to celebrate my small boys birthday and had an absolutely fantastic time doing all the wonderful Disney rides and attractions.

May 2014 ~ whilst we were so close to the centre of Paris we spent one of the days seeing all the sights. We tried to cram in as many as we could and saw the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the beautiful Louvre Pyramid, Notre Dame Cathedral and The Sacre Coeur to name but a few!  I absolutely love Paris ~ it's one of my very favourite cities ~ there is so much to see and definitely not enough time to see it all.

June 2014 ~ I added some more stripes to my Little Boy Blue Granny Stripe Blanket :: I am happy to report that I am now working on the edge of this blanket and will be doing a "Ta Dah" post later in the month. It's taken me a while but I'm nearly there!

July 2014 ~ We spent a very lovely week in the summer in the Weardale countryside visiting relatives who live in this beautiful old cottage which is right on the banks of the river Wear.

August 2014 ~ Every Wednesday in the Summertime my boy plays his bagpipes with the local pipe band for all the tourists visiting our seaside town. I never ever get tired of listening to the sound of the pipes and feel so proud of him when I watch him play.

September 2014 ~ September is a month of celebration in the Button Tree household as we got married on my daughter's first birthday ~ so her birthday is our anniversary too! I always get a beautiful bunch of pink lillies from my hubby to celebrate the special day. The smell of them always takes me straight back to the maternity ward. 

October 2014 ~ We made some very simple Halloween decorations from black card ~ this little mouse was one of my favourites.

November 2015 ~ More walking around our beautiful town ~ this time through the park on a very dreich wintery day.

December 2014 ~ my very first attempt at writing a crochet pattern. I made these pretty Flowery Coasters for my hyacinths to make their life on the window sill a little bit more comfortable. The pattern can be found on my blog and on Ravelry.

I hope that you enjoyed this little look back over my year ~ I will be back later on in the week with a little look forward.

Wishing you all a very Happy and Healthy 2015 ~ hope it's a good year for you all :O)x

Dreich Outside

The weather around here has been very unsettled this week. Most of the time it has been a bit dull and overcast and there has been some very heavy downpours. In fact, it has been downright dreich!

Dreich :: An Old Scots word meaning a combination of dull,overcast, drizzly, cold, misty and miserable weather ::

Not really weather that inspires you to want to leave your cosy house and get out and about. To be honest with you, I'd much rather be sitting in front of the fire keeping myself cosy and warm, with my feet up and a cup of tea in one hand and a crochet hook in the other.

However, earlier in the week I had to go down into town to post a birthday card which HAD to be at it's destination the very next day. I wrapped myself up as warmly as I could and headed out into the cold. I decided that my best option would be to take the quickest and most direct route through the park.

The Post Office is in the High Street just beyond these pretty white buildings. This was in between showers and the sky was grey and threatening to bring more rain.

I love this archway ~ here it is again from the other side. The trees have all but lost most of their leaves now and are looking very bare indeed, and all the flower beds are empty and have been raked over in preparation for the winter ~ there is not much colour to be seen at all. The park was also pretty deserted with only a handful of hardy souls daring to brave the elements.

This is the view that greets me as I come back up the hill from the town towards my house ~ the big hill is North Berwick Law ~ taken from my back garden gate. It makes me feel so happy to live in such a beautiful place ~ surrounded by both the countryside and the seaside.

Just inside my garden gate is this beautiful riot of red berries ~ I'm not sure what the plant is but it provides a welcome injection of colour on an otherwise dull and dreary day.

Hoping your weather is not as dreich as mine :O)xx

Friday afternoon

Every Friday afternoon I take a little trip along the coast to the little seaside village of Aberlady to take my daughter to her ballet class. Normally, I sit with her little brother and wait inside the church hall and have a chat with all the other Mums who are also dutifully waiting on their off spring. We always make ourselves very comfortable during our wait ~ we take heaters to keep cozy and flasks of hot water to make tea, coffee and hot chocolate ~ more often than not there is also home baking to be had too!

However, last Friday afternoon my very bestest friend had come up to visit, so instead of waiting indoors we decided to go for a walk along the coast as the weather was lovely. It was also an ideal opportunity to let a certain small boy run off some of his excessive boy energy too! We headed on out of the village and along to Aberlady Bay ~ which is a local nature reserve and is very popular with walkers and bird watchers.

It was a beautiful afternoon ~ a mixture of sunny, crisp, cold weather just right for walking.

The sun was low and we had great fun playing about with our shadows.

We were only out walking for just over an hour, but the change from daylight to sunset was absolutely wonderful to watch.

I hope that you all had a very lovely Friday afternoon too ~ and I look forward to catching up with you all next week :O)xx