Visiting Orlando - Becca on film!

Oh yes we are off to Orlando and I am honestly struggling to contain my excitement. 3 generations are going to be taking Orlando by storm in January 2014. It's a long time to wait when you are in your 30s, but it must seem like a lifetime when you are a toddler, we keep telling my son that we are going to see Mickey Mouse after Christmas, and seen as he knows that Christmas is after his birthday (October), and his birthday is after my birthday (August) it is just a long string of excitement in his future.

I'm looking forward to meeting Mickey and the team, seeing the new Antarctica exhibit at Sea World and visiting Harry Potter in Universal. I think I might mutate into a 3 year old for the 2 weeks we are there. 

At Britmums Live last month Visit Orlando had a stand - I got the opportunity to "experience" Orlando from a conference centre in London.

I expect Academy Awards team to be on the phone soon given this rather wonderful acting performance (I'm not going to be giving up the day job, it was hysterical to make!)

I know January is a few months away but I have started to plan and have created a Pinterest Board, follow my board and see all the great activities we are planning

Can you help me plan my trip? we are going for 2 weeks, what are your absolute must do's in Orlando?

A little Stay-Cation

Sorry for the lack of blogging recently, its holiday season and like the rest of the country / world we packed our bags and headed for the coast for a week of family-time.

This year we had a stay-cation, we holidayed in Suffolk which is on the east coast of England, north east of London. Its only about a 2.5hr drive from home but it felt like another world, exactly what you need for a holiday.

We packed up practically our entire house (the benefit of driving to your holiday location) and tootled off to the coast for a week of uninterrupted family-time, pure bliss.

(The beach huts on Southwold beach, taken from the pier)

A traditional British summer holiday was had - ice-cream, fish and chips, crazy golf, cider and of course drizzly rain (but this couldn't dampen our spirits....I was as prepared as a girl guide!)

I did manage to find a little time for crafting so will be sharing this work with you very soon.

x

Crochet on the Beach

R and I are just back from our Babymoon.....our last holiday just the 2 of us before I'm no longer able to fly and bump arrives. We had a peaceful week being looked after in Cyprus, the weather was hot, accomodation lovely and the food tasty and plentiful so all in all a great week away.

I of course took some tools with me. Didn't fancy my chances of explaining to airport security as to why I had an embroidery kit with me so left my cross-stitch at home and took my crochet hook determined to get back into hookey-ness.

My focus was of course on bump so started to make a little duck...

I have to stuff this and add on the beak, wings and tail hoping it starts to look a little more like the picture in the instruction book soon or I may have to pass this off as an alien creature rather than a duck to my little one....I'll show you the finished article when stuffed and stitched

My weekend in pictures

There has been an invasion in London....yes all over London there are reports of multi-coloured elephants....

Over 250 elephants have been installed on London's streets, parks and shops to campaign for the conservation of the Asian elephant. Brilliant for kids young and old, if you are in London thoroughly recommend hunting some of these fellas down.

You can find out more and a map of where they are here

Elephant trekking is hungry work.....mmmmm cake......

There was a spot of crafting too.....

Hope you had a good weekend

Iceland - A surprisingly crafty place

Ok so I have been back a week, sorry for not posting this sooner, but there is just one more Icelandic discovery I wanted to share with you....

Iceland is a super crafty place

I was really surprised, not only did I discover the superb yarn and fabric shop on the high street but also I stumbled upon the Handknitting Association of Iceland Shop

There were woolie jumpers gallor, never seen so many in one place....

quite amazing and who knew they were a nation of knitters and sew-ers???

They were all quite a distinct design which reminded me of skiing and sitting drinking mulled-wine next to a roaring fire. Could have been tempted but they were pricey....about £100 for an adult jumper so left them all behind

Oh suits you sir

Iceland is a very casual country; jeans, jumpers and trainers everywhere, so I'm not sure if I was actually surprised to see this instruction manual as to how to tie a tie on a side wall on the high street.

I've got images in my mind of all the business men in Reykjavik crowding around this every morning before they go to work. Loving the 'tasch

Iceland

Well what a lot of chaos we are experiencing around the world, who would have thought that a volcano in Iceland would have grounded planes around the world and caused hundreds of thousands of people to be stranded. Well I'm one of them...yes I am currently stranded and ironically I'm stranded in Iceland.....

Yes, I'm in Iceland. It was R's birthday on Wednesday last week and as a treat I thought I'd take us somewhere a little different for a long weekend rather than doing the usual present and nice restaurant. So I booked flights to leave London on Wednesday evening and back on Sunday evening. I even managed to keep the whole thing a secret and only told R where we were off to on the train to the airport on Wednesday evening. The special treat of the holiday was the hotel I had booked for 3 nights from Thursday. Hotel Ranga advertises itself as a luxury hotel in the south of Iceland overlooking a salmon river and a volcano.

Yes you've guessed it the volcano the hotel over looks was the Eyjafjallajokull Volcano which has been spewing ash across Europe since Wednesday morning and closed airspace since Thursday morning. Thankfully the hotel is NE of the volcano so we werent evaculated or covered in ash.

We had an amazing volcano, and I simply cant convey the how strange it was to be enjoying the out door hot tub watching this powerful mountain erupt. Fascinating really.

Here is one of my shots of the volcano, surreal really to be right there and then to see the news reports of the chaos.

Unfortunately the volcano watching is now over and we are back in Reykjavik waiting for a flight home. Anyone who has been here will know that whilst this is a lovely city, there isnt too much to do. So I was very excited to discover some rather fabulous yarn and fabric shops right on the equivalent of London's Oxford St / Manhattan's 5th Ave.

Look how beautifully their goods are displayed...I simply dont see this range of colours, textures and patterns at home....I felt like a kid in a sweet shop

I havent quite got to grips with the exchange rate just yet (185KR = 1GBP is a tricky calculation) but I've worked out enough to understand that the beautifully displayed yarn is quite pricey so I'm hoping to get home before I spend any more time and money in the lovely shops. Fingers crossed for a flight tomorrow