Bunny, dog, and baby

 This weekend I travelled up to Sheffield, my alma mater, to see my lovely friends. I stayed with the gorgeous Katharine & Jack who treated me with delicious food - a special shout out to Kath for entertaining me with 10 charity shops on Saturday. I even managed to obtain a Christmas jumper! (I am as surprised as anyone else that a Christmas-lover like me took this long to buy one). We also visited my favourite Sheffield park to see the squirrels, the Sheffield Botanical Gardens, and I had the best pastry of my life from Crumbs (cinnamon bun focaccia - wow!). On Saturday night we even watched my first Christmas film of the season - Love Actually.

I especially enjoyed getting to see Peanut (bunny) and Ottie (dog) - they are cute enough that I will stroke them*.

*I have a mental graph of cuteness to risk ratio, where if an animal is cute enough I will suffer the consequences of allergy. Less cute animals do not pass and therefore do not get stroked. 

I think dad would not mind if I moved to Sheffield so that he could access these baked goods.

On Sunday we met up with newlyweds Alex & Joe, and new parents Liv & Joe. And me, newly engaged! What an exciting time. A fabulous pub roast with plenty of catching up before we had a cuppa at Liv & Joe's new home. The main excitement of the day was meeting baby Boddye - Robbie! Much broodiness going on here (much to the displeasure of my dad...). 

What an excellent weekend. Although it happened that I was the only one working the next day and the only one with a 4.5hr journey home - next time, all are welcome in Cardiff!

Managed to get photos of the baby & new mum, but no other photos of us!

Dad & dinosaurs

This weekend dad popped up for a visit. Mark was in Liverpool celebrating his birthday (abandoning me for cake). 

On Saturday we headed to Bute Park for a wee walk, stopping in the newest Brodie’s Coffee for some delicious cake. I’d slightly spontaneously bought us tickets for an Autumn Internationals (now called the Quilter Nations Series after a wealth management company but still sounding cute) rugby match: Wales vs Japan. We had fairly low expectations for the match but it turned out to be a brilliant one! Ending 24-23 to Wales, it was a nailbiter the whole way through. For dinner we enjoyed a scrummy Indian takeaway and watched the Dead Poets Society - I’d not seen it before but I can very much see why it’s a classic (despite falling asleep for about 20 minutes in the middle). 

On Sunday we again found some sweet treats, this time down at Brød in the bay. Dad has been keen to visit the dinosaur footprints in Penarth so we headed over, popping into the RNLI station there to find out a more. We had a lovely chat with a gentleman who has written a couple of leaflets on the footprints and their geologic history. He assured us (after we’d had the opposite assurance from the RNLI crew members standing outside) that despite it now not being low tide, we’d have enough time to walk there and back along the beach. We ummed and ahhed a bit, not wanting to risk getting caught out in the tide or going against RNLI advice, but given we could see the end of the sea wall where the footprints were was only a short distance away, we headed there. Apparently these footprints used to be thought as being formed by large rocks dropping into the ground rock when first found in 2009, but in 2021 some researchers confirmed that they were dinosaur footprints from the Triassic period. They used to have claws before they were worn away by erosion. The footprints were not very obvious, but you could see several in a row at places. Cool!

Craft-ember

We’ve not been up to much in the past few weeks - working 2 weekends in a row will do that to you - but I have been getting into the crafty season.

A couple of weeks ago I had some friends over for a craft afternoon, and we made mosaic coasters! Spot your favourite (mine):

Pre and post grout!

I made a cute paper star garland for the living room door (not photoed well here):

And have started a fabric star garland from an old tea towel: 

It’s going to take a while…

Meanwhile we’ve been enjoying Autumnal times, including the weather, leaves, food, and pumpkin carving!

I liked these pumpkin cervical dilation decorations at work:

And I finished a 1000+ page book but am struggling with my current 180 page one:

Fiction > non-fiction.

One more work weekend to go and then none until January! I enjoy the work itself but I do dislike the sensation of suddenly realising it’s Monday and your free time has gone. 

Fun things to look forward to include Mark’s birthday (he’s off to Liverpool but I can’t quite face the 4h drive when I’ve only got the weekend off), a Sheffield trip to see my university friends, and then it’s December! Crafting wise, I’m very excited for What a Curly Life’s annual felt decoration adventure patterns!