We Got HITCHED!!!

Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed... Something Blue!

 So, for those of you who know us well you will know that we have been together now for just over 13 years.  Again, those of you who know us will also know that I’ve wanted to be Mrs S for long enough.  And those of you who don’t know (probably because I’ve called him ‘my husband’ for long enough), I’ve proposed every leap year day since 1998 – so that’s four ‘official’ proposals and countless dropped hints over the years and each time a refusal or a swift change of subject.

Did I ever think in my wildest dreams that he would say yes this year?  Nope.  So, when at half past six on the morning of 29^th February this year I mumbled from under the duvet “before you go to work, I’ve got to ask you if you’ll marry me.. I know you’ll say no but I just wanted to ask.”  He said “Yes, OK – but one condition; we do it in secret and don’t tell anyone until afterwards.”

Do you think I’d argue?  No way!!  I have joked so many times over the last 13 years that if he ever said yes I’d do it whatever the conditions... “I’ll marry him in a bus stop wearing a bin liner if he’d just say yes.” 

So, quick thinking me suggested that Easter might be good as we’d already booked our caravan holiday in Norfolk and our fab friends Mark and Michelle would be with us and could be our witnesses.  What a great idea!  So, since 29^th February I’ve kept the biggest secret of my entire life... and anyone who really knows me knows that I’m totally rubbish at keeping secrets!!  

As a three year old girl I spent the afternoon baking with my Mum and icing a cake for my Daddy’s birthday which was the next day, we hid it in a tin and put it on the top of the kitchen cupboard... “don’t tell Daddy until tomorrow”.  So, Daddy comes home from work... what’s the first thing I say?  “Daddy, Daddy it’s a secret, I can’t tell you about that cake in the tin up there!”  See, useless!!

I can’t tell you how hard it’s been to keep this particular secret from everyone.  Firstly my sister Jill, she’s my best friend in the whole world; I’ve so wanted to tell her!  Nightmare – we had a spa day for the girls and for Mother’s day.  What did Mum ask me?  “So, did you propose to him on leap year day?”   Now the other thing I find impossible is telling a lie, I don’t know how I did it but I didn’t tell but I also didn’t fib; I told Mum that of course I asked him – I just didn’t tell her what his response was! 

Then, I was running in a cross country race up in the Lake District and staying overnight at my Dad and Jool’s house... it was sooooo hard not to say anything at all.  It was my birthday in March and I had a lovely birthday lunch in Harrogate with Mum, sister and brother in law, nephew, brother and sister in law and nieces... how hard was that to keep schtum?  Then, my brother Sam rang me to see if they could pop in on their way home from their holiday in Centre Parcs... OMG!  This is all in between going running three times a week with my lovely friends Carol and Caroline and going to numerous crafting classes and events with my other great friends Monica, Linda and Lorraine.  It’s also been a nightmare chatting to my neighbour Dianne and not spilling the beans.

Well, now the secret’s out!  We got married at 11.15am on Tuesday 10^th April at Fakenham register office while on holiday.  In attendance were Michelle and Mark Elliott and Milly, Molly and Barney Elliott (doggy bridesmaids and page boy) and Mr Mo (doggy usher).

Something old: earrings

Something new: dress, shoes, bag

Something borrowed: Michelle’s hanky! (clean)

Something blue: my dress

All I need to do now is practice my new signature!!  For those who don’t know my new surname is Szczecinski (pronounced Sheshinski) I think Andrew will still call himself Mr Greenwood from time to time!!

Tropical Island Girl

Isabelle has just been on a Caribbean Adventure with her friend Barbara....

Our adventure began by flying out from Manchester to Chicago, then Chicago to San Juan in Puerto Rico.  We had a night here before boarding the Royal Caribbean ship Adventure of the Seas.
Our itinerary was:
Day One, January 9th; Welcome aboard, lunch and embarkation, sail away.
Day Two, January 10th; At sea, captain's welcome reception and first formal evening.
Day Three, January 11th; Bridgetown Barbados. Carlise Beach, showtime before dinner
Day Four, January 12th; St Luci. Shop till you drop girlfriend!!  Cool Art, Hot Ice show (ice rink) and casual dining
Day Five, January 13th; Antigua, it has 366 beaches - we chose Dickinson Beach on an organised trip, formal dinner this evening
Day Six, January 14th; Philippsburg, the capital of St Maarten.  Shop till you drop again - wow this place was blingtastic!
Day Seven, January 15th; St Croix, largest of the US Virgin Islands.  Beach day with the 'gang'.  Casual dining then karaoke final - Angie blew them away!  Last goodbyes to all our new friends...

We had a last day and night in San Juan, an opportunity to catch some more sunshine by the pool.  We also managed a quick foray to Old San Juan for some carnival action.

Blog update to come with more details but for now here's a slideshow.

Winter Schminter...

Well, Andrew is suffering seasonal adjusted disorder (SAD)! He's just not happy at all in winter and I think we are both dreaming of warmer weather and the start of the caravanning season.

Thoughts of longer days full of walking and fishing are occupying our minds just now and we've got all kinds of plans for various trips and adventures.

Hedgerow Foraging at it's best

Last year I was determined to collect sloes from the hedgerows and make some sloe gin.  So I joined forces with good pal Ian and together we got a good haul - Ian has his uses coz he's got a walking stick which we used to get to the bigger sloes at the top of the hedges.

Anyway, the sloes were picked and the gin was bought and Ian took them both off to his laboratory (garage) and after a year of shaking the jar and then leaving it alone (the hard bit), finally the brew was bottled!    Off we went to the Lake District for a little holiday and we took said bottle with us.. by heck it is grand!

So, you can imagine that as the hedgerows are particularly fruitful this year it would be rude not to pick more sloes! Off we went again, stick in hand and got a marvellous harvest which are now in the demi-john in the lab.  It's just a waiting game again.

Chickens enjoy some corn...

Each week our chickens get a treat... this week it was a corn on the cob..

Ian was very inventive and put a tent peg in the cob so we could hang it from the mesh of their pen to save it from getting covered in grit and muck.

Any way, they love their corn!

The Good Life ... it's happening!

A bit of a retro-blog because lots has been happening in the garden and by the time I get home I'm too pooped to blog!

Anyway, we've been and got the chickens!! Last Sunday actually so they've been in residence for a whole week now.

Well, before we got the chickens we had to build a nice safe enclosure for them to free range - I say 'we' but really it was Ian and Andrew who did lots of hard work. This is only stage one and a temporary measure because they've got a grand design for the real enclosure.

So, last Sunday we went to Outgate Poultry and bought four chickens; a blue, a speckledy, a sussex and a black. We brought them home and got them in the coup, we were all giddy but the chickens were really shy. They took a couple of days to find the confidence to come out. the blue one was the first to come down the ramp and into the run.

We haven't officially given them any names yet but I call the blue one Bluebell and I think it suits her.

They've had a lovely week settling in to their new home, they've entertained us with their antics... a couple of escapes, standing on the roof of the coup.

But today was the best antics of all... Bluebell laid her first egg!! Who's a clever girl?

Later on when we went round to the garden we noticed that there were actually five chickens and not four. A little bantam black chicken had appeared from no-where. It had a very lovely day being part of the flock, eating and scratching about. Anyway when Ian went to close the coup for the night it had disappeared! Let's see what happens tomorrow in the crazy garden!

Update.... the bantam (seen here on the left scurrying away from the camera) had returned this morning after obviously roosting somewhere else last night, so let's see if she gets accepted as part of the flock and decides to stay, or whether she is just here for the free lunch!

Oh, in between chickeny things we've also been planting things (shallots, beans, peas, potatoes, tomatoes, a whole range of squashes, cucumber, sweetcorn, courgettes, onions, cabbage, cauliflower, lettuce, leeks, parsnips... the list goes on and on).

First trip out in new caravan....

.... not as planned but hey!

Planned to go to Hinderwell with our good friends Mark and Michelle for the Easter long weekend.

Isabelle was just getting the caravan packed up when Mark phoned to say that the site was flooded and we had been cancelled - nightmare! We knew we would never get another booking so late in the day with it being Easter so we were all feeling a bit down to say the least.

We all started ringing round every site we could see that looked half decent to no avail, everywhere booked up. We were gutted. Then, Michelle rang to say that a site in Thornton le Dale had a pitch for one van for the whole week and should they take it - we agreed that they should take it and we'd stay at home. We'd just settled down for the rest of the evening when the phone went - it was a chap ringing back to say they'd had a cancellation at their site if we wanted it! So we jumped at the chance..... it was all the way to the other side of Howden!!!! (about half an hour away). Didn't matter that it wasn't a long journey, it would be just a good chance to test out the new caravan and find out how to work every thing.

So, we packed up and went to Brenda House caravan site for three nights. The great thing was that we got to explore some places which are on our doorstep that ordinarily being busy people we wouldn't have done. We had some lovely walks with the dog right from the site and we also went to Wheldrake to visit the nature reserve but it was flooded. The caravan is fantastic and we had a very relaxing and peaceful break. Just missed Mark and Michelle, but we're really looking forward to May now.

Malteser Tray Bake

Here is a recipe for delicious, scrummy Malteser tray bake. We used to go fishing in Northern Ireland and they sold this in the shop in the village, it was like waiting for an annual fix going there!!

I searched the web and found this recipe.

100g butter
200g milk chocolate
3 tbs golden syrup
225g crushed digestive biscuits
225g maltesers

• Melt butter, chocolate & syrup
• Add crushed biscuits and mix
• Add maltesers and mix quickly
• pour into a lined swiss roll tin
• chill in the fridge until it is set
• drizzle with melted chocolate if you want to be posh - or just cut up into squares and scoff!!

tis yummdiddlyumptious - enjoy!

Frustrated by the weather!

Well, it's ages and ages since I posted on this blog. This year we are going to be doing lots of stuff outdoors as usual but not all walking up hills..... because we're going to be gardening and growing our own veggies!

We have decided to help out our good friend Ian with his very large allotment plot and share the efforts of our labour. We are doing lots of talking about it and planning at the moment as the weather seems to be against us. So far though we have purchased some second hand water storage tanks and put them into position, bought and almost assembled a chicken house and run and we've started some potatoes off. Ian got some beans growing nicely in the potting shed but the mice helped themselves to them, so he's put out traps and started some more beans!

I can't wait to get digging and tending the chickens. We've decided which type of chickens we want and how many, so just need to get on with it all now.

It's going to be just like 'The Good Life'!

Isabelle and Mum go to Eden Project

My mum wanted to go to see the Eden Project as her 60th (shh, don't tell anyone she's that old!!) birthday treat.

So we flew (yes I know our carbon footprint just got bigger, but we did take public transport once we'd got there and I am growing a courgette plant to make up for it!) from Leeds to Newquay to save being on the road for 10 hours. It was great, up in the air for 50 minutes and at our hotel in time for the final of The Apprentice!

We had a lovely day at the Eden Project and were very impressed by it. It was much bigger than I'd imagined and for any plant and nature lover it really is eden. We particularly enjoyed lizard spotting in the tropical biome (big bubble thingy). It was a drizzly day when we visited but it didn't spoil our enjoyment as there is a lot to see inside the bubbles. I was really amazed how much there is to see outside too and I was really inspired with ideas for my own garden.

On our second day we decided to have a walk from Newquay to Watergate Bay along the coast path. It looks like no distance at all on the map but we reckon it was about 8 miles there and back by the time we walked to all the furthest points on the cliff tops. This walk was really lovely as the cliff tops were totally covered with wild flowers. We also did a bit of twitching and spotted Stone Chats, Wood Warblers and Mum spotted Corn Buntings. We had an encounter with a Kestrel which landed on a ledge of the cliff just next to where we had decided to have a rest, it was amazing how close we got to it.

At Watergate Bay we had a wonderful cream tea (yes I know my non carbon footprint just got deeper as I must have put on half a stone with the amount of clotted cream that was involved!). The tea room we went to was next door to Jamie Oliver's 15 restaurant which is right on the beach - sorry to snub you Jamie but the tea shop was great. I particularly enjoyed having a fix of doggie in the tea room as everyone seemed to have their pooches with them. We settled next to a wonderful couple who had an old Border Terrier girl and two lovely Italian Spinones, I was missing Mr Mo so I latched on to them!

Anyway we returned the next day with another smooth and quick flight home ready for a cuppa and a rest!

Vorsprung Pork Technic win 3rd prize!!

As you will be aware Isabelle occasionally runs (or wobbly jogs to be accurate!). Sometimes she even enters races and such, especially with her friend Clare (who is very much into technical gadgets and measuring things like time, distance, calories burned, speed, how many kitkats can be eaten afterwards etc etc).
Well, during training for the Great North Run in 2007 Isabelle suggested to Clare that an adventure race might be fun. So, without further ado Clare sussed out the Whole Hog series and noticed that the Hog Dash would be in Sheffield in 2008.
We thought it would be fun to have a girls team, so Vorsprung Pork Technic was born. Vorsprung was going to be Julia (the Wuss) Brown - Clare's neice who wussed out in the end, Pork was of course Isabelle and Technic had to be the technical expert measuring and monitoring girl Clare.
Due to Julia (the Wuss) dropping out Clare valiantly recruited another wuss, Lisa 'from the gym, you'll like her honest'. She dropped out on the morning of the race, so it was Pork Technic unsprung here we go.
The race is described as "Each leg is a foot based adventure and involves competitors facing numerous challenges/obstacles around the course. What we can guarantee is a bit of mud, and a lot of fun!" How right they were....
We arrived at Hesley Wood for a safety briefing, at this point I was really suffering a bout of 'tummy legs' (bricking it), where we were told that the course had been changed slightly due to the amount of mud available!!!
The course was about 9k long and had more mud than you could imagine, in addition to that there were hills so steep and muddy we had to use ropes to climb up, scaffold towers to climb up and over, rope tangles to navigate through, logs to leap and water to wade through!!!
We completed the course laughing all the way - our mantra was "It's not a race, it's an event" poor Clare was not even wearing her gadgets to time and measure our progress. After we had finished and managed to clean up a bit and get changed into cleaner clothes we celebrated with hot chocolate and a hog roast sandwich. Whilst we were munching the organisers started to announce the winners (all entrants got a goodie bag but only the top 3 finishers for each category got a prize), Male individual, Female individual, Male team, Mixed team and finally Female team winners were announced - much to our shock and amazement we won THIRD PRIZE FEMALE TEAM. So, despite the 'Wusses' and the fact that wobbly jogger was not fit due to lack of training WE DID IT!!

Can't wait for next year now... not quite got my sights on the 3 peaks fell race but it would be great to do more adventure races - there's more to running than tarmac!!
Thanks Clare for your words of encouragement. ... Wusses - you don't know what you missed!
You can check out more pics of us by clicking these links:
http://www.purepix.co.uk/hogsheffield/index.html?show=124043_1.html

http://www.purepix.co.uk/hogsheffield/index.html?show=130435.html

http://www.purepix.co.uk/hogsheffield/index.html?show=130452_1.html

http://www.purepix.co.uk/hogsheffield/index.html?show=130456.html

http://www.purepix.co.uk/hogsheffield/index.html?show=132008.html

http://www.purepix.co.uk/hogsheffield/index.html?show=132012.html

http://www.purepix.co.uk/hogsheffield/index.html?show=132017.html

http://www.purepix.co.uk/hogsheffield/index.html?show=132018.html

Gentleman's Release 2008

Here Andrew and his mate Ian go wild in Welsh Wales...

Lakes (& Scotland briefly)

Our usual September (hoping for an indian summer) holiday was planned for the Lakes and Scotland this September.
Before setting off to the Lakes the campsite owner called to say that they had had an awful lot of rain and that the caravan field was very wet, did we still want to come? Decided to go anyway and it wasn't that bad as Ray (proprietor) towed us onto the field with his 4x4 and got us pitched, we just had to leave our car a little bit away from the caravan and wear our wellies! The campsite was fantastic - www.castelriggfarm.com - despite the soggy field. A great location as you can actually walk down into Keswick and back yet it is sufficiently far enough away to be quiet. The walk back up the hill is quite a stretch but not too bad and there is a bus which stops at the end of the lane if you are lazy!
The weather was good to us for the first 5 days with just one day of low cloud and heavy drizzle. We managed to do some nice walking and even had a day out on Derwent Water on the portabote (didn't catch a thing but fished anyway).
Our first walk was up Blaeberry and High Seat from the campsite across the back of Walla Crag, returning down past Ashness Bridge and through the woods. This was a great route and we had some lovely views, the moorland between the peaks was very wet and boggy but it was a good walk despite this.
Next day we went off up to Seathwaite to climb up Glaramara. The weather was not too good with low cloud and heavy drizzle which turned to rain higher up. We chose a tough route straight up the side of the fell from the farm (Hind Gill), the gradient was very steep indeed and quite challenging in places but it was shorter and, had it have been dry, would have been much more fun! Once up on top it was very difficult to navigate and we actually decided not to summit as we were in thick cloud. We took our route back down via Thornythwaite Fell and back on part of the Allerdale Ramble back to the car, there were some nice views from the ridge across the valley and over to Sourmilk Gill and Great Gable beyond.
An easier little walk was out from Glenridding along the shores of Ullswater, quite crowded so we took a turn off the main path up over a shoulder to return via a much quieter route with some nice views of the lake. Lovely weather for this one and the legs got a rest!
We had a bit of a jaunt up to Scotland where we had planned to stay for 5 days but when we got there the campsite was awful - don't go to castlewigg! We stayed one night and then came back to Lakes where Ray and Doris welcomed us once more to Castlerigg Farm.
We decided to have another walk from Seathwaite as the weather was still looking good, this time we headed up the other side of the valley. Climbing up the side of Sourmilk Gill and then on up Gillercomb with great views across to Raven Crag where we could hear climbers shouting to each other. We then ascended Green Gable, here we could see across to Blackbeck Tarn where we had made a wild camp (pussy camp) last August. We had a brief rest then dipped down through 'windy gap' and up onto Great Gable where we had lunch with the masses! Fantastic views all around. We headed back via Styhead Tarn and past Taylorgill Force and back to Seathwaite for a cuppa tea at the farm cafe.
So, a pretty good holiday (if you don't mention Scotland!)

Bleaklow - a walk on another planet!

Bleaklow in the Peak District was our aim, we met up with Sam and got parked up after admiring his new car. A walk of approx 10 miles was planned! - ha! Weather looked reasonable as we set off but closed in a bit as we started our first ascent up Torside Clough, never mind it gave Andrew a chance to 'test' his new waterproof.
We reached the summit of Bleaklow Head which is marked by a cairn and large stake and decided to seek a little bit of shelter from the breeze and have lunch. After lunch (OK so I ate more than half of the Mars Bar I was supposed to be sharing!) we set off across a bizarre terrain. The moorland is covered in peat dunes which are shaped and formed by the wind, it is really difficult to navigate or tell where you are amongst these 'dunes' despite the route being vaguely marked by large stakes on top of some of the mounds.

We had fun at Bleaklow Stones which are eroded by weather and time into most fantastic shapes. By this time the sun had come out and we were into some fine weather.

Onwards again across more 'dunes' by which time we were getting a bit pooped trying to determine which way to go and walking up and down and in and out of bogs! So much so that when we saw Grinah Stones ahead with a lovely clear path we just walked towards it like heading towards an oasis in the desert!! Doh! we should actually have headed off to the descent but hey ho - what's another 2 miles between friends!!! Actually it was quite groovy at Grinah and Barrow Stones with magnificent views right down beyond Sheffield across to the power stations (Ferrybridge, Eggborough and Drax) in 'megawatt valley'. We came across a lovely spot where a stream was flowing through a moss plateau and we spotted at least 3 small lizards amongst the vegetation.
We eventually made it back to the right track and after crossing the ford which was quite tricky we managed a short coffee break before the last couple of miles on the flat back to the car park.In total we did 13 and a half miles! Even our Mo was quite pooped when we got back to the cars. A great walk

Wales - a week of wild flowers and wild climbs

Saturday 14th June - Sunday 22nd June 2008
A lovely week with a mixed bag of weather and activity.

Our first walk was up Arenig Fawr (854m), it was a route suggested by Trail magazine and because this area is so quiet we had to do a fair bit of navagation as the paths weren't clearly defined. At one point we were scrambling over boulder strewn steep hillside. The summit of this hill (picture above) has a monument to a lost WWII aircraft and the American crew who were all killed when it crashed into the hillside, there are still bits of debris scattered around.

On the tops of the moorland on the ascent we came across a series of small tarns, these were beautifully secluded and one of them was 'alive' when we walked near it - I scooped my hand in the edge and discovered it was full of tadpoles! We saw small birds (wheatears) which were nesting amongst the rocks and also saw two buzzards quite close. We didn't see any other walkers!

Midweek we had a night of storms - wind and rain woke us up. We decided to still go out walking despite the rain and managed to find a series of short walks around Corwen which we tagged together. The first jaunt was up a small hill called Pen y Pigyn - there is a small monument on the top to Edward VII (Prince of Wales) and great views down the Dee valley. We then went across the valley and up another small hill called Caer Drewyn, this is an ancient hillfort dating from 600BC - it was quite amazing. We returned via a valley ramble and although it was a soggy kind of day we really enjoyed the views and the countryside as the hedgerows were full of wonderful wild flowers.

On Thursday we decided to tackle a BIG walk and Tryfan was our aim. We had a leisurely breakfast then set off. We decided to do a scramble route up Bwlch Tryfan and then up and over 'far south peak'. It was blinking awesome! I had always wanted to reach the summit of Tryfan and have never done such a long and sustained scramble route before.










The views from this route and the top were just fantastic and we really felt that we'd achieved something. The weather was kind to us all day and just as we reached the roadside where the car was the rain came! There was one of the best rainbows on the journey home I'd ever seen - it appeared to be lying on top of the fields, weird but lovely.

On Friday we rested our weary legs and had a day at the seaside, first stop was Dolgellau (a small market town) for some lunch, then on to Barmouth - this is where the mountains (Cadair Idris) meet the sea.

It's a wonderful old fashioned seaside town with a railway running right along the coast, wide sandy beaches and a natural harbour.

Saturday dawned rainy again and so we went off to do a local walk over lots of boggy moorland. The first half of the walk was nice and interesting with lots of wild flowers to see. Later, even using our navigation skills, it got frustratingly difficult to plot any decent route as the ground was boggy and rough. So, despite the weather at least we stretched our legs. The caravan site put on a Hog Roast on Saturday night but it was a bit of a wash out so we ate up and dashed back to the caravan to watch a footie match!

Sunday was our departure day and the weather was to scupper our plans again - gales forced us to stay put most of the day and we only managed to get away at about 5.30pm. A very windy drive home, but we had a surprise when we discovered that our wine gums had been stolen by a mouse in the car! Despite looking all over for it we never found the mouse, only the half eaten wine gums and a lovely little nest of shredded paper on the back seat (little bugger!).