The Secret Garden Gala

The folly

Last Saturday we were at the Secret Garden Gala, it was being held by the Sue Ryder Charity in Clifton, Bristol. Walking through a very ordinary looking door located in the middle of a city street took you to an amazing garden.
I have to say it felt like I was in an episode of Mr Benn!


The canal

Pickle-Lily and I were at Goldney Hall in Bristol. There was a tower, a mock canal full of damsel flies, dragon flies, water lilies and fish, statues and sculptures and then ....

We went down some steps ....

 

Into the grotto



Where the river god waited for us in the cool depths

Among thousands of shells and fossils

A truly fantastic place on a very, very hot day! If you ever get the chance to visit, go!

In the gardens there was singing and ballet and some beautiful stalls...

Cute little penguins and guinea pigs made by Victoria (sadly no link to post here)

This beautiful stall from Betty Brixham full of quirky prints on a super display.

Sadly P and I had to go home at about half past three as we could stand the heat no longer, but we did leave Eric behind!

 

Sand sculptures

Bertie went to visit the library

I know it's been a while, but I've snatched half an hour to blog between mum's taxi runs!
I've been busy making bunnies for the bunny giveaway ( if you would like the pattern - it's free, see here and for the very cute tag, see here )
 As you can see Bertie likes books and Colin went to the beach.

Colin at the beach

I also had a fab day out at the beach with a lovely group of children. We went to visit the sand sculptures at Weston-Super-Mare, and I have to say it was one of the best trips ever!
The weather was brilliant, which helped a great deal, but I can not praise the staff there too much! They were friendly, very helpful, got mucky and couldn't do enough for us! The sculptures were, to be honest a bit hit and miss, some were excellent, some I wasn't too sure who they were. We did a photo hunt looking for the details and then we had a demonstration on how to make your own sculptures using very simple equipment and just sand from the beach (I always thought it was special sand) and water. Then the children, and adults got sculpting. The thing that tells you how good this was, is that usually on trips the first thing they want is their lunch, here we had to make them stop to wash their hands and eat, as they wanted to carry on making their own sculptures!

Jurassic Park

 

The Giving Bunny Project

Sorry I haven't been around for a while, but Mr P-L has been doing computery things and now I have finally been given some time on the computer! I was going share some more bunting loveliness that Pickle-Lily and I have been working on, but then yesterday we were out shopping and I picked up a copy of 'Made in Felt'


Please take me home

In it Pickle-Lily found an article about the Giving Bunny Project . It is all about making very cute little rabbits out of felt and then leaving them somewhere to be found! There is a google map showing where they have been found, and so of course we had a look! There seem to be very few in the UK, so yesterday afternoon P and I made our first two bunnies - Angelina and Arthur. (For some reason Blogger isn't letting me edit my pictures at the moment, so the layout is a little random!!). As you  can see there is also a cute little label to print off to put with your bunny, for when he is found. Arthur has been put in position, so we will wait to see what happens next! You could always join in! I'm going to share this on Handmade Monday in the hope of recruiting some more bunnies!


Angelina

 

Arthur