An Autumn walk

I've probably said this loads of times , but Autumn is my favourite time of year . I love the colours , love the food and have so many happy memories of outdoor activities with my Dad when I was a kid.
 Monday it started out really foggy , but then got lovely and sunny so I decided to take myself round the local park with my camera.

  I had a lovely day , but think I overdid it somewhat as I've been suffering with hip pain ever since.
 Anyway , a few shots from the day.

 I saw my very first Jay , sadly not a great picture though.

Hope you enjoyed sharing my walk .
 Cath

Natures' harvest .

 Autumn is on the way . Misty mornings and cooler days all showing the start of my favourite season.

 So , do you know how to turn a couple of hours work into two more days work ?.....
  It's easy , go fruit picking .

 On Sunday we went picking blackberries. To be honest , we didn't even get half way to the place we were going to pick the berries before we had two cereal tubs full and decided to call it quits . There is an abundance of berries this year .
   (Washing up bowl (new) full of blackberries).

 On the way back , we went scrumping (ie. called at a friends to cadge some apples from their tree. It works , as they don't do anything with them , but in return we take some of the finished products back ) .

    (Bag of apples)

  So , Monday after spending over an hour peeling/coring and cooking apples while the berries soaked in salt water (just in case of hitch hikers) . I then spent the rest of the day making these

 Four cakes

  and two crumbles . These were cooked later . The small one in now gone , the big one has been portioned up and put mostly into the freezer .

  Today was pastry day . Small pies and blackberry tarts (with a drizzle of icing for my daughter )

  Larger apple and blackberry pie  , some to be tested later and the rest will be portioned up for the freezer .

 I ran out of apple , but have four bags of berries in the freezer for another time .
 And that is how you turn a couple of hours work into an extra two days worth ,lol .

   Kids are now back in school and loving it thankfully , so hopefully I will now get some spare time to stitch . Shopping tonight , and got to clean out the little critters ( more info in another post ), possibly out tomorrow evening so still not much time ,lol. I swear the days are getting shorter . I must be getting old !

 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

Autumn exchange

I can now show the autumn exchange parcels I sent and received . The exchange was organised by Lainey at Stitched With Love Exchanges , and I really enjoyed it.

 I loved the piece I stitched and am looking forward to stitching it again for myself.

 The design is called Acorns and Owls and is a freebie from Blue Ribbon Designs. I used the recommended DMC threads apart from the alphabet which was stitched using a variegated thread from 21st Century Yarns. I made a cube type finish , my first and though it is a little wonky ,it came out ok .

 Luckily , Fiona who received it liked it too .

This is the package as a whole with the other goodies I sent.

And this is the gorgeous package I received from Lynda. Such lovely gifts , everything was so right for me .
Chart, ribbons, buttons,bookmark,thread and a very glittery pumpkin that my kids loved.

Scissors , fabric and a lovely leafy tea towel that went straight into use, so pretty .

Gorgeous red leaf. Mine !

And the lovely long legged Autumn bird pin keep.

I am a very lucky girl .
 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath

2nd post in a day

I must be bored ,lol. Mind you , not sure the previous one can be counted as a proper post .
 The kids are fed up , and I'm fed up of them bickering. Roll on next week when they are back at school and kept busy with Halloween discos and craft clubs and other such exciting things .

 Typically, with it being half term week, the weather has been fairly dreadful . Grey and foggy pretty much every day, so they haven't been able to go anywhere or even play out on the garden. We were going to go to the local indoor play centre , but it appears to be closed , not good.

 Sunday wasn't too bad , so we went for a walk along the trail to MILs' and took a packed lunch so we could stay for a while. I love autumn , so took the opportunity to take some colourful pics along the way .

I know these plants are weeds , but the leaves are turning such beautiful colours , I got lots of pics of different ones.

 We did manage to spy a few bedraggled flowers along the way too .

 The trail is an old disused railway track , and there are bat boxes on the side of one of the bridges . Not sure if they house any bats or not though .

 Well ,that's about it for my autumn walk , but I will be back soon with either more views or some crafty updates ,depends which takes my fancy ,lol .
 Thanks for dropping by ,
 Cath