Bank Holiday Fun...

I don't very often post family pictures here but this one is such a lovely photo of E, J and Dad. J, at 13 years old is five foot nine without shoes but several inches taller in his Reebok Zetechs. Dad must be shrinking. I tell you, it's taking some internal adjustment to get used to having these tall children in the house. I pad around in flip flops all summer and I'm seriously wishing I was a heels kind of person. It's quite difficult to dish out the discipline when they are eye level with you. Not that I have to do that much these days. I've given up trying to teach J about the delights of coat hangers.

J and E hit the coast with Mum and Dad yesterday. Apparently so did most of the county. They've been having fun on the penny machines and rides since they were very small. M and I took a short drive down to an ice cream / kids farm thing. We really only wanted an ice cream so we resisted the temptation of seeing the guinea pigs and rabbits. Whilst eating our ice cream we watched small children on ride on jeeps. It was hilarious. There were two types of driver, boy racers and careful female drivers. Bank holiday Monday afternoon was spent watching cricket (M) and walking (me and the hounds).

I'm trying to toughen my feet up in training for a long distance walk next Easter. So far I've had blisters in the most unexpected parts of my feet. I did an eight mile walk into the city on Sunday and developed a new one on a toe next to one that had a plaster on it, I think it was the plaster that caused the new one. I took Riley for company because he walks nicely on the lead and most of it was path. Harvey is impossible to walk on the lead and believe me we have tried everything. M was worried the distance wouldn't be good for Riley's pads but eight miles is nothing for a dog and there was plenty of grass verge to walk him on. When I got to the city I met a family of three on bikes with a lovely young black and white Springer who was ten months old. He had just run alongside their bikes for twenty miles. I did think that was a bit much for such a young dog.

Over the bank holiday weekend there was a bit more loom banding. I find it quite therepautic and I can switch off totally when I'm absorbed in a design. I discovered a few new places that sell the bands but so far I've only found cheap supplies, rather than the American originals which is a shame because now that I'm getting good and trying out the advanced designs I'm finding that the cheap bands often snap. It's difficult to know on Amazon whether bands saying 'original' are the real thing. Already I can see that some people thought they were buying an original loom have received a copy.

I forget the names of some of these designs now. One other disadvantage of the cheap bands is the definition and uniformity of the results. This last one is called Candy Rocks I think, with the proper bands you can see the formation of the actual flowers much more clearly. The one above that is called hexafishtail but there are variations of the name, it just depends whose tutorial you follow. This one seems to work nicely no matter how cheap the bands and they don't require too much tension either. This one is E's favourite and she wears a purple and green one, her favourite colours. The second one down is a popular design called The Ladder. E says I'm addicted like its a problem.