Are you sitting comfortably?...

As an advanced warning -

THIS POST IS PHOTO-HEAVY.

Sorry but I have to get this holiday off my chest before I can get back to normal. Finally I have caught up on everbody else's blog posts so now it's just my own I need to get back on track.

So, I've been to Cornwall. Did anybody know? On a site midway between Hayle and Gwithian.

This is the fab little chalet/beach hut/shack/bungalow we stayed in. It was great. Here we see the relaxed Mr e&e partaking of some early evening refreshment on the decking. Yes it was warm enough to sit out on a couple of evenings, and that is blue sky you can just glimpse.

I won't bore you with a blow-by-blow account of every single day but here are a few edited highlights. Porth Joke beach was where we finally ended up on Thursday when it was close to what you would call hot and sunny. Although there were plenty of beaches further south where we were staying, we decided we wanted to revisit old haunts and go to Holywell Bay or Crantock. As we drove down the hill into Holywell we could see that the beach was heaving. The queue for the NT car park was right back along the road and cars were only being allowed on as others left. We gave up and drove to Crantock, where it was the same story. SO we drove to Polly Joke.

Unfortunately OH got his tides wrong. He thought it was on it's way out but it was actually still coming in. I think we moved 5 times!! The last of which involved climbing up over the cliff path because the sea was too deep to wade back through. It was a great afternoon though.
This was our local beach - Gwithian. Look at those waves! It was such a windy afternoon - the sea was really kicking up but it looked fab. We cheated and drove down to Gwithian, parked there and walked down the steps to get to the beach. The alternative was to walk from our site across Gwithain Towans but they are the widest dunes I've ever seen. We went to find the beach on our first evening and it took... forever. We also lost our bearings somewhat on the way back. Hey ho! Evie loved the dunes though. There was a huge sandbowl right by our chalet where all the kids congregated with buckets, spades and body boards for surfing down on. She spent most evenings over there with her new-found chums.
Oh this one's a bit more "arty" - the waves lapping in on Gwithian beach with the breakers in the background. Poper job!
And this tranquil looking beach is Porthkerris on the Lizard. It's a private beach owned by Porthkerris divers. OH was a real happy bunny as he managed to get a couple of dives in but that wasn't without incident. Kiddie and I were happily sitting on the beach, drawing on stones and soaking up the sun when we heard a helicopter come over REALLY low. When we looked it flew out and was hovering over the dive boat, which was coming back in to the beach!!! Eeek!! This was NOT good news. I have never packed up beach stuff so quickly. We ran down to meet the boat coming in and, sure enough, somebody was unconscious and on oxygen. A sure sign that someone has a 'bend'. I was frantic, then I spotted OH in the thick of it off-loading the casualty's gear and stuff. He was OK. Phew!! The casualty was a young lad of about 17. He was airlifted to Plymouth to the recompression chamber and was fine after a few hours in 'the pot'.

If you really want to see more pictures of my holiday (and let's face it other people's holiday snaps are THE most exciting things!!!) you can check them out on my newly upgraded Flickr pages. My lovely chum Sam (incywincy) has given me a Flickr pro account as an early birthday present. xxxx

So what else did I get up to while I was away? Well I did actually take some craft stuff to do. Call me psychic but I knew the weather would not be scorchio every single day. After various other people mentioning it I had a yen to get back into needlefelting. Meet lilac bunny...
OK he is a WIP. I haven't got any white wool to do his eyes or teeth, bless him. I had a ball of lilac that I'd wound with a view to making some felts balls in the washing machine but decided to stab one of them instead. A couple of smaller ones for cheeks and two ears and he's neary there. Kiddie also wanted to have a go and here are her attempts. She was aiming for a tulip on the bottom row but got fed up before she had fully felted all the petals. The top to blobs were going to be her own rabbit I think but again, no patience. Pah! The kids of today...
This is a wet felted baggy-pouchy thing I made ages ago. I had done a bit of free machining on it until I couldn't get it any further under the needle, but it still needed some embellishment. So far I've worked a load of random cross stitches across the midline in turquoise. Other colours are needed and then some buttons or beads I think. This is one of those things that comes out once every 6 months for a bit of a tweak then gets put away again.
This is my major crafting achievement of the holiday. No. Don't laugh you experts out there who can crochet in your sleep. This is my first attempt at crochet. Nice tension huh? I managed to do a foundation chain, double, treble, triple treble, and I just about got the hang of working in a round (although no evidence as I kept undoing it). Where I really struggle is reading patterns. I'm glad I've started to crack it though. I just need lessons now and I'll be fine... :o)
Here's a close-up so the experts can pick it to pieces (have I photographed the back or the front?).
I did receive a nice parcel just before I went away. Everyone seems to be showing scrummy pictures of replensihed stashes at the moment. Is it because you all went to Festival of Quilts without me? Well here is my new pile of fabrics courtesy of ebay.

And this is a giveaway gift from Gina at La Belle. I won this ages ago but lovely Gina kept losing my emails or the bits of paper with my address on, but finally while I was away my parcel arrived. It's a fab sock monkey book with some extra goodies thrown in, Bless you Gina. Thanks so much.
More ebay goodness. I won 2 lots from a fab lady in Camborne who agreed I could come and collect them in person if I won. The first was a bag full of scraps of net which will be great for my ventures back in creative embroidery as well as felting stuff. And the second was a thread spool holder. You can fit 40 reels of thread onto this baby, or 80 if you double up on each spike!! Ann (the lady in question) was great. I could have sat talking to her for hours. She has attended classes with so many of the great contemporary embroiderers, including starting a degree with Opus. I'm very jealous.
Here are a few of the goodies that I got from holiday which cost me nothing. Just a bit more flotsam or is it jetsam? to add to my collection.
Grrr.... Stupid photo uploader. What are you doing down here fishy? This is another bit of felting I did while on hols. Again I need some white for his eyes. He wasn't going to be a goldfish - he just happened.
And finally (as Sir Trevor would say), I spent a few days with my sister in Brixham on the way home from Cornwall. She had been doing a bit of gardening when we arrived. She doesn't have the greenest of fingers I must add. A bit of light pruning developed from secateurs to using a saw. Suddenly the lawn was full of branches and... well take a look at this video to see how she and OH tried to dispose of the evidence.

(The video wouldn't load properly so check out the next post on my blog to see it)