Hoover damn (or maybe not)

There is a special lake in North Wales where Seabear first learnt to swim. She was a young puppy and a little afraid of swimming until one day when we visited this particular lake over ten years ago with my mum and dad. There was a hoover that was dumped in the middle of the lake, Seabear caught a glimpse of it and made her way swimming to the middle of the lake in an attempt to retrieve this plastic yellow hoover. Unfortunately it fell over as she tried to pull it and she had to return to shore empty handed, however she was now no longer afraid of swimming and it is now one of my favourite places to take her, and my other dog Ella, back to.  My dad then coined the name 'hoover damn/ hoover lake' which we all find quite amusing. It's real name is 'Llyn Du Bach' which is little black lake for those who don't know Welsh!

Yesterday Scott and I went to this lovely lake for a picnic and a walk with the doggies :) It's quite far from the nearest village and people etc and there are usually lots of interesting things to discover from bones to plants and sometimes frogspawn in the right season!

We had a lovely picnic with bacon, cheddar, chutney and cucumber sandwiches, satsumas, pepsi max, Pringles and mini Toblerones for dessert. Classy I know but delicious :)  I'm really getting into my photography at the minute, just as a hobby and for fun, but I just fond it some wonderful to take photos and look back at them to remind myself of all the interesting places I go, what yummy things I ate and the interesting plants and things I find along the way! I wore my standard farmer wellies,.. It was so swampy and wet and windy - I wore to raincoats to try to keep the wind out!There were a ridiculous amount of bones (i'm assuming sheep) which I enjoyed looking at, and tried to keep the dogs from sting :/ I 

 This is a particularly unattractive photo, but it sums up how we were feeling, a mixture of happiness, excitement and a face full of bitterly cold wind! I also look a little like Wallace and Grommet!

     It was that windy Seabear's ears were flying back in the wind :)

    Scott and Ella.

 Seabear :) Happy to be back in her lake!

I was holding hands with Scott and didn't realise for a while that I'd been splashing mud onto him from my wellies.. woops :) 

My faithful car Fester the fiesta!


And lastly Scott lifting a very wet and tired Bear into the car as she didn't have enough energy to jump up herself!

Christmas, Turkey and family photographs

Christmas Agiain!It's been and gone and it's been so lovely seeing all my family, friends, animals etc! I've eaten way too much as per, but it's all been worth it :)

Here was our delicious Turkey that we had for Christmas day, it's 15lb and is was ridiculously heavy, and had an impressive coloured skin this year which always makes it

look beautiful.

My Christmas dinner :) Turkey and all the trimmings! All home made of ccourse, even the cranberry sauce ! We never make our own Chistmas pudding though, so many thats something to think about for next year.

I had a wonderful new Instax Fuji film camera which I'M IN LOVE WITH.  I already have a Polaroid and Canon camera which are my old faithfuls and I couldn't live without, but I felt it was time to get a newer Polaroid as the price of the old film is ridiculous now Polaroid have stopped making the film.
Here are a few snaps I've taken so far :)

Scott and I in hats playing card games with my family. it's a little blurred as I was just figuring out all the buttons and angles etc.

The Clough's! My mums side of the family always come over just after Christmas as it's my Grandmas Birthday shortly after. It's such a wonderful time full of card games, cheese and a heck of a lot of competitive treasure hunting...

more of my family with the fujifilm camera. I will do a blog post soon about the camera in more detail, as it's an awesome camera to have. And now fuelling my photography hobby!

Lastly my Dads side of the family who all come for bacon butties of Christmas morning :)
I hope you all had a fab Christmas and wish you all a Happy New Year !!!!

Christmas Lights

Scott and I stumbled across this awesome house in Rhyd Uchaf, North Wales with tons and tons of vintage christmas light fixtures! I'm a real sucker for anything that lights up, neon signs, fairy lights, lava lamps etc so these were right up my street. Yes maybe a little excessive, but it was so pretty to look at and a really exciting thing to find as we were just having a casual drive down this quiet country lane ( In the middle of nowhere) after a lovely walk with the dogs. They leave them up all year and you can leave a donation for charity when visiting.

 Fortunately they had this sign letting us go into their garden to have a proper look which I thought was really kind of them!

 This os my Christmas wooly jumper which Scott has 'acquired' this year ;)

There were lot of nativity themed plastic lights, I especially like the sheep, reindeer and santa!!!

 Next time we will definatly g at night time when the effect is in full, but even still it was worth going :)

Gingerbread House Building

Gingerbread house making! My mums lovely friedn Cath had a special evening in our tearoom for mums and daughters to decorate a gingerbread house, unfortunatly I hadnt come back from uni in time and I missed out, so she was kind enough to leave me some bits and peices so i coud have a go when i got home :)

I used smarties, jellytots and gummy bears!

The icing is Royal icing and it sets and acts like a glue to stick the gingerbread house together and help stick on decorations.  Recipe Here

It was a little rushed and aI had a little accident with the icing and spilt it on the front (hence the white smudges) but it was a fun little project when I got home - One which Scott later enjoyed devouring...

The doggies were also eying up the gingerbread House!!

You can get gingerbread house making kits from Lakeland with the walls/roof etc made already and even little icing people ready to stick on.

LLandudno beach with the doggies

I can't believe how much I've missed walking the dogs these past three months at uni! I know how lame this must sound, but it's something I've always done and it's actually a really relaxing time to think about life and also a good way to keep healthy (I'm so unhealthy at the moment and need to sort myself out!). As soon as I got back home i've immediately gone for a walk with the doggies and Scott to the beach and it was lovely.

I found this rock that has these amazing marks on them that look like footprints! Being on a footwear design course has made my life basically revolve around shoes... I'm even seing them in rocks now?!

Talking about being unhealthy... Scott and I went for a rather enjoyable Big Mac meal at McDonalds. Being a student you get a free cheeseburger with a meal so I always get one and give half each to the dogs so they too can have a special little treat. This is probably why my dogs are so fat, but it really is very occasionally...

I'm not sure why my hairs looking so blonde here?! I haven't dyed it for agers! Which is very unlike me!

You probably know by now how much I like taking shoe pictures of my feet so here's another one....

The dogs adore water, wether it's the sea, a lake or even a mangey dirty wet puddle! So it's always top priority when we go for a walk to find somewhere wet. Molly (Seabear) is getting very old and hobble-y nowadays but she always gets a spring in her step near the sea :)

i'm not sure what's going on here....

Ella always gets excited and runs along the beach ahead of the rest of us , leaving just her sandy footprints for us to follow!

Seabear looking quite inquisitivie here ..

I found some neon fishing wire on the beach, I loved the colour so much I had to take a photo next to the natural stoney coloured pebbles.

More shoes and feet, as the obsession grows....

I like taking pictures of moss. And mould. And rust...

Ella kept her head on the backseats the whole way to the beach (30 mins drive), and spent the journey home collapsed in the boot as she was so tired from all the running. She and Molly also steamed up the car with a rather fowl wet dog smell which is never pleasant, but we still take them to the beach regardless!

Scott skimming stones :)

The only dowside to walking the dogs. The hideous task of collecting their .. erm ..droppings... Scott fortunately is very good with this sort of thing :) And I had some nappy bags especially for this occasison :/ So we were safe from being fined this time.....

I'm also due a trip here with my best friend Georgie, as it's almost a tradition we have to come here on boxing day, dressed in some strange attire and listenning to the Disney soundtrack.. Small pleasures..

 :)