Marina, Aqua Marina- Burnham-on-Crouch marina

Last weekend, after I had returned home with Mum and my niece, I felt in need of another journey somewhere. CBC was adventuring with his Duke of Edinburgh trip so I headed off on the train to Burnham-on-Crouch.

CBC and I have been here before and enjoyed a delightful walk by the river (it's where I saw that enormous jelly fish!). I walked from the station to the Marina and enjoyed the feel of the sea breeze (or river breeze..), the sounds of Spring and looked at the mesmerising water. 

Here are a few pictures from the Marina and in the town.

There's nothing quite so soothing.

Enjoy your day.

xxx

2 B's for two birthdays

As usual, June is upon me and the flurry of birthdays in my family which catch me by surprise every year.  Yesterday demanded some last minute card making for sister and Dad.

My sister's was a fairly simple matter-I used a butterfly punch I purchased for my wedding decorations and punched butterflies in three pinks. I folded these to achieve a 3D effect and glued them onto a piece of polka dot card onto a card blank (recycled picture card) together with the pink-scalloped sentiment.  The butterflies needed some way of linking so I used some adhesive gems I'd received for my birthday to stick between them. Achieved in about 15 minutes (including rummaging time)

The second card was also fairly simple.  I knew I had some boat porthole outline stickers so I hunted them down and luckily located an old program-front with sea-paper from a 2006 Royal Academy of Music 'Diary of events' which I'd been hoarding since, er, I left there in 2006! It was perfect for the background and also below. The tricky part was making the alphabet 'self-adhesive' stickers stick- they seemed to have lost their stickyness so some vigorous pritt-sticking went on. Finally, I found some curly outline stickers which were fairly reminiscent of waves.  Again, about 15 minutes making but also included procrastination and searching!

And here's a bonus card I forgot to share a while ago- a quilled flower card I made for a blogging friend who had a significant birthday.I have a horrible feeling the gems came off in the envelope as it definitely rattled as I posted it!


Linking to Creative Mondays with Claire Justine

Stop all the clocks!

At the weekend, I mentioned going to my concert in Victoria.  I saw the opportunity to visit the Cath Kidston flagship store. I PROMISE I intended to buy nothing but when I saw the clock skirt (and with £6 off), I somehow went into Automaton mode and ended up buying it. I do love clock-themed items- it stems from a Doctor Who obsession and an Alice in Wonderland obsession.

I wore it out immediately the next day to church and it was clocked (ha!) instantly by a clock-obsessive who like me, dreams of having an entire mantlepiece of ramshackle clocks of all kinds!

I teamed it up with these George Dalmatian-print shoes, Grandad's boater hat, green thrifted satchel, Dotty Perks pearl collar  and  this t-shirt which caused much consternation at church. It says, "So what if I pray like a girl?" and in smaller writing, "Men and women, all are equal and one in Christ," from Galatians.  I tried to make the point that no, the slogan is not biblical, the point is that God hears everyone's prayers,regardless of who you are.









After church, the weather was SO glorious that I managed to persuade an over-worked and stressed CBC to drive us to Papermill Lock in Little Baddow near Chelmsford for a spot of lunch in the tea-rooms.  It's on the river Chelmer and is a lovely place for cycling to as you come down North Hill, Essex's highest and steepest hill and end with the reward of tea and cake (and nice lunches). The only  bit I don't like is cycling back up it so you can carry on over the river to Hatfield Pevrell and get home that way. It's very easy to reach from the A12.


You can take a short cruise along the river. We ourselves cruised on this boat the day after the wedding with family members.

After lunch, I persuaded CBC to walk along the river for a bit. As you can see from the facial expression, he was SO unimpressed and just wanted to get home.

Much excitement from all those in the tea-rooms as this boat went down in the lock. We seasoned bargers (ha! One 2 day trip!) were rather more nonchalant about it! Did you hear about that barge in the papers that got caught on the back of the lock gates and completely filled with water! It did sober me in regards to how you have to be so careful on a lock!

The canoers were out in force and had I not been in skirt and heels, I would have considered joining in!

Just a couple of the boats around.



Hows you all.
Thanks for the nice comments re my food.  Glad you liked my choices and I was intrigued at the sausage opinions- it seems that I am not wrong to dislike the LM veggie sausages!

***

Linking up to Hat Attack

 and
Fashion Item Friday

All at sea

CBC heard from a work colleague that there was a Regatta at Leigh-on-Sea, near Southend in Essex last weekend and so we decided to head over there before attending a concert of young musicians from Southend.






Old Leigh-on-Sea is a really attractive place. Apparently, from a magazine article I read some years ago, it's a really arty and crafty place and has more artistes per square mile than er-other places (I am hazy on what exactly the article said). It has a pretty section by the sea-front (It's the Thames estuary), cobbles, old-fashioned pubs and also the town is pretty cool with nice shops, bakeries, arty crafty and vintage places.

Although we were only there for a short while, we got a really nice community feel- the sea scouts were out and about and various local community groups were there with stalls and information. It's a good place to go and buy fish too. I heard a man talking to his pal saying that the cockles this year were beautiful- incomparable to other years- excellent flavour and not at all gritty. I'll just take his word for it but we did share a little bowl of something fishy (and some chips!)

I'd recommend it as a nice place to visit if you over in that part of the world. I'm not sure I'd say, visit from far off, but it's certainly very pleasant.

I'll leave it to the photos.  Take the journey along the front with me...


































Have you ever visited Leigh?

xx