February Scavenger Hunt

Once again, many thanks to Kathy from Postcards from the P.P. for this months Scavenger Hunt subjects
 1. Music - my latest purchase

2. Food - homemade pasty pie, delish

3. Love - my card to him

4. Couldn'd find cupid, so this is cuboid

5. In the sky, on a recent trip to London, taken from the train

6. Black and white, snow at night

7. 5 - flower heads on my orchid

8. Leap year - my diary for today

9. Train - at Leatherhead Station, London-bound

10. Crowded - platform at Waterloo station

11. Empty - carriage on the underground

12. Heritage - Devizes, Wiltshire and the reason why we are known as Moonrakers

Apologies

I think I might owe you an apology. Yesterday I clicked the button to go to the new Google blogger page, and when I got there the button to go back to the old one has disappeared, so I am stuck with the new one. I had disabled the word verification on the old page, but I find on this one that I cant, so I am very sorry if it has come back, especially to Chrissy, who comments on nearly all of my posts. And apologies to those of you who told me you couldn't disable it, I'm ashamed to admit I thought you weren't doing something right. Oh well, blogger wins - I should have left well alone.

Week 45/52 296-302/365

296. I sent these squares off to my Blanket Swapees.



297. I love these "Joy" bottles, which sit on my bathroom windowsill



298. This is the bar in Wetherspoons at 4pm, it was actually quite busy, but at that precise moment not another person was in sight.



299. My very first hexes, cut from the curtain material I've been working with



300. Ploughing done



301. A vulture at the Hawk Conservancy



302. First cut of the year - earlier than he's ever done it before

Just a quickie

Firstly, who isn't following my new blog 2012 Illustrated? Why not?

Secondly, I have disabled word verification for my blogs, so you can easily leave a comment (pretty please).

If you would like to do the same, to make it easier for those of us who are keyboardly challenged or with failing eyesight (or possibly need new glasses), please go to Blogger dashboard, click on Settings, then click on Comments, scroll down until you come to comment moderation, which you can enable or not to your choice, then scroll down a bit further to find word verification, where you have a yes/no choice - please choose no. Thankyou

Joy x x

Devizes II

We start today's mini-trip of Devizes in and around the Market Square. The building now occupied by Santander has some lovely carvings and reminds me very much of Wedgewood Pottery.
The male depicted in the left carving is Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, and the female on the right is Matilda, both of whom are mentioned here. This building is quite close to the castle, but search as I might I cant find out any more information about the history of this particular building. Are there locals reading this who can expand, please?






This is the Corn Exchange, which you can read about here



and lastly the market itself, held every Thursday, when the town is really busy with people coming in from miles and miles around.



Come back soon for another mini-trip

Devizes

I love Devizes, and I have enjoyed living in this really quirky little place, so before I move away I'm going to show you some of the reasons why it's so interesting.

Firstly, we have St. James Church, Southbroom, which you can read about here



Here you can quite clearly see the cannonball holes in the tower.



Right in the centre of town is Devizes Castle, which you can read about here, it's privately owned so there is no public access, this is what it looks like from the road



I had a little wander along Castle Lane, which runs in alongside the castle entrance, and I found a residents carpark, where I was able to take this shot of the main building . .



. . and one of the towers beside the entrance.



So, just a short introduction to this lovely little town, please pop back tomorrow for some more interesting buildings, and a bit of town history.

A good post day

This is the inside of my workbox - to me its perfectly normal, its been like this for years, but a couple of weeks ago, Rog saw it and was horrified (he is very tidy and methodical).



While I was away last week he ordered a present for me which arrived in the post this morning.



Also in the post this morning, another couple of blanket swap squares, from Dosie Rosie, aren't they lovely.



Did you get anything nice in the post today?

Blanket square swap

Back in January I signed up to join The Blanket Square swap, organised by Lynda at Hookin with Laa Laa. On Friday I received my first squares and today I am posting off the first five of my own. As there are 15 of us in the swap, its going to be an exciting few weeks as the various squares turn up. Squares can be knitted or crocheted, 6" or 12", I have crocheted mine, these are the ones going in the post today, very plain granny squares, I'm afraid.



In contrast look at the lovely squares I have received from PJ at the Snail Garden

Week 42/52 289-295/365

As it was half term holiday I spent a few days away with the family.

289. Met up with the two older boys, their partners and the grandchildren for a fabulous meal here



290. My lovely friend Amanda drove up from Sussex to see us, she gave Marissa this headband



291. Didn't fancy driving round the M25 to Essex for lunch with Mum and Sis, so I took the train



292. Grandsons doing a duet on the Kinnect(?)



293. Moby, the flying Jack Russell



294. Amanda gave me an orchid, isn't it just lovely.



295. Back home in Devizes, and its a long time since someone has called me ducks.



. . . and just to let you know that I have disabled the word verification for comments, so please, please say hello so I know you are out there reading this x x

Week 41/52 282-288/365

282. My poor old sewing machine has had a busy week



283. The Crammer is frozen



284 Rog and I celebrated 25 years of living together



285. Seagull on ice



286. Snow on fence post



287. One down, 3 to go



288. Something to look forward to

Week 40/52 275-281/365

275/365 A good old fashioned pint of Wadworths Spitfire (nearly all gone)



276/365 Pasty pie ready for its pastry lid



277/365 One of the many delights of country living, the muck-spreader



278/365 A single dahlia



279/365 Frosty morning



280/365 Vapour trail and UFO (no prizes, but would welcome your best guesses)



281/365 Snowing