The way we were!

This is a photograph of a scanned image of a photograph taken at this time of year when there were hay stooks in the fields....I'm guessing about 60 years ago.....that's our white house on the left... looks a bit of a drieke kind of a day but it is an old photograph!

This is the same view taken this evening at 7.30pm...the little stone bothy is gone and there's a new hay shed, a cattle shed on the left, two big sheep sheds on the right and lots more trees for shelter belts...this can be a windy valley....silage bales are in the field these days....

I can't say 'all is safely gathered in' just yet but you have to take advantage of this good weather while you can!

Checking out the neighbours?

On Saturday we went up to Edinburgh to help our youngest Son move house.....at the new place we had a little difficulty parking...the police were trying to move us on....we had a 4x4 with a trailer attached....we actually had to unhitch the trailer and drive the 4x4 away.....we were lucky to get parked near the new place at all as at the 'round-a-bout' the road was blocked, only cars with VIP passes were allowed through so after we had unloaded all the boxes we had a walk along to see what was going on???

This is the entrance to Holyrood Park....a public park right in the middle of Edinburgh.

It's a beautiful park...the roads are usually closed on a weekend anyway as it's pedestrians only till 6 pm.....

This is the house at the far end of the road, this is one of the entrances to Holyrood Palace, a residence of the Queen.

Today the Queen was presenting the new 'colours' (flags) to the Regiments, the old colours were marched off to the tune of Auld Lang Sine and are retired.

This was one of those days when I wished I had brought my bigger camera for a video...my small camera just doesn't do good videos!

Of course there were some horses, that's the back of the palace in the background....

Bagpipes and ceremonial dress...

Here is the Queen arriving ...see the Royal Ensign on the car, don't know why she came half way through....she didn't have to come far?

Inspecting the troops in an open top....

What happens in your neighbours back yard????

One man's trash is another man's treasure...

I like a bargain, doesn't everybody?

Well, I came across this cabinet made originally for videos, it was going in the trash as the owner was moving house...so I asked if I could have it.

 

Voila.....With the addition of a bit of ribbon I can store large 5000 metre cones three deep.

Perfect for thread storage and it was free!

Too Cute!

Puzzle with her colt foal Pluto.....

For Shannon....

Baxter the proud father of many......

We breed Coloured Gypsy or Irish cobs...with feathers....well you gotta have a link somewhere between quilting and horses...I just love feathers....that's full mane, tail and hair around the hooves....

Saying that both of my riding horses have hogged manes and clipped legs but that's more because they are a different type of horse....

We pick a theme for names.....

Last year was cars so we had names like Jenson, Capri, Cooper, Lotus etc....

Year before was trees...so we had Hazel, Willow, Aspen, Rowan, Juniper etc....

This year my Grandkids chose stars and planets....bit more difficult to choose for colts and filly's but we'll give it a go... so far we have Pluto (Puzzles foal), Hailey, Venus, and Stella...

'Colouring In' for grown ups!

I was saving these small wholecloth patterns from my lilac cushion for my Granddaughter to colour in ....she soon lost interest....

But I find that a bit of colouring in is very therapeutic....you can do this when watching tv or at times when it's not appropriate to hide away in the quilt cave......it was difficult to colour as this is hard matt photographic paper....

Then I scanned it back into the computer and made it into a faux wholecloth.....

I like to print these out for greetings cards...of course you could also make this from a plain fabric and colour the fabric too.....someday maybe!

Back to Quilting!

It's been a long while since I did anything to do with quilting....but I did recently take the plunge and design an easy quilt in EQ7....I like simple piecing which will showcase the finished quilting design! I think this is a jewel box or stepping stone design.

Chose my fabrics.....I'm using a layer cake to give a more scrappy look...there is still lots left over for another project.

Even used my 'Go' cutter for the first time proper....

And cut out the body of the quilt......

Then made a start on the piecing.....

I think I may change my mind and go with a darker pink outer border to give a warmer look???

The Mosstroopers Gymkhana.

As Kyle is now a Junior Mosstrooper, he was invited to take part in the gymkhana...it's just for fun...a few pony games, best turned out and handy pony....

This was Kyles first time at this type of event and he came home with two seconds and a third.....no wonder he is smiling!

The last 'Ride Out'!

Saturday saw the last 'ride out' of the Hawick Common Riding season...the ride left for Denholm at around 1pm via Hawthornside, Rubislaw and down into Denholm....Fieron and I had a walk over the fields and waited and waited and waited but it was worth it to watch the horses thundering past us at break neck speed.....

There's the 'Cornet' on a grey horse.....

Granda and Kyle....

Kyle and Layla 

I decided to ride back into town with Kyle and Robin, it's an easy ride back in, all road work, just a bit of walking and trotting...not too much stress on my joints....here we are leaving Denholm....

 Here's the ride coming back into town via Burnfoot....

Back into town at approximately 8pm.