BACK IN THE MOTHERLAND

Recently I had the pleasure of a flying visit back to the UK so made best use of the opportunity to do a little tourism and visiting friends. Starting with a trip to Greenwich and Blackheath. Then visited London again with the parents though this time slightly wetter. Then finally finished up with a visit to lovely Lincoln to see my friend Tim.
Here's a few snaps from the flying visit.
A

Greenwich and Old Naval College

This is the BBC.

A very wet london on the way to The Design Museum.

I mentioned I was going to the design museum which Hannah was fine about missing until I mentioned they had a temporary cycling exhibition with some awesome bikes!

Got no photos of Lincoln itself but enjoyed a classic Charlie Bingham pie (and a very tasty Japanese beer) from Waitrose, oh I miss that place!!

#PARENTS ON TOUR - RANDOM SNIPPETS

The rest of the time that my parents were here was filled with little day trips, a spot of shopping, lots of good food and just generally chilling out. Here are a few random snippets of the rest of their time in California. 

As you can no doubt already tell Macintosh's favourite person to sit with is my dad. He was regularly found snuggling up to him on the sofa. He's such a spoilt dog.
H

PS. Mac is no longer allowed on any furniture. That means no more sleeping on our bed or on the sofa. He is less than impressed!

MACINTOSH MONTHLY

This month's Macintosh Monthly is actually quite a sad one, albeit a little odd. Saturday evening Andrew and I decided that Macintosh was rather stinky and needed a bath. There's nothing unusual about that, it happens every so often. The actual bathing process was the same as always. There was a fair bit of cajoling and holding onto him to ensure he endured the full bath experience. As usual when he got out of the bath he shook himself off and covered us in water before proceeding to rub himself all over the lounge and do a bit of preening himself. See the photos below. 

Intermittently he would have a good old shake to remove more of the water and this is where the sad bit occurred. We didn't notice anything unusual until the Sunday morning when we realised his tail was bent. It turns out he had got 'Beagle tail'. Apparently after a bath (or swim) beagles sometimes shake themselves so violently that they give their tails whiplash! This means they can hold only the first inch or so of their tail up and the rest droops down. It usually resolves itself within a few days, but until then their poor tails are rather painful, especially when shaken. 

Those of you who see Macintosh photos regularly will note that his tail is always so straight and pronounced, its really odd to see it all droopy. Naturally I took photos to show you all, that was the responsible thing to do! 

Poor old Macintosh, hopefully his next bath time will be less eventful!
H

#PARENTS ON TOUR - GRAND CANYON EDITION

The Grand Canyon. I really don't think I'm going to be able to put into words just how majestic this place was. We had two days to explore it and the nearby town of Williams, but I feel like we could have spent weeks at the canyon and still not seen all there was to see. I have to admit it does look slightly fake at first, just because you can barely take in the sheer size and scale of it. 

The first day we were there we started off at the visitors centre of the South Rim and walked along the canyon rim trail. We didn't go as far as we had anticipated but there was a lot of stopping to take photos and the icy conditions made you a little more cautious, especially as there wasn't a lot between you and the edge of the canyon!  

Day two we did more of the Canyon, but from the other end of the South rim, so that we could see the Desert watchtower. Then we spent the rest of the day in Williams looking round the famous route 66 town. There wasn't a lot to do there as most of it was shut up for the winter so we didn't spend long there. We did eat (for the second time) at an amazing little Italian bistro which had a brewery attached. The food was insanely good. 

And of course no trip would be complete without a bear...

There you have it, the Grand Canyon in one blog post. If you ever get the chance to visit it you really should. It's breathtaking. 
H 

LATELY...

Below are some of the pins that I have added to my various Pinterest boards. They all have captured my eye for a variety of different reasons. There's no theme between them this month. Just throwing it all out there. 

My flower obsession has not diminished in the slightest. My Pinterest is still filling up at a rapid rate with pins of a variety of bouquets and floral arrangements. I think I might need to take a floristry course at some point. I think it would be insanely fun. In fact, my day dreams about owning a bookstore now involve a florists in there too. I think books and flowers go very well together actually. 

With this bouquet its something about the pale colour tones. They are so gentle and delicate. The moody backdrop colour probably helps with their beauty as it provides a good contrast. Such a shame our climate kills bouquets before they have a chance to be enjoyed. 

This house is majestic. I never thought I'd like three story houses, until my parents bought one. Now I find myself secretly wanting one. Well alongside my country cottage! I like the formal-ness of this house though. Makes me feel like it should be painted in dramatic and possibly moody colours, from the Farrow and Ball collection obviously darling!

Bears had to feature somewhere obviously. I love this piece of artwork so much. I think that's really all I need to say about that. 

My love of cycling is slowly increasing, much to the amusement and happiness of my husband. However I'm finding that I am much better at watching the sport than actually participating in it. This is rather frustrating as I have a lot of perfectionist tendencies and I can't bear not to be good at something. Andrew sent me this pin as inspiration and also a reminder to just carry on. 

That photo is from the California coast line. Its up near Big Sur. As the weather has been warming up nicely I can hear the coast calling our name. Perhaps a trip up the iconic Pacific Highway is in order. Stay tuned, you never know!

H 

#PARENTS ON TOUR - HOOVER DAM EDITION

Whilst my parents were here we undertook a rather long road trip, about 7 hours to be precise. Our destination was the Grand Canyon in Arizona but on the way there we decided to take a detour via the Hoover Dam. The dam itself is built on the border between Nevada and Arizona so it was an excellent way to ensure Mum and Dad properly visited the two states. 

The Hoover Dam was built in the 1930s and is one of the largest concrete structures ever. As my Dad is a civil engineer by trade, and a rather big fan of concrete  we assumed this would be a good stop off. I was expecting him to be rather excited but to be somewhat underwhelmed myself as funnily enough I've never been that impressed by concrete! I couldn't have been more wrong. 

We arrived at the the dam having driven past Las Vegas and we drove over the top of the dam to park on the Arizona side.We then walked back across the dam so that we could see it from all sides and angles. 

Dad and Andrew decided to take a tour of the power plant, however Mum and I were not so sure about it as there were signs warning you not to go on the tour if you were worried about small spaces. Not wanting to chance it we had ice cream in the sun, whilst the boys went about their geekery!

I love those photos, they make me think of those government adverts where you see people in their work place talking about pensions or how the new working wage is helping them. Sorry, my brain thinks weirdly!

Once we had seen everything it was time to hit the road again for another 4ish hours until we arrived at our final destination; the Grand Canyon. 
H