My little corner of the world

Today I was able to show off my lovely little corner of the world.  Rosie - one of my lovely bloggy friends that I have met up with before had expressed an interest in coming to see the village and big house in Wentworth - so I offered to play tour guide for the day.  Rosie and husband/chauffeur/expert Pizza maker  Paul arrived mid morning in the corner of the car park - as arranged.

 After a picnic start, we headed straight down to the big house.

 They were quite impressed by its size - but I explained that this was actually just the stable block!

 Just around the corner, tucked out of the way is the great house itself - Wentworth Woodhouse.

 I won't go into detail about it as I have brought you here many times before - but never on such a hot day!

 We ventured down to look at 2 of the 4 lakes,

 By this time we were getting extremely hot!

 After a walk back through the village, we found a cool refuge in the old church - which is now disused, but open on Sundays now throughout the summer.

 and then we wandered into the newer church

 Before heading back to the ornamental gardens at the garden centre.  Here's Rosie emerging from the bear pit!

 The light in the gardens was beautiful and lit up the gorgeous acer trees.

I had a wonderful day.  We walked and chatted and had ice cream, tea, enormous cream scones.  I think we took about a 1000 photographs between us! I hope you enjoyed it both of you, and I hope your arms are not too sore Rosie - they looked really red when you left!

He writes the songs that make the whole world sing.

And so on Saturday morning my sister and I boarded a train and travelled across the Pennines to Manchester.  We checked into our very swish boutique hotel, and then hit the town for a spot of sight seeing, shopping and lunch.

 You cannot beat a decent northern Town Hall for architectural Splendour.  They rival any Cathedral in England or France.

 They were built when northern towns and cities were showing off there prosperity.

 Although it was a grey day, we were thankful that there was no rain!
We decided to wander through Harvey Nics, where we stroked Jimmy Choo and Laboutin shoes, but had more real interest in the cafe!
The tasting boxes were indeed incredibly tasty

 And I think a bottle of Prosecco on a Saturday afternoon might become "a thing"!!

 Cheers!!  I must be tiddly to post a photo of myself!

 All too soon it was time to dash back to the hotel via the very Disneyesque Printworks

 Where the bunting is hung in profusion.

 After a quick freshen up and into our glad rags, we hot footed it to Manchester Arena

 Where with several hundred other "Fanilows" we sung and danced and cried our eyes out with the lovely lovely man himself..

 (Barry Manilow Michela - you may have to ask your Mum!)  We had great seats, but we were up and dancing with every one else.  He was just magic.

 You know that when I was 15, I used to listen to Radio Luxembourg under my pillow at night - just to hear "Mandy".  I also used to buy all his LP's as soon as they came out and rush home to play them over and over again until I had learned all the words.  I knew every word of every song he sang and I sang my heart out.  Thank you Barry for making me feel like a fifteen year old girl again.  And he said that he would be back, so it may not have been our last time together after all.

 And then on the way back to our hotel, who should we bump into but the Queen of England!

A totally and utterly brilliant night all together - and I reckon I shall be annoying everyone this week by singing my Manilow repertoire! And Lydia - who are "Take That"?

A date with an old flame

This weekend I am going to see an old flame.  I first fell in love with him when I was fifteen years old, and all though times have changed, we both have grown older, but my love for him has never waned.

Every time I see him, I think it might be the last, and I feel that more than ever this time - so I hope it will be very special.  I hope his recent hip replacement holds out when he gets a bit energetic!   I know that when I see and hear him, he will make me fall in love all over again, but then undoubtedly he will break my heart before we part.  There's no "could" about it, it "will" be magic.
You know I'll be telling you all when I get back.

Wendy Capri

Back in the early 1980's when I worked in the "proper office", we used to spend our lunch breaks busy knitting away.  If you came to work with us and you couldn't knit, you could by the time you left!  We found a fabulous and cheap supply of knitting cotton on Barnsley market - 2 lovely sisters who bought sub standard Wendy Wools from a local factory (when we used to have them!).  I would be despatched on Saturday mornings to bulk buy, and the divi up the wool on Monday morning - I knew how to motivate the girls!.

One of my colleagues wrote a fab pattern.  It was basically 2 pieces and you knitted the pieces up according to your preference, either 2 slash necks, 2 v necks (so you got a very lovely V back as well) or one of each.  Sleeves were added later when we knitted in mohair for winter.

We would start clicking the needles on Monday lunchtime and by Friday night we would have a new top to go out in!

I loved them, they were fabulous and cost around £1 to make at the time.  Oh those were the days. x

It takes two to tango

I have to report that our Tango workshop on Sunday was a great success.  Even Mr Heartshaped enjoyed himself and he now realises that he needs to be pushed out of his comfort zone more often!

 The event was part of a Sunday that was supposed to create a Parisian feel in the heart of Sheffield and was held in the huge ballroom underneath the City Hall - which is absolutely huge.

 You could pick certain elements of the day to attend and french style food was available throughout the day too.
I didn't get any photographs of us dancing unfortunately, but we did get the hang of it - sort of! The Tango is a fantastic dance.  It has no set choreography and is basically a walk driven by the man, who invites his female partner to respond to certain actions.  My favourite bit was being invited to "shine my shoe" on Mr H's trouser leg - very sexy! Except he moaned about it because of the buckle on my shoe!  I'd love to do proper lessons - something to bear in mind for our retirement years I think!

 We followed our workshop with a concert by a charming quintet.  The whole day was very very well attended.  A great day.

A dream come true

On Friday night, the young man had a dream come true.  He got to play basketball against the Sheffield Sharks in a charity match for the Yorkshire Air Ambulance - and he scored!! I think he will dine out on that for a while! The evening was fabulous.  There is something hilarious about Joe Public playing extremely fit professional sportsmen!

 The commentary throughout was hilarious and it was the best night out we had all had in ages - and 3 of us were girls who don't even like sport!  We do however each  have a "love interest" on the team.  Mine is my favourite Canadian - the very tall one stood next to the young man at the back!

Through a Fish Eye Lens

These are some of the photos that the Dancing Queen took on our night out (previous post) with her new Fish Eye Lens - I thought I would share.

In Sheffield, our trees are not green enough, and so at night we light them up green.

 You may or may not know that we have a fab tram system.

 Waiting for the proceedings to start!

 Escaping from the proceedings!

 Caught window shopping!  My family have an uncanny knack of getting me to the shops just as they close!

 I love this one.

 And this one too.

I think she had fun with her new lens - courtesy of ebay! (well she is my girl!)

For those that asked, the event was a "Pecha Kucha" event.  Speakers get to show 20 slides for 20 seconds each which is supposed to ensure that that the presentation is punchy and holds your interest.  Unfortunately on this occasion it didn't.  The event wasn't well organised.  It said on the ticket that it started at 7.30pm, but nothing happened until 8.30pm.  No one seemed to know what they were supposed to be doing. It was a shame as we had such high hopes for it.  The first speaker was from the Cathedral itself and what he had to say was intriguing, but he obviously hadn't rehearsed or timed his presentation (in fact none of them seemed to have).  However as my daughter pointed out - these were incredibly arty and creative people who don't normally do "organisation".  She was right.