Rocking Your World Friday weeks 32 & 33

Oops I missed a week again – it seems like “Rockin Your World Every Other Friday” is more my natural rhythm

There’s plenty to catch up on as lots of things have put a smile on my face this fortnight, so I’d best get cracking!

First of all – I’m happy that we finally gave up waiting for the weather to improve before heading out into the countryside, and instead we just put our raincoats on and went for it

We started our walk around Avebury the Sunday before last in the pouring rain, but it was still thoroughly enjoyable.  And by the time we were done, the sun was shining, it was lovely and warm, and we had made a fantastic discovery - a huuuuuge crop circle!

I've never seen one in the flesh before - it made my day!

Here's what it looks like from the air (not that we had a light aircraft handy, this photo comes to you courtesy of Mr Google :) )

A few days later I had a day off work to spend with my 10 year old son.  I try to take at least one day off per week during the school holidays so we can do things together.  They are our "mummy-Connor days" and they absolutely do rock my world :)

We were up bright and early and drove up to Warwickshire to the art gallery at Compton Verney.  In fact we were so bright and early the place wasn't open yet and we had to sit on a bench outside for 20 minutes.

It's a gorgeous place, an 18th century mansion set in Capability Brown-designed grounds.  We spent a couple of hours exploring the gardens before we went into the gallery.  There are all sorts of organic artworks throughout the grounds, this one was my favourite, like a web, or a cocoon.

Inside the gallery we had a delicious (if rather pricey!) lunch, and then they gave Connor a backpack full of activities to do in all of the gallery sections, which kept him amused while I checked out the art.

And we also found dress up clothes, always fun :)

and Connor made some bat wings in the arts/crafts room while I made a Jacob's Ladder

After Compton Verney we went to visit my best friend Alison and her hubby Malc, I don't get to see them anywhere near enough, but as usual we picked up where we left off like it had only been 5 minutes....

BFFs :)

And she gave me a "punk princess" manicure, which was rather fabulous :D

And there was much Olympic themed fun all round :)

We didn't get home that night until gone midnight, having left the house before 8am, a long day but such a good one!






The next weekend we were back out in the countryside again, not in the rain this time as it was a nice dry day.  We went geocaching out near Broad Hinton, battling the nettles, and woohoo, we found our 500th cache!!!!  Go us!!  That's a milestone that's been over 4 years in the making, I knew we'd get there in the end :)

Here's Jay celebrating our achievement












And here are the kids doing an excellent impression of the children of the corn :)

Another ace day followed - it started with an unexpected photo opportunity at Tesco of all places - Connor and I popped in there to pick up some bits for lunch, and there were two of Swindon's Olympic torch bearers complete with torches.  It was so cool to get our piccies taken holding the torches!

Then in the afternoon we went to a little festival at the local skate park, which was fantastic.  There were BMXers, skateboarders, jugglers, slackliners, graffiti artists, all doing their thing, all very inspiring to watch in action, and fun to photograph too:

And if all that wasn't fab enough, in the evening my local roller derby girls put on a demonstration bout for the  assembled skaters and BMXers, and I got to take photos of that too.  My camera had a busy day!

And that brings us neatly to this week, which rocked more than usual as I only had to work for 4 days of it :)

Today (Friday) I had a day off so that I could head over to Bristol to visit my middle son, always a treat.

First we headed to the Royal West of England Academy in Clifton to see their current exhibition "Unnatural Natural History", which was excellent.  Some of our favourites from the show:

Loved these cow heads, like space hoppers :)  it's rare to see unusual taxidermy like this

Childish, moi? :D

He had a nice bum too :)  And I like the writing on the wall.

Next we had lunch at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen - not cheap but worth every penny - so delicious!

And then we headed over to the See No Evil street art festival, to see this year's artists in action and all the amazing artwork already completed.  And we got interviewed for local radio too which was fun :)

by Conor Harrington

Nick Walker in front, can't remember who did the one in the back

Pixel Pancho

Roa

Nychos and Flying fortress

Phew, that wraps up another busy fortnight, and next week will be even more so as we're off to Cornwall for our family holiday - woohoo!!  I'll catch up with you lot when I get back

In the meantime, keep on rockin'!