Exmoor

Beautiful beach at Woolacombe. As you can see we went to Exmoor.

View from near Dunkery Beacon towards Minehead

This year's holiday was a little different for us in several ways. Firstly we left our son at home - he is 18 now, and was very definite that he did not want to come. Despite my worries, he has not starved and the house is still standing. Secondly, we very sucessfully took my daughter's friend with us, and thirdly it was Rosie's first holiday. 

We had to be careful not to do too much walking, as Rosie is still a puppy. But she absolutely loved some of the country and beach walks we did, as well as having a larger, wilder garden to spend time in. The cottage was dog-friendly, and she did not seem to mind being crated at night, as we could not completely trust that she would not start chewing. Here are just a few photos that give a flavour of our break.
 

Rosie had a great time in the garden

We toasted marshmallows later ...

Walk from Malmsmead, setting of R. D. Blackmore's novel Lorna Doone ....

These are some of the alpaca from the farm where I bought my alpaca wool

View of Dunkery Beacon, and an Exmoor pony

Top of Dunkery Beacon - highest point on Exmoor

Somebody else had made this for Rosie to sit by

Walking down from Dunkery

A caterpillar of an Emperor moth

The cottage where we stayed for the week

Poppy Shoes

Here is one of my holiday knits. When I am on holiday I usually like to knit a from my own patterns. I am away from my computer, so it is difficult to write anything new, and it gives me a good opportunity to see if I can make any improvements. 

Did I mention that my children said that I was not allowed to knit on the beach? I rather reluctantly agreed to this as part of the deal that on their part no electronic gadgets were allowed on the beach. Rather annoying as there is nothing nicer than sitting knitting on the beach, but I still had plenty of time to knit, especially on the car journey.

So here are some new baby shoes, from my Baby Bee Pattern, which is for sale on Craftsy and ravelry. There will be some more baby shoes with other flowers on the way. I try really hard to embroider them in a way that I have not done before, so anyone buying them has a truly unique gift. I thought a bold poppy would look great on this soft grey chenille wool (I know they look blue, but they really are grey) that I used for this pair, which will be heading off to my Etsy Shop as soon as I have made a little shoe bag to put them in.