A Birthday and a little Holiday

Things have been very busy chez Locket lately as Daisy has just had her 8th birthday and in true Lucy Locket style I set myself the challenge of making as many of her presents as possible although the finished number was less than I had originally intended.


To make things more complicated we had also arranged a mini-holiday in the Lake District to celebrate her birthday which meant that everything had to be ready before we could go - so I was still sewing on Monday morning while the children were waiting patiently in the car!


We finally managed to get away and drove to Keswick. The weather was gorgeous and we had a lovely picnic by Derwent Water


and the children played with fishing nets by the lake.
We then hired a rowing boat which was great fun - Daisy decided there were all sorts of Sea Monsters in the water trying to pull away her oars and some nice ones that were trying to help (the nicest is apparently called Humpalumpa (although now she is apparently called Aggie) who got lost when her family flew to the sea)


I'm not a photographer at all but I really like this picture of the Greylag geese with their goslings by the rowing boat moorings.


After rowing we had a mooch round Keswick town and found some fantastic books - especially in a little second hand bookshop - more about them in a later post

We stayed in the Travel Lodge at Cockermouth and woke up very early the next morning to open all Daisy's presents.

Here are some of the handmade ones

Dorothy had knitted her this beautiful little purse


and I managed to make her this Paddington Bear bag (as requested!)

with a matching t-shirt (Asda's best white t-shirt for 75p customised by me!)

(the back of the bag)

there was also a matching wallet and she already has a Paddington pencil roll and purse so I think she is well kitted out!

Daisy also requested a Mahoosive Dolly when she saw me making this one so I did as I was told

- this time using the girls' baby clothes that I have been keeping to make into something or other - the great thing is there is a whole garage full of more clothes so this dolly will never go short!

Here she is with her smaller big sister Jemima who I made for Dorothy's 3rd birthday (nearly 8 years ago!)

and of course she had to have breakfast with us!

then supper!

We spent Daisy's birthday in Windermere but it was incredibly busy and we were unable to get to see Hill Top Farm where Beatrix Potter once lived because of the queues. We did manage to get into The World of Beatrix Potter and Fred in particular loved it. We spent the night at a different Travel Lodge in Kendal and had a lovely meal at Pizza Express in town where they made a fuss of Daisy and sang happy birthday.

On the way home on Wednesday we visited my parents in Durham and had a lovely birthday tea - complete with the gorgeous "Daisy" cake at the top of this post!

So now I need to catch up with all your blogs, get on with some orders, send some more mini-quilts out and start making Fred's birthday presents as it is only 8 days until he is 6! No rest for the wicked!!!