Poolfoot Field

Finally after nearly 2 year the fencing has been removed from the field opposite our house!

This is the view we used to have from the front of our house, it used to be a farm many moons ago,long before i lived here, but Paul remembers it as he grew up just round the corner.

The area we live in was once a industrial area and our house was one of the workers cottages and it was thriving area with sports and social clubs, shops everything really for the people that worked and lived here. But when ICI started closing down and finally finished completely 30 years ago, the houses were sold off the sports areas sold and new housing estates built on them and the old farm field which were sold along with the land was left untouched, Although as you can see below it was an amazing view, it became a dumping ground for fly tippers and the area around it was generally a mess, the field would flood in winter  and was never cleaned up or maintained in any way.  Planning permission was granted to build houses on part of the field but they never sold it to a builder not sure why. So then 2 year ago planning permission was granted to build a huge Football Training Ground with 18 Pitches and a sports Centre for Fleetwood Town Football Club. After viewing the plans i was all for it and actually when to the planning committee meeting and spoke of my support for it. As it was just land that was looking a mess generally and i am really not a fan of new housing estates especially not opposite me a football ground would be great, it would be great for the children as half the pitches are for community use and the local clubs. Plus it would be maintained and be a good investment in the area and crucially keep it GREEN!

So the fences went up 

And the diggers arrived!

The boys have been in there element watching all the diggers and machines and i have to say its been fascinating to watch how they have gone about leveling all the pitches. On the other side they dug upall the soil and dumped it in a huge pile, which that would drive to the top of to they could add to the pile, it got that steep i was convinced one of them would topple off

But now its all done the sports center is open and has a bar and grill in it, Alex Ferguson came to cut the ribbon,

and this weekend its been in full use with 80 teams from all over the uk competing against each other. Its been nice to watch,and the best bit is i will never have to be one of those mums freezing at the side of the pitch.... i can watch from the comfort of my own home!

Sunny Days

The other weekend the weather was glorious, i had known it would be sunny but just didn't expect it to get that hot, it was fantastic to sit out and enjoy it.

For Ewans birthday a few weeks ago we had bought a large 6 person tent. The idea was for him to have a sleepover in the garden party with his friends, well that was part of the reason. Recently all the party's Ewan has been going to have been sleep over party's and that is what he wanted, but i wanted to do something a bit different. Also i have been trying to convince Paul to get a tent so we could maybe go camping in the summer, so it was a good excuse to get a tent and once i had told Ewan the party plans he was excited. I have to admit i am most probably not a camping person but i know the kids would love it and if we just book the odd night here and there when we know the weather will be good, it might just be fun! I have visions of being sat with a nice fruity cider, crocheting on a warm summers evening outside our tent after cooking something  wonderful on the little stove and the kids playing nicely. So we have the tent now, however due to Ewan being at camp and the Gala exhibition we decided to wait till half term to have his party,but as the weather was so nice i thought it would be an idea to have a go at setting up the tent. It was quite easy really and the kids enjoyed playing in it.

It was a lot bigger than i had thought, its got three sleeping compartments that each fit a blow up double mattress and a big area in the middle that we can stand up in and walk around. We could only fit it one way in the garden and even then it wasn't stretched out to its full width.

I did sit out and do some crochet

Andwe used our camping table and chairs to have a BBQ

We built a fire pit but didn't get to light it and anyway it would probably need more wood than the kids collected up

Over the week the weather was just as good and we got to play out a lot

Even a little paddle!

Hope it stays this nice

Thornton Cleveleys Gala Exhibition & At Home Party

A few weeks ago now we had the Gala exhibition. The gala is in its 117th year this year and its only just over 4 weeks away now! ahh

I have been super busy with everything,its takes so much organisation and most of that is the councils red tape!

The exhibition was so that people could sees some of the memorabilia we have and so we could document the galas history for the future. 

I can't take credit for all the displays they were done by one of the committee members, who did an amazing job of putting it all together.

We had display boards with pictures for different years and all the old trophies, some dating back to the twenty's that were still being used up till 1996

These are the traynes we still have

Another ofour committee members has been involves since she was two and she is now 60.

She had so many memories to share

We had lots of visitors and gained a few new members

After the exhibition which lasted two days we had our Queens at home party which is where we invite Queens and retinues from other galas and we present the Queens and retinue with presents. This time we chose Small engraved silver salvers as keepsakes of there time in the gala.

Its was lots of fun and very busy

The Queen & Princess had cakes representing the themes they had chosen

My kids certainly enjoyed it all

Princess Emilie presented me with a medal which had been engraved with "Chairlady Emma" on the back

During the exhibition people brought in there memorabilia to add to the display and one lady brought some old Page boy costumes which i let Fred try on, he looked so cute and has been asking to wear them ever since! He is looking forward to being in this years retinue

Finally i have my Laptop back!

I haven't posted for a few weeks and the main reason has been a child related laptop dysfunction or in English, one of the little kids poured a glass of orange juice over it!!!! I am not sure which one but they were watching teletubbies on you tube and Fred brought it to me in the lounge saying it had finished so i closed the laptop and put it on the couch next to me, a bit later on i put it back on the desk to charge and noticed that the side on my leg and the couch was really wet, later on when Paul tried to use it it wouldn't work and that was the "flash to bang" moment.. the water had come from the laptop!. So we tried to dry it out over night but it still didn't work, so with not really having the money at the moment to buy a new laptop i called the insurance company to see if it would be covered and it was, but we did have to pay £100 excess, but i figured that was cheaper than buying a new one, My main worry was the data on the hard drive, all the gala files are on it and over the previous few weeks i had been really busy creating posters and saving all the forms and traffic plans etc for the parade. We do have a hard drive that we back everything up on but that last time we did it was Christmas,photos were not a problem as we still had them on our phones and sd cards. The one thing i have learn't from all this is to back things up at least every week or after i have been busy doing work on it and i think from now on i will save all the gala things to the One Drive as well, i am not taking any chances in future!. So the insurance company came and collected it and said it will either be repaired or replaced and a week after they collected it they contacted me to say it had been repaired which is good in one respect as all my hard work has been saved and the laptop has been returned complete with everything on it, on the other hand only the keyboard needed to be replaced so it would have been cheaper to do it ourselves. But all in all i am relieved to have it back, as good as my new phone is i have missed my laptop as its far easier for what i need to do.

So what have we been up to? well i have to say i wouldn't have found much time to blog or use the laptop as its been manic, we have had so much on, i will write other posts on the events that we have been to later, but we have had time to have a few little visits to the park on the few sunny days we have had, i was completely shocked to wake up one morning to what looked like snow but was really large hail stones all over the garden, not really what you expect at this time of the year.

I took this picture at Mollys school, they have a pond and this nice little wildlife area, you can just about see the hail like snow on the path.

Fred with his bow and arrow!, i have been taking the little ones with my mum to creepy crawlies,its a play area in the local sports centre, they have a bouncy castle and lots of toys for the kids to play with,its been closed for a few years whilst the sports centre had a major revamp, but i used to go all the time when Ewan and Molly were small. But anyway, one kid had a bow and arrow from poundland and all the boys were fighting over itso i promised Fred i would get him one and he was very happy with it, but it was a bit of a mistake as he used Alex as a moving target till it broke!!

We spent some time in the garden and as the kids have emptied out there sand pit i filled it with water and bubbles for them to play in but really should have realised they would stand in it... with there shoes on! i never learn

On the cold days they were happy to make forts with the couch cushions, or play trains Ali loves sitting in the carriage

Ewan had his 10th birthday the other week,after much debate we decided to get his own phone, i am not keen on kids his age having phones,but he plays out now all the time so its good to be able to get hold of him with out bundling up all the kids to go fetch him and he enjoys playing games on it but we have a deal that it stays downstairs so he can't stay up all night on it and we know what he is up to on it. For his party this year he wanted a sleepover with his friends as thats what a few of them have done, but we decided to go one better and have a camp out in the garden, however as he was at cub camp that weekend we decided to have it in the next holidays and he is happy with that, so i bought him a little cake for the day and will make him one for his party 

Ewans first proper cub camp,trust him to have his joggers on, apparently his cub trousers got wet on a hike, but he had great fun and it was nice to have a drive up to Waddicar to drop him off and collect him

As we have had lots of Gala things going on Molly and Fred have been playing "gala" a lot, they both love dressing up!

Its nice to have the computer back and i have missed blogging x