Monument

Last week's pleasing photo is not particularly pleasing... it's ok, but it was taken with my iPhone. My time last week was mainly taken up with going on the Year 5 Residential then being ill, which is my excuse for pretty much everything.

Ashridge Monument

And another couple of photos showing what me and Noah got up to over the weekend (with me feeling steadily more queasy...)

Our first trip to an English Taco Bell!

Noah feeding Marmite Marmite. She didn't like it.

Marmite on the Sofa

This is my Pleasing Photo from two weeks ago (29th April). It's of our new cat, Marmite (who was much newer when the photo was taken!)

She's a very tricky cat to photograph (or is that just all cats?!) so I can see that I'm going to have to build up my skills before I get any really good snaps of her (although I like this one ok). She's very curious, but also extremely nervous... the phrase 'scaredy cat' springs to mind frequently, particularly when she scarpers upstairs at full speed just because somebody sneezes. She'll come over to be stroked but never for very long; hates being picked up; loves it when Noah plays laser pointer with her and has sat on my lap (or rather, on a cushion on my lap) only twice (both occasions involving considerable persistence on my part). She miaows a lot and has extremely soft fur. On the whole, we like having a cat :)

Family Photo Shoot

It was pretty hard to select a single Pleasing Photo from all the family mugshots I took at our meet-up for Mum's birthday last weekend. But eventually I selected this shot of my littlest brother:

Some other fun photos from Saturday:

Which brother looks shiftiest?

Noah's handiwork :)

Two Pleasing Photos

Because our holiday in Snowdonia (woohoo!) followed by a busy Easter weekend leaves me a little behind with this photo-posting challenge... but the photos were taken in the relevant weeks, so I still feel more or less on track.

Firstly, taken on Saturday 31st March at perhaps the best-loved day trip destination from when the Sutcliffes lived in Cannock...

A further clue to our destination may be found in the additional photos below.

Secondly, taken in a village (does it count as a village?) we never actually visited, despite staying nearby on holiday...

Portmeirion was certainly an interesting place to visit. We both liked the way that the architect fitted the buildings into the natural setting - some of them really looked like they were growing out of the rocks. Except, of course, that everything is painted an exciting colour. Fun!

A few other contenders for the last two PP titles:

It was, of course, Stokesay Castle

Taken at Portmeirion again

Noah was delighted with Caernarfon Castle.

Isn't he sweet?

Noah calls this "A classic Kate photo'

Neolithic burial mound on Angelsey!

Looking from Beaumaris to the snow-capped peaks on the mainland

New Boots and the John Bunyan

Noah's got new boots!

Noah (in the new boots), staring up at one of England's famously ginormous trees...

This is ahead of our Easter holiday trip to Snowdonia, about which we are both very excited. So of course, on Saturday, we had to go for a walk to break them in. It had to be quite a short walk because we didn't get to set off until about 4pm, but it turned out to be a very enjoyable one. We drove to Marford Road and had a stroll down to Coleman Green, where the John Bunyan (so named because that prestigious gentleman once stayed the night in a nearby cottage, of which only the chimney remains!) offers a pleasingly wide range of vegetarian food in the midst of a quite astonishing selection of willow pattern plates and Toby jugs.

Near the beginning of the walk

PP#12: Rusty Gate

Sunset through a (different) gate

Pathfinders Weekend

So this post is a whole week late... well, life's a busy thing sometimes. I did take this photo on Pathfinders Weekend, an exciting excursion for our 11 to 14 year-olds to long-established scouting centre Gilwell Park. I took many more photos, of course (though Noah took even more than I did), but as most of them had young'uns in the frame I thought I'd better not use any on my blog. To be honest it was raining most of the time, so the pictures didn't come out great. I like this one, though, of the prayer room we set up on Saturday evening. Illooms are quite literally brilliant!

Pleasing Photo #11: Prayer Room

Lollipop Tree

PP#10: Lollipop Tree

Yesterday was Anna and Matt's wedding. Noah and I arrived a little flustered, only a few minutes before the start of the service, bearing the fruit of the morning's labour: a caramel mud cake, iced after the fashion of a five-year-old with a white chocolate ganache simultaneously too runny and hideously lumpy.

I enjoyed attending an entire service with my husband; it was something of a novelty that he didn't have to stand up or give an announcement or preach a sermon or run a youth group even once during the service! We held hands and enjoyed the ceremony, in many ways reminiscent of our own nuptials now almost a whole year ago! We should really think about taking down that "Just Married" banner sometime soon...

The party after the service was rather good too. There was a lot of cake, and then, because they felt we'd probably had enough cake by the time we got round to the speeches, they gave us ice cream. Yum! And the heavily laden cake table gave me the opportunity to snap this week's Pleasing Photo of the Lollipop Tree, seen above. A fun wedding!

Not as fun as ours, of course.

I was gratified to see that, despite the lumpy ganache, my cake was gone within minutes of the guests entering the large hall. Perhaps something to do with its judiciously central placement on the table...

Oh, and for an added bonus, here's a photo Noah took of me enjoying one of the lollipops*.

Kate enjoying the fruit of the Lollipop Tree

*Yes, I agree, it's better than the PP. But I didn't take it!!