Day: February 4, 2008

Blog stats – how wonderful!

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I was wondering if anyone was ever reading this blog apart from my relatives and a few friends who I know have left comments (thank you very much) when someone mentioned that there may be blog stats showing how many times the pages have been viewed.

Well not only are there overall number of views (281 at last count – thank you everyone for stopping by!) but details of how many times each post and page has been viewed and when which is very useful. I seem to be getting quite a few hits from people searching for info on medieval stuff so if you are one of those please feel free to ask me any questions through the comments. I am not an expert but know a lot of very talented and knowledgeable people who can usually help with queries. Also let me know if there are any more photos you want to see . Meanwhile if you stop by do leave a comment (yes that means you as well Mum!) – I am guilty of reading blogs for years without doing that but I do now as I know it gives the blog owner a warm fuzzy glow!

I have also changed the blog header – this is a piece of 15th century beadwork that I found on the web – have no more info on the source than that. Have decided to change the header every so often to share with you my large collection of beautiful embroidery pics. Am also attempting to add some other things to the blog – having some trouble but will persevere!

Centerparks holiday

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We spent last weekend at Centerparks in Nottinghamshire. For those of you outside the UK or who have never been Centerparks are forest holiday resorts where you can do lots of cycling and all sorts of sports. I have been going regularly for a girls weekend away and we used to take the family once a year but neither things have happened for a few years. However last October we reinstated the girls weekend away and partly because of guilt over that and partly as I wanted something to look forward to in awful Jan I booked a holiday for all of us.

The weather was really good , dry and sunny which was quite amazing considering the previous Monday there had been all the floods. Interestingly that Monday (Jan 21st) is apparently the most depressing day of the year according to some psychologist’s research.

Anyway we had a lovely time cycling, canoeing, boating, swimming, badminton, Pilates, Ellen’s first Spa Experience (now she is 16 and an adult she can do all these wonderful things!) and going on the rapids.

I am not very good with wild water rides but did pluck up the courage to go one time but ended up underwater a bit too much for my liking. I am still testing myself out for the white water rafting as we are having a training weekend in April with the Project Nepal group to do a practise raft and trek and I would like to go on that even if I don’t do the full thing in Nepal.

I would actually have tried again the next day as since I did not drown the first time so was not really likely to the second time when I knew what to expect but it was really packed and there were lots of people landing on other people’s heads. I did pluck up the courage to go down a long covered tube water slide on my own which I thought was good as it was in the dark and quite fast! The fact that there were babies and toddlers going on with their parents gave me courage and I enjoyed it so much I went on four times. There is hope for me yet!

Below are some pics including a couple of all the cute animals I was feeding all weekend – I chose a villa next to the water so that I could feed all the wildlife.