Grand Day out

For our second day out we went to the spectacular Stonyhurst College. Nestled in the Trough of Bowland this private school has quite a history and includes in its former pupils Charles Laughton, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and MP's friend Phil. The former Jesuit college now opens for a few days a year to the public where organised tours take you around the college from the original building to the wonderful gardens. As a 'religous' school it has the most fabulous chapels within.

one of the stunning chapels

the other chapel (bit blurred sorry, no flash allowed and shaky hands)

For £6 each the tour was well worth it, shame it was such an awful day or a wander around the gardens to the observatory (yes it has its own for students who want to do astronomy) would have capped it off nicely.

The school houses some fabulous works of art, a real life mummy and artefacts from around the world donated by former pupils. It also has 7 huge portraits of it's 7 pupils who received the Victoria Cross in a spectacular dining room. Being a huge Sherlock Holmes fan I couldn't not take a photo of the desk from the study hall which Arthur Conan Doyle carved his name in. Can you spot it in the photo below?

The other bit of non crafting news is ...... I have a nice new car. My lovely Mazda 3 was becoming problematic (not good for a 6 year old car) and despite several trips to the Mazda garage some serious fumes coming from the engine were making my asthma bad, so after much research by MP we bought a lovely Kia Sportage and I am very happy with it.

Isn't it lush.

We also had a visit from MP's brother Dan and his wife Annette. Dan and Annette got married last year on our wedding anniversary but unfortunately MP couldn't get time off work for us to go. Having missed them last year when they stopped off in London on their way to Africa for their honeymoon we managed to see them this year on a tour of Europe. Not being organised and feeling a bit off colour with the start of a cold I didn't get a photo of them for the album so I have pinched one Dan put on Facebook for the two of them at the top of Snowdonia (and yes, they did climb it but boy was Dan in pain the next day).

Back soon with some photos of the She Art girls I have done x