Exploring the Cow & Calf Rock, Ilkley

A few weekends ago Dixon, Eva and me made the trip to Ilkley! Its only 20minutes away but I've only been once before! This time we decided to make the short hike up to the Cow & Calf rocks. I read some walking directions before we set off which listed it as "easy", when we got there I realised the directions I had chosen started from the top of the climb. Ooops. The walk was tiiierrring, it was super steep! It was warm and I was dying haha, but I was proud of myself for making it to the top.

The climb was totally worth it, the view was incredible! It made me a little sad that I have lived so close by and never been before. We climbed right on top of the calf rock and it was covered in carvings people had made of their names, years they visited, hearts and where they were from. I found some from 1902! It was super interesting reading them all, I wish I had taken more photos of them.

We explored the moors a little bit too. Little ponds and some seriously beautiful trees. I got a couple of pinecones for my collection. I want to go back and have a serious explore next time. There are more cool rocks further in that I would really love to visit. Next time I'll probably tie by hair back... can you tell how windy it was?! My hair was basically one huge dread by the time we got down.

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The Hepworth Print Fair.

Recently I have really gotten into print-making! Textiles mainly but also lino cutting, stencils, stamp making and screen printing. I’m having an awesome time learning and playing around with different techniques. Sooo, when my friend decided to go to a print fair as part of her birthday trip I was extremely excited!

The print fair was in the Hepworth Gallery which is in Wakefield, a short train ride from Leeds. I’ve never been before and, seeing as one of my 2015 goals was to visit more galleries and museums, it was perfect. The Hepworth is in kind of a weird place, closely surrounded my busy roads but nestled on the river Calder where it is surprisingly tranquil. We went into this amazing warehouse room, separate from the main gallery, where the fair was held and it was packed with stalls!

I was secretly hoping to find some hand-printed fabric so I was kind of disappointed that the only fabric there was already made into things; cushions, bags, purses etc. But, there was a super wide range of stuff up for sale; beautiful framed prints, tea towels, totes (the best!), some zines, some candels, badges, notepads, cards. Some of favourite things were from Laura Slater who I’ve admired online for a while; she does these super simple abstract patterns which I really love! But I forgot to make a note of a lot of the names of the artists, which was pretty stupid.

The whole fair was great. It’s so nice to actually see things in real life rather than just on an online store. You really can’t appreciate how beautifully made things are without seeing them in the flesh. I’ll definitely be keeping my eyes out for more like this, and hopefully I’ll actually buy something next time.

I absolutely loved this pop up 'window box' from Rachel Sim ^^

 vv Kind of sad I didn't get the 'Fight like a Girl' print! vv

vv How cute are the hanging birds! I didn't catch who made them anyone know!?

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Beacons.

Last weekend Dixon and me packed up and headed for the hills of Skipton, and Beacons festival. I've been to a couple of festivals before, but I've never actually camped at one! I was unbelievable excited to camp. Even if we were expected to get the tail end of Hurricane Bertha at some point during the weekend and I didn't really know how to pack for that. As far as festivals go, it was pretty chilled out for us! Being able to get a coffee on the morning from my favourite espresso bar, lunch from my favourite Indian street Kitchen and a beer from my favourite local brewery was unbelievable. Pretty much every band I wanted to see was on the Sunday, which kind of sucked because that was the day we needed to leave and the day the storm came... It got extremely wet and my wellies were definitely not water-tight. Thankfully, most of the stages were under-roof! Hopefully we'll be going back next year and the weather will be a little better. I can't wait to explore the hills around the festival site and spend more time in Skipton (that place is beautiful!).

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Langsett Reservoir on Film.

Last weekend Dixon and me jumped on a train with the pup to visit my parents. We met up with my brothers, their fiancees and their pups and all went for a walk around Langsett reservoir. I've been super excited for Eva to meet up with their dogs for ages, I was so happy that they got along so well. She was running around and having the best time with them.

I completely forgot to pack my dslr which bummed me out, but I had my new Split Camera with me which worked out perfectly as I got through a full roll in the couple of hours we were there. I really need to learn to be less precious with film, especially when using a camera for the first time. Anyway, Langsett Reservoir is so beautiful. I have never been before and even though it was super windy, dull (as you'll see in the photos) and pretty rainy I was blown away. We saw toads, Lapwings and Red Grouse! So I was pretty happy.

And the photos themselves, okay, they could have been brighter (but on a dull day with expired film, I didn't expect much colour) but I got some pretty nice prints! I love the ghosty look of some of them and how in some you can't tell where trees start or finish. I forgot to take the second shot on a couple so they just had a black bar on them and a couple were blurred, but lesson learnt! Can't wait to give it another try on a brighter day. Here are my favourites:

 // Camera- Split-Cam // Film used- Fujifilm: Superia 200 Exp. 2006 //

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Newmillerdam trip.

This weekend Dixon and me went to visit my parents who were hosting a little party, whilst on the train there we decided to get off one stop early and walk down to a place I used to visit all the time when I was really young; Newmillerdam. 

I only just found out now that the lake and park is called Anglers Country Park, and Newmillerdam is the name of the village its in, the village is beautiful! I want to buy all the houses. The village is named so because of the grain mill that was powered by the lake. Its a really cute little fort-like building on the side of the water (which I didn't actually get any photos of, but you can see then on its wikipeadia page). The lake is huge, and surrounded by a forest, which we explored too.

When I was young we used to go bird watching here, but there wasn't actually too many varieties of birds this time, a lot of geese (A LOT), mallards, a robin that followed us the whole way round and some crazy gull that was making the weirdest noises, it cracked me up! I really wish I'd gotten a video now thinking back, I think it was either a Black-Headed Gull or a little Gull. You can see him on the left of this photo of me, can you tell i'm trying my hardest not to laugh? And of course, I had to wear my duck dress again.

I went to take photos of the rings on this tree stump, and found it had loads of coins stuck into it! Some of them looked realold. I wish we had put one in there too.

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After our walk, we went for a couple of drinks and then over to my parents. We were both completely worn out for the party, but I had an amazing time. Hope you all had an awesome weekend!