A Selection of Holiday Pics

(Sit down with a cup of tea for this one, its a bit long)

I won't bore you with masses of blog posts about our recent holiday but I've just uploaded photos so I'll do a quick round up.

These are photos of Brussels.  We never got to the Grande Place and David discovered that where we were we missed quite a bit, but I think it was down to the lack of information and also the hot weather made us hot and bothered too.  So maybe worth another visit in cooler weather.

We did manage to see some sights so wasn't all wasted though.

Our trip to Maastricht for the Andre Rieu concert. Quite a show too, considering the orchestra and singers were performing in sweltering conditions, it was quite a humid night (at least it wasn't raining!).

I really liked the people dressed as going to the Masked Ball in Vienna and they came on stage before the performers and had some wonderful costumes.  There was also a brass band that played around the square before the performers arrived, but there were just too many people around so couldn't take many photos, which was a shame.

Our return on Eurostar to St Pancras in London we came across this enormous statue of a couple hugging each other called The Meeting Place, which is the collage below. Top left is a lovely bit of art which could almost be patchwork

Last week David and I went to Bristol and on the way stopped at the American Museum in Britain

We hadn't been here for a while and went to the Kaffe Fassett exhibition and were greeted with yarn bombed pieces outside the museum and a large tree decorated in plant pots covered in fabric and the lower branches had woollen pompoms. A few pics in the middle row above were just some of the quilts on display in the museum. A few Kaffe Fassett quilts were hanging in the stairwell and outside the exhibition hall were mosaic plant pots.  The American Museum has lovely gardens too and managed a short wander just before closing time.

Thursday saw us in Bristol along the waterfront to visit the M-Shed, a fascinating view of the city, its industry, history and people.  There was an addition exhibition of Wallace and Gromit, produced in Bristol by Aardman Animations.  It was a story of how the films are made, from ideas and storyboards up to the final film. Well worth seeing if you are in the area.  The waterfront too has some interesting sights around @ Bristol (the sphere is a Planetarium and nearby are water features) and also statues of famous people from Bristol dotted around.

I've given this next photo a collage of its own, the SS Great Britain, which returned to its home port of Bristol in 1970 and has undergone quite a lot of restoration.  We haven't seen this for years and were surprised by what we saw

It is in dry dock and one can go underneath the ship as there is a glass roof and a thin layer of water above which gave really interesting views of the ship, as you can see in the central picture looking up from the rudder to the back of the ship.  As you can see from the middle right it looks as though the anchor is taken under water, but in fact its the ripples of the water on the glass up above us.

We also took in a couple of railway trips too with a short visit to the East Somerset Railway before going to the American Museum and after our Bristol trip before heading home visited the diesel gala at the Gloucestershire and Warwickshire railway, but I haven't put any of those in this post unless its demanded by popular request!

Whoa, after all that we need a holiday to get over the holiday!  We seem to have fitted a lot in.


This week has been busy with agency interviews though if it leads to anything remains to be seen.  I've also caught up with friends so maybe as well I've not been working.  Tomorrow will see if I've caught up with my post earlier this month of the finishes I wanted to get done and my aims for August too.

Just a week to the Festival of Quilts - I'll be going next Friday and Saturday - anyone else going?