Back from Holiday

David and I went away on Sunday last week and returned on Friday evening, leaving the weekend clear for washing, shopping and other catch up bits before this week.

Our trip to St Ives was a slightly soggy one, being a lot of drizzle but we did have things to see on the way, like the tiny Launceston Steam Railway then on to Cowslip Workshops, who have a really wonderful restaurant.  The restaurant was serving Sunday lunches, but we resisted temptation and had quiches with salad, which was really yummy.

The small engine used to pull 2 open carriages

Cowslip workshop (the cream building) and the shop (to the left)

Baby birds nested just above the door of the shop

 The guest house we stayed at overlooked Porthmeor beach in St Ives, a lovely sandy stretch in front of the Tate gallery.  It was nice to watch out of our window at different times of the day.  Our first day was a foggy one with sea mist creeping in and out for most of the day, but we explored the town.  Our second day started off foggy so drove into Penzance, but then the fog cleared and we had 2 days of really wonderful sunny weather.

This was the view from our guest house.

We  had a visit to the Minack Theatre, not far from Penzance, built into the cliffs which provides a spectacular backdrop to plays held there.  There wasn't a play today, so we had time to have a wander and look at the lovely gardens there too.  There was a bonus of seeing a group of dolphins (albeit far away but the nearest I've got to seeing real dolphins).

View of the theatre across the bay

The concrete sets have the names of plays on the backs

Had to take a pic of David

Seats going up the hillside

And David took a photo of me

From the idyllic setting of the Minack, we went on to Sennen Cove just over a mile along the coastpath to Land's End.  Land's End itself is very tacky with touristy shops and touristy prices, but as we were that close, it had to be done.

On our way back to St Ives, David took me to Botallick Mines, the remains of tin mines that cling to the edge of the cliff.  Again another lovely place and very peaceful too.

More pics tomorrow as we took rather a lot!

Before I Go Away

Sounds as though I'm going to be away for ages, not just 5 days.  David and I are going to St Ives in Cornwall tomorrow (couldn't face travelling on Saturday - we know what the holiday traffic is like going through Dorset!) and staying at a B&B there.  The weather is not looking too bad, not much rain so - touch wood - we should be able to get out an about. 

I've finished my job at West Dorset so no more commuting to Dorchester, which is 25 miles each way, but it was a good job and nice people there so I will miss it.  But new challenge to come with new job and a longer contract too.  No more temping for a while, which is great. It's done me well over the past nearly 3 years when in Yorkshire and moving back to Dorset, but time to be more settled on the job front.

No photos to share this time but I'll make up for that on my return.  Might look at updating things here soon too.  Watch this space.

A Bit of Catching Up To Do

I've not updated the blog for a while so I have a few things to catch up with.

First off I have BIG NEWS - I have a job, not just a temp job through an agency but an employed job, two year contract and for a change it's 4 DAYS A WEEK and with my old employers in Poole - is that good or what!! Well I'm pleased and I start on 1st August just week after next.  It will be a shame to leave my current temp post in Dorchester but as time goes on I was beginning to dread driving there in winter and if I was transferred to Weymouth that would be an even longer journey, so I'm pleased to be working in Poole once again.  I finish at Dorchester on Friday and have a week's holiday next week.

Last Thursday evening David and I went to a Wimborne Model Railway social evening at the Moors Valley Railway.  This is a miniature railway that runs around the country park at Moors Valley near Ringwood.  A lovely evening with clear blue skies and the trains ran until it became dark with a lovely full moon. The trains are no more than about 3 foot high and some of the people driving these were squeezed into these little engines as you'll see in the photo below.

Rides were in carriages like this green one above

No, there wasn't a headless driver in this engine, he'd just bend his head over the other side of it!

We had four rides around the track, one in the dark and lots of ghostly wailings as we went through tunnels!

Saturday saw David and I go to an extremely damp Romsey to see the Romsey Quilters exhibition at the Abbey and the historic King John's House.  It was the last day of the exhibition and quite a lot to see between the two sites.  As the skies were dark the light was bad inside the Abbey so we could admire the quilts but as for taken photos it was just too dark although I managed a few but there are a few more on their exhibition page here.

The light must have been in the right place for this pink braided quilt

This was eight sections inspired by the roof of Madrid Cathedral

The alter with this really lovely green cloth

I just liked the rainbow colours in the Japanese Folded Quilt

In King John's House there were mainly children's quilts, but there was a challenge called "Beautiful Women" with quilted images on block canvas and the challenge did live up to it's name, these pictures were beautiful.  Here are a couple of photos here.

Finally, just to show that I have been sewing (as there hasn't been much evidence of that lately) I have completed a set of placemats and coasters from a kit that I bought from Bramble Patch last year.  I got around to hemming the binding to them all in the evenings, so nice that they are out of the way.

I had some of the strips left over so I made a zip bag with them which I think will go the the Put Em Ins tombola at Festival of Quilts this year.

Then yesterday I got on with some postcards for an Oriental Swap by the end of this month.  I only expected to get a couple done but I ended up making the whole lot!  I had already marked the patterns for sashiko so it was a relaxing afternoon handsewing.  After then the making up didn't take long to do.

And above are the backs of the postcards all ready to write greetings on.  It's great to have things finished of and that brings me right up to date.

Next Sunday we are off down to StIves in Cornwall and staying there for 5 days.  I haven't been that far southwest before, heard nice things now just want the weather to behave or stay dry at least.

Visit to Legoland

My grandson, Leo's birthday was yesterday and the start of the birthday celebrations started with a trip to Legoland on Thursday when my son Jamie has his day off.  He and his wife Carly already had tickets to go there, so David and I decided to join them followed by Sarah.  The day was very mixed weather wise going from heavy rain to brilliant sunshine by the end of the day but it didn't stop the enthusiasm.

So here are some pics

 That's us, no.....

That's us!!

Leo in the little driving school car

Jamie, Freddie and David

Freddie and Jamie

Leo in the train next to a giraffe

 

When it wasn't wet we got ourselves wet!

 
David, Sarah and I could not resist taking photos of the model towns that were near the end of our day at Legoland. A few more pics here.

View of Piccadilly

and the Underground underneath

The London Eye and the London Council building

Other London buildings including the Swiss Re "Gherkin"

Leo looking at the buses

NASA's Cape Canaveral

It was a brilliant day - can we go again?

A visit to Darkest Dorset

Nothing unusual in that because I work in Dorchester, right in the middle of Dorset!  But last weekend took a day out not only to show David around the town I've got to know a bit better having worked there but also to visit places that we haven't been to before that were nearby.  I was able to show David the Roman Villa at the back on the Country Council offices, as well as the lovely walk along the River Frome and also the Borough Gardens.

To my shame I have not read any of Thomas Hardy's books, but we have now visited his birthplace in Upper Bockhampton, a few miles west of Dorchester.  It is owned by the National Trust and the cottage was built by his grandfather.  The cottage has the most lovely typically English cottage garden with a vegetable patch and an orchard beyond.  This can be reached either down a lane (the easy way) from the car park or through woodland (the hard way), guess which way we went first!

There was a quilt opportunity here as the one bed made up had a quilt on it, so armed with camera (flash turned off of course) and a nice sunny day I had to take a photo or two.

After that we found a nice pub for lunch before heading off to Clouds Hill, the home of T E Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia, who was in the Tank Corps, at Bovingdon near Wareham.  It is well known that he died near the cottage, having had a motorcycle accident on his way there.  He had unusual accommodation there with a room housing his 2000 books (though there is now only a fraction of his collection and a bathroom (with just a bath) on the ground floor. His room for entertaining was upstairs along with a bunk room.

 We went home after this to enjoy the rest of the afternoon in the garden, however I found afterward that had we turned left at the road junction near Clouds Hill instead of right we would have found a church with an etched window as a memorial to Lawrence, which can be found here.  A chance to go back again some time.

Yesterday David and I had a day out at Legoland, near Windsor.  As it is our grandson, Leo's 4th birthday tomorrow my son Jamie had arranged a trip for his family and we invited ourselves along too. Next post I'll share some pics with you.

Another New Toy

Yesterday I bought another new toy and it was all my husband's fault!  We went to Southampton and the first shop we go to is John Lewis.  He'll go to the audio department, I'll go to the Haberdashery but he was with me at the time.  I had been thinking about a sewing machine to take to classes or to do demos with, just a basic one, nothing fancy.  I saw this Janome one for just £89.00, it was basic and light and he agreed that I could do with this instead of taking my larger and a lot heavier machine out.

So here she is and I tried it out this morning and sews a little noisily but very well. If I was to get a quarter inch foot and a zipper foot it will do nicely indeed.

Meanwhile David had voucher to spend which was why we went to Southampton and he never spent it!

Today we went with Alex and his girls to Farmer Palmers a play farm just west of Poole, where they enjoyed seeing the animals and playing on the bouncy castles and the soft play centre.  For a change there was lovely summery weather to enjoy, though it did get a little too hot, we shouldn't complain.

They bought animal masks from the shop on the way out.

A lovely day was had by all!

Sandown and a New Toy

On Saturday I went on a coach trip organised by Margaret to take quilters from Wimborne, Poole and Ringwood to the National Quilt Championships at Sandown Racecourse, in Esher.  It was a very enjoyable trip and the chance to catch up with an old friend Sue, who I hadn't seen for ages.

I was disappointed that there weren't many competitive quilts, but there were really good collections of display quilts from Sandie Lush's "knitted" quilts (which you can see here on her site here from the Festival of Quilts gallery) to Rosalind Pollocks delightful collection of quilts under the title "Does it need beads"(her blog is here).  Because the photos are for personal use I am not allowed to show any here, but what I can show is one of my purchases.

I saw a lovely quilt of skirts and tops decorated with all sorts of embellishments on Antique Angels stand and asked for the kit.  They didn't have any kits left so bought the two panels to make up a quilt. I was so surprised that they were printed panels as the quilt looked so convincingly like an appliqued one, look below at the pic and you'll what I mean. They are very pretty and very girly I just could not resist.

I also did a quick workshop in the afternoon with Lynette Harris of the Stitch Witch.  She cannot be mistaken at quilt shows with her trademark witches hat and blue wig!  One of the popular items that she sells is fusible bias binding and she showed a way that one can design a simple Celtic knot and use the iron to follow the pattern made to fuse the binding to fabric.  Here's my (still unfinished!) sample here.

I was quite pleased with this and I should be even more please when I get it done! It was a relaxing break after the hard graft of looking at quilts and looking at the trade stalls!

Now for the new toy - I got a new phone, get bang up to date with one of those new fangled smartphones, replacing my dependable old Sony Ericsson on that I've had for the past 5 years and just thought it time for a change.

Hmm, doesn't look much does it.  Another photo that I had wasn't that good either.  I can get e-mails, texts and I've had my phone list transferred, but there are some bits (a lot of bits really) I've yet to discover it can do.  I've tried to sync it to my computer to download some music, but both phone and computer are trying their best to ignore each other.  Think it'll need more playing about with.