Happy Christmas to all my readers

I hope you have a lovely and peaceful time.  

See you soon

Best wishes

Sue x

(Above photo is Little Box of Crochet mandala and I will post about this very soon).

Madeira and Canary Islands Cruise - Part 3

Our next stop was La Palma and another trip booked, this time to the Silk Museum and (what was) Sugar Plantation (now a hotel).

It was another trip from one side of the island to another and the tour was led by an English woman who is married to an islander.  The western side of the island is well known for growing bananas and could be seen as far as the eye can see!  Our first stop was a the silk museum in El Paso in the middle of the Island between Santa Cruz de la Palma and Tazacorte.  Being Sunday morning it is normally closed, but the museum was opened just for the tour.

A mural on the building's walls showing the silkworm. By the town hall on the opposite corner was a small Christmas display.

Another stop on our tour was to the Hotel Hacienda de Ajabo which has a lot of antiquities and tapestries and lovely gardens and we spent time in the gardens with tea and cake.  David took a lot of photos but I didn't take many.  There is a small chapel in the grounds which is used by the hotel as a meeting/function room but what a place it was.  I've found a link here to have a look.

Not far from the hotel is a small village, La Manchas, with a plaza called La Glorieta.  If you think this is something you would see in Barcelona inspired by Gaudi, but it was designed by Luis Morera and a fantastic display of mosaics, basalt stones and lava flow rocks. We took several photos of this so here are two collages.

It seems I put in one photo twice - sorry!

On our way back to the port it was explained that going through a tunnel in the mountain that there are two different types of weather before going in it was sunny, coming out of the tunnel it was misty!

We explored the town briefly and as it was Sunday things were a little quiet.  I could not leave the island without taken a photo of these giant baubles on the roundabout.  I put a comment on Facebook wondering if there was a tree big enough for them!

On the Monday 10th we docked in Lanzarote. There were no trips booked this time, so we walked into the town, Arrecife.  There is a newly developed area from the cruise ships to the marina and crossing the bridge into the town itself.  We walked through the town to a cobbled bridge and a fortification, which was a museum.  It turned out the museum was letting visitors in but couldn't collect entrance fees because their internet and till wasn't working.  Being thick walls we couldn't use a mobile signal for our phones to use the QR codes that would have given us an English language guide, so David and I muddled through reading what we could of the Spanish language (our knowledge of Spanish is very minimal!).  Not a lot to see in Arrecife itself so eventually we went back to the ship and enjoyed the sunshine on the deck instead,

 The ship can be seen in the middle of the pic

A view from the fort across a causeway with Fire Mountain in the distance

That was Lanzarote - much more touristy and very arid compared with the lushness of La Palma.  Before leaving we went through the marina on our return to the ship and took Christmas photos, though there was a huge shadow which made the photos difficult.  We had to go for it.

Next stop after a sea day was Lisbon.  More about that in another post.

Madeira and Canary Islands Cruise Part 2

Last week was all about catching up with washing and shopping in preparation for Christmas.  We saw relatives on Saturday and I had a day at home yesterday tidying and cleaning.  Having caught up with ourselves today we went out for a walk to our nearest NT. Kingston Lacy - gloomy weather but at least it was dry.

So different from a couple of weeks ago when we visited the Canary Islands.  The ship, Oceana, visited Tenerife, La Palma and Lanzarote, spending a day on each island.  Gloriously sunny and warm weather ranging between 23 - 25℃, so much warmer than I thought it would be!  Not having packed much summer stuff with me it was trying to find the coolest things I could wear - didn't do my homework there!

We had excursions booked for Tenerife and La Palma but not Lanzarote as nothing appealed to us.  Our excursion to the Botanical Gardens and Orchid Garden to us to the north of the island of Tenerife and a short visit to the resort of Puerto de la Cruz, which meant that the coach took mountainous roads to get there.  Our guide took us around the Gardens, although we could if we wanted to go on our own, and pointed out several trees and plants that are mainly peculiar to the island.  One of these is a Dragon Tree, which we also saw in Madeira and La Palma which has aerial roots that grow down from the branch to eventually root into the ground.  As the plant get older the tree gets wider with all the roots expanding the girth of the tree.  Unlike most trees it has a fibrous trunk so is difficult to determine its age.

 Thats the top of a tree with its clumps of spiny leaves

And the trunk of the tree with the aerial roots, you can just see the main trunk in the middle of the pic.

We saw a sand lizard sunning itself on the bark of another tree.

We saw some fruit trees as well, including a grapefruit, which smelt so different to the smell of grapefruit one gets from the supermarket and fig trees too - difficult not to take one of the plant to eat!

Next stop on our tour was to Sitio Litre garden, an orchid garden that has been owned by British families for generations.  As well as orchids there was also a fishpond (with fish food for the public to feed the fish!) and small self contained gardens.  With the buildings that surrounded it the gardens are a little oasis of calm.  At the end of the garden was a small café to have a drink of wine.

At this time of year there are lots of poinsettia's for sale which we have as indoor plants but here the are growing outdoors.

When we were in Tenerife the shops in the port town, Santa Cruz, were shut as it was a public holiday, the Immaculate Conception Day.   This disappointed other passengers who weren't on tours.

Back at the ship, before we left, the ship needed a refuel. No popping down to Asda for a fill up - the barge of fuel comes to the ship instead.

There'll be another post(s) about La Palma and Lanzarote

Madeira and Canary Islands Cruise

This may be covered over several posts. Just a warning!

David and I decided upon going on the cruise after celebrating our 40th wedding anniversary last year.  Then we went to Stratford-Upon-Avon which was freezing cold and discovered a heavy overnight snowfall on the second day we were there.  We had to go somewhere warmer this year.  We were married on 10th December and we've always had to share our anniversary with Christmas celebrations so we did know there would be a Christmassy theme to the cruise. We were informed on our itinerary that Embarkation day we'd be wearing Christmas jumpers!

 The ship wasn't listing that was me taking a dodgy photo!

And and even dodgier selfies.

Where the ship (Oceana) was docked at Southampton it was near a container ship that was discharging its cargo and it was fascinating watching the cranes do the unloading and moving the containers.  The cranes and dockside were lit up and I was surprised by this photo that I took from our cabin balcony. - it actually looks quite good

We had 3 sea days before reaching Madeira and the sea and weather were calm and getting steadily warmer.  Among the events taking place was a crafting group (there was actually no crafting involved) followed by knit and natter but both merged into a knit and natter group and it was growing in number daily!  The group also ran on the sea days between Lanzarote and Lisbon then back home.

We had an excursion booked in Madeira to visit the Farmers' Market in Funchal then onto the Botanical Gardens on the island.  The market was bustling with traders and customers.

 Look at all those varieties of chillies

 Looking down into the square from the balcony above

The lovely tiled entrance to the market

Then onto the Botanical Gardens up a windy road around the mountainside but what a place it was - the following are my photos but David took many more.

That's just a few of the pics.  After going back into the town of Funchal we enjoyed a walk around and seeing the Christmas  decorations in a park near the drop off point.

 The gnomes look a little bit worried - I wonder what Santa has in store for them.  I loved the little houses.

 The photo doesn't do these lovely angels justice.  They are lit at night and must look really lovely but we were leaving before it got dark so had no chance to see

 This gloriously tall Christmas tree by the sea front

And just to prove we were there - another dodgy selfie pic!

Here's a link to Madeira's Christmas Lights.

So that was our Madeira visit, we then went onto the first of the Canary Islands - Tenerife.  I will post about that next time.

So Here It Is...

... I can hear someone singing "...Merry Christmas, Everybody's having fun".  Hurtling towards Christmas just over a week away!  David and I have been on holiday, a cruise to sunnier climes and came back yesterday and although things seem to be organised this coming week will be busy.

Anywho, its December

For this month I chose a mini quilt, just 12" square which I made back in 2009 as part of a Perpetual Calendar project, run by Kandy Newton who was moderator of BQL Yahoo group, which I wrote about in this blog post .  I edited the photo to include this festive glitter.

Before I went on holiday there were a couple of events to attend - a carol service for the local Townswomen's Guild that I belong too on the Saturday then on Sunday Quarterjack Quilters had their annual Christmas lunch and a speaker.  The speaker this year was Sally Ablett, who has designed quilts for magazines, Lewis and Irene fabrics and has also demonstrated on Sewing Quarter TV channel.  So she had lots (and I mean lots) of quilts to show.  She doesn't appear to have a website to link to but I did manage to take a few photos

She demonstrated that although some patterns look difficult, by breaking down the patterns made the designs easier to achieve.  As you can see from the photos, the quilts were piling up on the stage and we were welcome to come and look and study them.  There were even a few of her quilts for sale, but I resisted the temptation.  It was a good afternoon.

I will do another post about the cruise in another post soon.  However I did take some knitting with me having learnt from the last cruise two years ago that knitting needles are ok to take on board.  I was working on some Christmas socks for myself and finished one.  Having not accurately recorded the eyelet pattern for the first sock I had to wing it and hoped that I did it correctly for the second.  It worked out ok and I am pleased to say that I now have a pair of socks.

Although the colours look Christmassy to me the yarn is called "Summer" - hmmm... It's King Cole ZigZag sock yarn and these colours really turned out well.

I also took my Little Box of Crochet November box with me too.  This is a Christmas themed Mandala pattern.  Having watched the tutorial videos before I went away I felt confident that I could make this and this is my progress so far...

There's still a few more rows to go but I'm really loving this poinsettia themed mandala and it will be a lovely reminder of my holiday and seeing lots of poinsettia plants around the towns in Madeira and the Canary Islands with their Christmas displays.  The vintage feel of the light turquoise really set off the traditional Christmas green and reds and make them look brighter.

On the subject of the Little Box of Crochet, the October box kit of Tunisian crochet has gone quite well and just before I went away I now have a complete rectangle.  This does curl up so I've had to use pins on my display board to photograph it.  I'm wondering if I block this and other components of the pouch if this may behave a bit better?  Any thoughts on this I'd like to hear please

That's my makes so far this month and I'm not sure this is going to be a productive month, as this week before the festivities is shaping up to be a busy one.