Norfolk

We've just got back from a lovely visit to Norfolk, with the only small irritation that the county seems to have a mobile internet blackout, only operating on something called GPRS, which seems to only manage to download emails to read and not send!

Being retirees we decided to break the 4 hour journey at a lovely night stop for the nomad wagon, and having arrived in the dark we were rewarded with this lovely view in the morning.

Couldn't resist a bit of a play in the camera 

And a very quick sketch before breakfast..... Straight from our window, doesn't get much better than that.

A page from the log books I keep of our travels.

We were meeting up with my husabnd's brother and his wife on a lovely Caravan Club site within walking distance of the Queen's summer retreat at Sandringham, very posh.

We had a couple of nights here having a lovely catch up....

The boys did their bird spotting while we girls caught up with familly stuff.

We did do a bit of token bird watching too....

And I snatched the opportunity for a bit of creative stuff...

All to soon it was time to move on and we went to another part of the of the coast.....

And as the dusk came in we got an amazing sunset, the clouds reminded me of the 'old masters' paintings.

I just had time for a quick watercolour before the light went.

Sadly we had to cut the trip short due to a 'dying tooth', ( mine) getting more and more insistent, so unfortunately we missed the best sunny day of the trip, still there's always next time.

Birthday celebrations

Last weekend our whole family, the dynasty as we like to call it, joined together to celebrate 3 birthdays, two 40's and one 16th.

We hired a 13 bedroomed country house near Lyme Regis in Dorset.

We had a huge kitchen to prepare our celebratory meal.

Which as you can imagine was quite an undertaking.

First up is our grandson Ben with his lovely mum, he was celebrating his 16th birthday.

And our 2 lovely daughters celebrating their 40th, no they're not twins, one of them had her birthday a while back.

Lots of presents were enjoyed

A lovely scarf

A new watch 

A new cover for a very much desired new   iPad mini 

And a very honoured photo of our beautiful eldest granddaughter (who hates her photo being taken) and her lovely mum. 

Inwrapping yet another very special present was our daughter Hannah with her eldest daughter Bethany.

This is what the weekend was about.....family

From the youngest to the eldest (me) everyone had a fabulous time.

The highlight of the weekend was a lovely nostalgic slide show, painstakingly put together by my husband, of our family's beginnings, it still brings tears to my eyes, just thinking about it.

Us on our wedding day June 4th 1971

Thanks to everyone for making it happen.

Goodnight from Dungeness

We had a lovely morning roaming around 

Maintenance on the lighthouse....

A classic view of the old one, in front of the power station that made it obsolete.

 

And then a beautiful sunset, after the rain this afternoon and before the lightening this evening, the weather can change within the hour here.

Goodnight everyone......

Goodbye to France

Well the trip is now over, we've said our goodbyes to Le Sap with a lovely evening walk...

And headed off on the next hop to Hardelot plage which is a wonderful seaside town about an hour from Calais.

This time of year it's almost deserted as most of the houses appear to be for holiday home residents. And what homes they have too....

The whole place is full of such romantic follies.

And so to Calais and an uneventful voyage home, with of course a detour to our wonderful Dungeness, well it would be rude not to.....

Roll on next year.....

Moving North

We've started our slow move North on our way back, but we're keeping the sun as  you can see.

Coffee on a windy Aire on our way to 

Lamotte Beuvron, near Orleans, having been recommended a delightful Aire by

the river. It wasn't! It was crowded hot and dusty, so we moved on to this...

A beautiful Aire by the lake, and the village of La Ferte Beauharnais nearby, which was equally charming, with wonderful architecture.

Too good to miss the opportunity to sketch outdoors in the cool of the evening.

Our next stop was the highlight if this trip for me as we visited Alencon, the home of French needle lace. I had the most wonderful morning immersing myself in glorious samples and pieces. 

No pics I'm afraid as it was not allowed.

So here's just a few of the sketches I made before being very politely asked to leave as it was 12.15 and they shut for lunch at 12.0, I had been there since 10.0 and completely lost track of time.

Walking round the town we found this amazing cathedral ....

With these wonderful flying buttresses.

And to top the day off there was a lace and needlework festival in the town and I got to see this lady's work.

Her name is Veronique Zimmerman, I will link to her website when I get home.

She makes amazing work using bobbin lace and needle lace.

This is a photo of her work in progress taken from her flyer.

And before we stopped at our current stop we visited another cathedral at Sees, what a day, for inspiration, research, sketching and history.

Unfortunately the sun has left us now to make room for the rain.

Sunshine at last

The sun decided to come out properly so we decided to stay put in Broquies for a few days more. 

We went for more walks in the surrounding hills.

Had a look round at night 

  

Love these shadows 

Fell in love with the Dutchman's house, which I've sketched so many times and is for sale for 180,000 euros with all the land you can see!

Did lots if sketching outdoors.

Wonderful practice....

But all good things have to end and we had to start moving back up North.

The weather is still hot and sunny and we're back in Martel breakfasting outside.....

With cake for coffee 

It doesn't get much better than this.

Chasing the sun

The sun is still alluding us, so we're slowly moving South.

We spent the day/night at a charming village called Martel on the edge of the Dordogne.

We were lucky to catch a festival weekend and had a look at some lovely work by local artisans.

We were also treated to a very talented drumming group.

Unfortunately we woke up to yet more rain, so have moved a bit further south towards the Mediterranean coast.

We're in a lovely village called Broquies, it's a favourite of ours as it has a very large Aire with free electric hook up.

This is where we walked in the morning,

down the hill...

And up the other side in the evening, it's about 8.30pm in this shot and still light.

You can't see it here but we have had a little bit of sun this morning.