French holiday pics

At last my feet have finally touched terra firma after our wonderful French holiday and I have been able to process a few more pics.

 

  We started our holiday in the Loire valley with one of our daughters and her family, and here they are minus big brother, who thought it would be far too boring to come with us, so stayed behind, girl watching with his cousin.

We spent a lovely day at this chateau, which was completely unsupervised and relied on trust that visitors would be respectful. As a result we had an amazing insight into life as it would have been lived in the 17oo’s.

In the attic rooms we found a beautiful old school room which kept the youngest member amused, even if we did think the hat might mean something to do with bad behaviour.  I was also lucky enough to spend my actual b/day on holiday, so of course we had to have a champagne celebration. And presents.

The birthday cake was good too :-)  We followed my birthday celebrations with a visit to a

local village with lots of lovely art/craft shops  but they were mostly shut as it was Thursday………….. shame.

And then there was my summer residence to visit of course. I  wish.

How about these lovely curtains, they’re all over the region, but these were behind coloured glass, beautiful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally before we left we popped into the village church and were stunned to find these amazing wall paintings.

  

I’m trying out Windows Live Writer for the first time, so I’m hoping it will publish this post Ok. It’s nice to see how your post looks with the pics and i think it’s a bit quicker too.

Home again

We're back again, after a wonderful 3 week trip to France, the Loire Valley and the Nomandie, Brittany coast.

I took over 1000 pics so that'll keep me quiet for a while, did a bit of sketching and journaling and used my new mini sewing machine to make accessories for our new van, Connie.

This is just a preliminary post as I've been busy catching up on coursework on my other blog here, here's a taster of what I'm up to.



And a couple of holiday pics of my favourite chateau, Chambord, I'm in love with it.





And of course a pic of the sea.



Will post again soon.

Showered with flowers

A couple of weeks ago I received this beautiful bouquet from my DD2, it came with its own glass vase and and a box of delicious chocs.
We were going away in our new motorhome, Connie, and I couldn't bear to miss a couple of days without them so I took them with me, just because I could. Perhaps I should explain, since my DH became semi retired we've adopted this new moto "just becaues we can", it seems to fit our new life just right :-)

As we'll be away in France for my B/day I decided it would be nice to go out for Sunday lunch last W/E, so we took ourselves and our DD's to a lovely local pub called the Cider House.

And here I am with my lovely girls, our son and his wife couldn't make it this time, but we will see them in July.



And the girls and their Dad.



I had some lovely cards and presents, chocs, and more lovely flowers, plus a subscription to Embroidery magazine, which I've wanted for ages. I even had a lovely hand made card from some of my Grandchildren.



And from my DH I had this delightful mini sewing machine, small enough to stow away in our motorhome, so no excuse now not to get on with those Diploma samples. It really is a sweet piece of kit and it matches the upholstery in the motorhome. I've read that under the JL bonnet is a Janome and I'm not surprised, for something so small it handles really well indeed.



So thanks to everyone for making it such a lovely early birthday.

And on to Taunton

After we left Cardiff we went straight to Taunton in Somerset for a camping/motorthome holiday with DD2 and 4 of her children.


Setting up DD2's enormous tent.


One hour later, all done and ready for the wine.

We had a brilliant holiday doing lots of things we’d wanted to do, but not really had the time, or the inclination, as you don’t when the children have grown up.

We went on a lovely Steam railway trip from Crowcombe Heathfield station, which was about a mile from our campsite to Minehead. It took about an hour and was a lovely nostalgic trip for me, as I used to go to school on steam train, and wave to the drivers as the train passed the end of my garden.


The walk to the station was OK but there were some very tired legs on the way back and not just mine.


Here comes the train at last.


All aboard!!!


Posing for the camera.

It was quite a cold day on the beach but the children had a great time even if Mum was feeling the cold a bit, after loosing all that weight.




But the children didn't notice.

I was also lucky enough to get to see Face to Face, an exhibition of textile pieces by Stitch Textile Artists a group that my tutor Sian Martin formed in 1999, which was being held in Taunton. The work was very inspiring and as a distance learning student it was lovely to meet my tutor in person and have a good chat.


Sian's piece, which I believe was inspired by the birth of her granddaughter.


Music Hall Veronica Broadley


I don't know the artist, but I was drawn to this piece as I had worked with a face recently on my course and this reminded and inspired me.



We only had one day where the weather was really overcast, and it would have to be the day we decided to visit Dunster castle, which sits on the top of a very high hill, and I think that day the wind was probably coming straight off the Arctic Tundra. Still, the children enjoyed doing the NT quiz and playing the historic games that were on show for the day.



On a couple of the really warm days we had lovely BBQ’s on the camp site and had toasted marshmallows and strawberries dipped in chocolate, something I could definitely get used to.

Another real treat was organised for us by our DD when she took out a 3 day membership for the site gym, which had a wonderful spa, sauna and steam room, very welcome at the end of a day’s busy sightseeing and walking.





We found a great local small seaside resort where there was a craft shop that was supplied by several local makers and had wonderful knitted goods and children’s dresses, so of course we had to have nice long visit there while Granddad looked after the children, as you can see above they had a great time.

We also had a wonderful lunch there too, all home cooked to order.



On our last day we went back to Minehead as our DD was determined to have proper fish and chips, as she hadn’t had any for over a year. We had a lovely day on the beach and all came back tired but happy.



And while we were there I made a few sketches for my coursework and you can see what they were for here if you're interested.





It was a great holiday and lovely to spend quality time with our DD and her children, thank you to all of you for making it such a special trip.

Family holidays

We've been so busy since my last post, I feel as if I've barely been home.
We left home the day after my last post on 9th April and have been holidaying with our children almost ever since.

We went to Cardiff to visit our son and his wife on the Saturday morning and had a lovely chilled out weekend. We went to a new gallery that we hadn't been to before and as you can see I started my chilling out straight away.



As we were leaving I noticed these amazing figures on the next door building which happened to be a Chinese Christian church.





After having a lovely lunch, followed up by some retail therapy, which is always enjoyable in Cardiff, we took a stroll back through the park where everyone was enjoying the Spring sunshine at last.



In the evening we all went to see Alice in Wonderland in 3D, which was brilliant and of course I had to get the pic of us all wearing the Michael Caine glasses.



On Sunday morning it was time to pay our usual visit to Crafts in the Bay where I had to buy my copy of Embroidery and some hand dyed silks.





But not before a delicious coffee and cake of course.



So a belated thanks to our lovely hosts as usual and we're already looking forward to them coming to visit us in July.

After leaving Cardiff we went to Taunton to start a weeks camping/motorhoming with DD2 and her children, next post.

Proud Mum and Dad

The weekend before last our DD2 made us very proud when, following in her dad's footsteps, she ran her first 10k race in out local FC woodlands.
And this was her post on Facebook a few hours later
"Race results online! I came in at 53.02 - 27th out of 248 women who finished the 10K. Ecstatic with that for my first run :)))))"



We couldn't be more proud of her as this is the culmination of a long haul since January 2009 to loose weight and get herself fit. She has now lost over 7 stone and is achieving amazing results in her weight lifting routines, and general fitness regime.

What an achievement, well done Hannah.



Needless to say the waiting got a bit boring for the younger members of the family who came to give Mum some support.

Thought you might like to see how I spend my weekends, supporting my DH, well sometimes!



But it was worth it, he had 3 like this one.