Soed Idee Jubileum week eight

 Week eight gave us more chickens and I've also begun to add the names of the places that we have stayed overnight in during the week. Slow start this year as we didn't travel in January due to illness but we will make up for it over the next few months.

Coleshill, near Birmingham was an overnight stay for a presentation dinner with the Round Britain Rally participants and Bridlington on Thursday was the start of a short break by the sea.

I'm now looking forward to being able to start part nine whilst enjoying coffee by the sea , at least that is the plan.

Return to Coleshill

 Last month we made a return visit to Coleshill to attend the Round Britain Rally Dinner. The Round Britain Rally ( RBR) involves visiting around 80 places of interest around Britain on your motorcycle and submitting proof in the form of photographs of your bike at each location.

As Ian has been taking part for around 20 years, this is a regular part of his summer riding ( you have from the beginning of April to the end of September to complete this) and the dinner gives people chance to get together and chat about the years riding,

Anyway, back to Coleshill, a small town with a few shops on the high street.

This building give away the fact that this is a very old town which actually dates back to the Iron Age and probably deserves more investigating.

It did give us a beautiful rainbow,

sight of a fascinating book which I didn't buy but spent a while browsing. Excellent second hand bookshop,

and a set of stocks !

unexpected knitting encounter

After the guild meeting on Saturday we made our way to the Round Britain Rally (RBR to those in the know) presentation dinner. The RBR is a challenge to visit landmarks in every county of the country using a list of memorials, places of interest etc supplied by the organisers. The idea is to locate the landmark which involves a fair amount of research, visiting it and taking a photo of your motorbike by it. This keeps my hubby busy most weekend through the summer whilst I am out spinning etc.
So, as you would imagine, I was surprise to find fellow spinners there and wished that I had taken my wheel. Watch out next year, the wheels will be there, we have made arrangements!!



we caught the sunset on the way across.

Knitting made a surprise appearance in the form of a auction prize, do I didn't win it!





and I ended the evening in true spinnotts style, spinning in the bar.



OK, photo taken with empty spindle but I did do some spinning, honest!!!

Merry Christmas! PS. I'm still here, just a little busy

So sorry about not posting since October, Will try and make up for it over the the next few weeks. Things have been very hectic leading up to Christmas and catching the yukky virus hasn't helped! This is the view from our window this morning, very cold but bright.


I've been thinking about how much has happened this year and it's been a really good one with many new friends although not as much motorcycling as usual but Ian and Biker Ted has been having a great time with the Round Britain Rally as usual.

More later :-) have a great Holiday, relax and enjoy it!!

Round Britain Rally Landmarks 2008

Now the Round Britain Rally has ended, I can post photos of a couple of the Landmarks visited during our trip to Lindisfarne

The Memorial to the Gypsy Tribe is at Yetholm and has this inscription.

THIS MEMORIAL REMINDS US OF THE GYPSY TRIBE
WHO INHABITED THIS VILLAGE FROM
THE 17th CENTURY ONWARDS. THEIR
CUSTOMS AND TRADITIONS INFLUENCED
MANY ASPECTS OF VILLAGE LIFE.
THE LATE VIC TOKELY WHO RESEARCHED
AND RELATED THEIR HISTORY THROUGHOUT
THE BORDERS INSPIRED THIS PERMANENT
REMINDER OF THEIR LEGACY.
2003

and further information about Yetholm Gypsies can be found here

At Spott, we found the memorial to the burning of the last witch in Scotland Marion Lillie.

More information can be found here and here

Lindisfarne Trip

1. lindisfarne causeway, 2. lindisfarne Priory 04, 3. lindisfarne Priory 03, 4. lindisfarne Priory 05, 5. Lindisfarne knotwork 03, 6. lindisfarne Medieval style 01, 7. lindisfarne knotwork 001, 8. lindisfarne Priory 01, 9. lindisfarne 01, 10. lindisfarne medieval style 03, 11. lindisfarne causeway 01, 12. lindisfarne knotwork 05

Typical, the hottest weekend of the year and we travel 200 mile to be in the sea mist , it was worth it though. We had planned to visit several of the landmarks for the round britain rally on the way up but only managed two as we were late setting off due to Ian having an interview Friday morning. The hotel had been prebooked, great rooms, pub food, TV (exciting for us non TV folks)
After breakfast on Saturday we walked down to the causeway to watch the tide recede then went back to fetch the bike to drive over. Decided to visit the Priory and leave the castle until we can return and stay for a few days on the island.
Medieval story tellers, musicians,swordsman and even a lovely lady working with natural dyes kept us entertained.

We took time later in the day to catch up with some more landmarks, two of which I will blog about in more detail once the challenge has finished in October.

The only drawback to the weekend was that the bike developed and oil leak so we had to nurse her gently home and hope that all is fixable before our next long trip.This means that I will miss this weekends rally in Essex but will have a little more time to play with my new camera and get the embellisher out of its box at long last.

Bank Holiday Playday

Today, Good Friday, sees the start of the Round Britain Rally and Ian together with Biker Ted were up and out early. The plan was to bag a few landmarks and attend a meeting of fellow rallyists to mark the first day of the challenge.
This left me to my own devices so I decided to have a sort through one of my cupboards to see what was hiding at the back.
First find was some pastel dyesticks and skeleton leaves, so I made some rubbings onto a piece of dyed cotton, added some batting, machine stitching ,metallic paint and voila a quiltie or postcard or ATCS, not sure which.
I really need to practise more with my machine stitching, suspect I try to stitch too fast sometimes.

I then found some old dyes that a fellow student had given me maybe 5 years ago. Rather than throw them out, I used them for some plastic bag dying for use as backgrounds and discovered that the brown dye did not work at all.
Most of the results were quite pale but I am sure that they will get used sooner or later
The silk fabric picked up the colours as lovely pastels

The only problem is that my room is even more of a mess now.!!

Round Britain Rally

As the Round Britain Rally comes to an end for 2007 I have taken the opportunity of posting some of the photos taken by Ian this year. The object of the exercise is to visit a nominated landmark in each county ( large counties may have two or more to visit) and take a photo of your motorcycle by the landmark or as close as you can get to it. Most of the following landmarks require a short walk as well. Littleport William Harley Memorial
Nantwich Carved Wooden Horse
Perrenporth Cornish Time Sundial
Ynyslas Sea Snail Bridge
Erwood Gun

Round Britain Rally

Since the sun decided to shine yesterday, Ian went on a round trip of 300 plus miles to bag 4 more landmarks. a Welsh Harp Sculpture at Llangollen, Alleluia Momument at Gwernaffield, Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway at Llanfair Caereinion and the Old River Bridge at Bangor is Y Coed. Not bad for an old bike ( 1982 Suzuki) pictured above during last years rally.

Did we have summer in May???

Each May,our bike club organises a motorcycle rally near Altarnun close to Bodmin in Cornwall. Most years we have torrential rain, gale force winds and more rain for the whole weekend resulting in a soggy tent being hung around the house for days drying out. This year we managed to bag several RBR Landmarks and see the sun!! here are a couple of photos for those in the UK who have forgotten what a blue sky looks like!!

Round Britain Rally

Due to having a heavy cold, I have had to pull out of a trip with Ian to Wales this weekend to visit the landmarks required for the Round Britain Rally (RBR) The rally is a challenge, held each year, to visit nominated landmarks round the country and take a photo of your motorcycle with them. There is a least one site in each county, often more. As the challenge does not finish until October, I will only post the odd photo from last years list, such as the one above Wheel of Drams sculpture.