Spinning wheels and horses

 Saturday saw two of us spinning in one of my favourite coffee houses, they even told us to stay as long as we wanted :-) you may recognise my fellow spinner if you have been following this blog for sometime.

Pete now dyes fibres and I took the opportunity to stock up with some for my next trip as I don't have time to prep much fibre and I spun most of my prepped stash for TDF

On Sunday we popped down to Clumber park where the East Midlands Ukulele Project have been putting on a season of concerts by local (ish) ukulele groups so I took my chair and my wheel and finished off the current bobbin.

On our way back to the car we spotted some familiar looking vehicles and had to investigate. Carters steam fair stopped touring in 2022 and many of their rides have new homes although Joby Carter continues to paint the traditional sign writing.

Alongside stood a wonderful showman's wagon, I do have a soft spot for these works of art.

                           Two rides and one stall were in use, the Dodgems with original signage.

and this carousel.

Not tiny guitars !!

 It's that time of year again, we are back in Cheltenham for the Ukulele festival of Great Britain which we have attended several times in the past. Rather than bore you with the details, I will just post a couple of photos.

 

I did find some new street art in Cheltenham as well (I spent my time spinning and drinking coffee)

All the string stuff ( embroidery etc in Warwick )

 As regular readers will know, I like to look for the textile and fibre related objects wherever we go and Warwick did not let me down. Firstly in the church, where I spent a few minutes knitting whilst waiting for Ian to come back down the tower, then I discovered the crypt.

This was the last place that I expected to find any knitting but they had stored the poppy decorations from 2018 in one of the alcoves.

                                                              Beautiful church as well.

                The next sighting of textiles was in a more predictable place, Warwick Castle.

We had revisited Warwick specifically to visit the castle and it is impressive. It was also one of the hottest days of the year so we have promised ourselves a return visit especially as some of the attractions,  jousting etc were not available as it was too hot for the animals. In the end we upgraded our tickets to annual passes which was cheaper than paying a second entry on a cooler day.

Inside the castle I found threads, this looks a little different to the body armour currently in my motorcycle jacket ! 

Underneath, this would be worn.

Embroidery was to be found as well as some tapestry, I suspect that on my next visit I may uncover more or at least be able to take photos without so many people hiding from the sun.

no fancy corner here, just continue with the pattern on the next side.

presumably the embroidery was executed in one long strip then added to the centre panel ?

Slightly different era but an applique bedspread/quilt

and a chair that might have seen too many backsides over the years

The building is very impressive and I will share more of that next time we visit. possibly later this year

I leave you with the archer, very good at the stories but hitting the target is always a challenge.

That was bright !

 cracking storm over Nottingham last night

Soed Idee Jubileum week thirty two to thirty four

 Oops, I forgot to post the last three sections, I've just finished part thirty four and checked my blog ( to copy the labels) and realised that I hadn't popped anything up since before we went back to Bridlington.

Well here it is, a couple of errors but I'm not picking it all out again.

Glimpses of Warwick

 We last visited Warwick nearly five years ago and, if you read the post , you will realise that it it was not the most exciting weekend away. However we had agreed to return and explore properly in better weather and a better mood.

you can just see the race course top left of this picture

Home for a few nights was again Warwick race course but instead of being parked up alongside the railings we had a proper pitch complete with very dry grass ( drought conditions) and a very welcome area of shade.

In fact it proved to be so hot on our initial walk round the town that I returned later, once it had cooled down a bit, to have a real nosy around.

How's this for a boot scraper, such a shame that the matching one on the other side had been recently broken.

Warwick, like many other places is well known for its historic building which are scattered around the town. I did take photos on my last visit and I've tried not to duplicate too many of them here.

As I am usually more interested in the detail than the whole, this is what the uncovered timbers look like.

The brick and tie work on more recent building was equally interesting, these examples are from the late 1800's

The other plaque on this building said COFFEE so I may have felt at home !!

and this was on the local school building

Both of the gates make for interesting framed pictures