What we did for Christmas

 Hi, I just realised that other than mentioning that I caught a cold over Christmas, I haven't said where we we spent our time.

AS some of you may know, we don't celebrate Christmas, preferring to spend time away from the consumer madness. After a quick dash round the supermarket for a few days worth of food and our only nod to seasonal snacks ( pigs in blankets and individual slices of cake) we headed over to the East Coast. 

I know many would guess that we were heading back to Bridlington but not this time. Our destination was Cromer, Norfolk, the weather forecast very cold and very windy but mainly dry.

                                                          I love crossing this bridge.

Christmas Eve started out grey and blustery, we headed into town to do a circuit of the charity shops and buy some gloves for me as my usual fingerless mitts just weren't enough.

Christmas day was sunny, windy, cold but we ventured out for an hour or so then retreated to the van for hot drinks.

Boxing day started with coffee and breakfast in a nearby cafe followed by an hour or so taking photos then knitting and coffee in another cafe as we exchanged notes as to what we had seen. This sort of challenge gets more difficult in places that we have visited several times.

I have never seen this shop open, every time I look through the window it looks like the contents are slowly mouldering away.

looking for the sheep at the Great Tapestry of Scotland

Well, we seriously underestimated the amount of time needed to take in the Great Tapestry of Scotland. Another visit is already on the cards for next year especially as we will be in the area having booked the campsite for next years music festival already.

My photos do not do the work justice so I'm going to find a couple of links and will post them at the end. Also, when faced with the sheer amount of embroidery, I decided to look for specific thing, mainly sheep!

These are just a few of the sheep spotted amongst the panels, all sides of life both current and historic were pictured, here are some of my favourites.

Looking at the different stitches and techniques, I am tempted to start embroidery again :-)

For further info and much better pictures, visit this site. The Great Scottish Tapestry    and there is an interesting collection of videos here covering the tapestry being displayed in different locations before ending up at its permanent home. These help show the sheer scale of the panels and the work of so many different embroiderers in Scotland

A touch of Italy in Wales

Portmeirion, designed and built by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis between 1925 and 1975 has long been on Ians bucket list. I've actually visited a couple of time but that was more than 40 years ago so a return was long overdue. The Italian style buildings tumble down the hillside set amongst gardens and edged by woodland walks.

The TV series, The Prisoner was set within the village in 1965 (still available on DVD)  using the houses and woodland as the backdrop for the drama. We are currently re-watching the series and the one thing that has really stood out is how good the gardens are looking compared with what we see on the programme.

There are two hotels and most of the buildings are now self catering cottages, also they have now built a small motorhome / camper park at the entrance. The price seems daunting until you realise that it covers the entry fee ( currently £20 per person) and gives you residential access to the village before and after the usual opening hours and as you are a resident , use of the hotel swimming pool and bar is included.

We stayed a couple of nights so had access on the afternoon and evening of our arrival and the next day. On the day when we had to leave the camper park we were able to park up in the main car park and have a further days entrance. I think that for a lot of people just one night/day was enough but we were there to chill.

At night the buildings were subtlety lit up, it was a wonderful experience to be there without the hoards of visitors.

For me, it was a couple of days of relaxation, just taking it easy and enjoying the sunshine. This became my regular coffee spot during our stay, people watching as I was spinning.

the black and white buildings keep coming but this time we have an alternative form of transport as well.

We are at Bridgnorth, complete with cliff railway connecting the two parts of the town. A flying visit which will be repeated when Ian is able to accompany me.

The amazing buildings are still with us, this is Bishop Percys house built in 1580 and currently a tea shop / cafe

and this is the town hall built in 1652

Other interesting buildings were scattered around the town,

The original plan had been to visit the Severn Valley Railway but there weren't any trains running due to a landslide so I settled for tea and cake in the 1940s cafe and planned a return visit, probably the same time next year.

For those who are wandering why I seem to be travelling solo, Ian has pulled his back and confining himself to the van and campsite at most of our destinations. We will be repeating this tour so he can catch up with everything that he missed.

Museum, Textiles , more black and white houses

 First of all, I must apologise for the poor quality of the photos. The lighting was bad and most items were behind glass.

Our next town was Leominster, about 12 mile from Ludlow. Many beautiful houses as you will see later in this post but I also spent quite some time in the local museum chatting with Carol, one of the volunteers. 

The current VE80 exhibitions caught my eye, including this sampler depicting woman's roles during the war years, There's a land girl, munitions works, wife/mother, ATS (Women's Branch British Army ) nurse and WRAF (Women's Royal Airforce )

Reusing old clothing to make rag rugs was encouraged. Interestingly, on our next campsite, the lady in the caravan next door was making a clippy rug with woollen fabrics, further conversation revealed that she was also a spinner.

 Make do and mend, darning mushroom.

There was , however, a sweet spinning wheel, unfortunately someone didn't have instructions on how to put it together.

The spinning wheel is an easy fix and once the flyer has been repositioned it should spin nicely.

They also had a display of miniature hats made by a local milliner. Unfortunately I forgot to noted down the details regarding dates etc and the photos do not do them justice at all.

Fir lunch, I was recommended to visit Grange Court built in 1633 and later relocated to the site of the castle, where there is an embroidery exhibition of the history of Leominster, Beautiful building, excellent food at a reasonable price.

Building wise, similar to Ludlow as you may expect, timber frames abound.

and there were sheep !!