Hampshire

Driving up from Wiltshire yesterday we arrived in Salisbury, the home of this magnificent Cathedral.

This year Salisbury are celebrating the 750 anniversary since the Cathedral was built, and there was a very interesting display of the history, and a time line of all the momentous events leading up to the present day.

Now we are in the heart of Hampshire, and the weather has been glorious. We are visiting more family ( on Ian's side this time) and today we spent a wonderful time exploring beautiful Winchester.

Another magnificant Cathedral here at Winchester.
I am speeding along with Uncle Tim's pullover, and have finished the back and front. Just the sleeves to do now.

South West England

We are slowly making our way around to various friends and family members, and have been enjoying some beautiful hot sunny days as well.

After Brenchley on Sunday morning, we made our way down to Bexhill on Sea, nr Hastings to visit our friends Jenny and Don, George and Fred. Had a lovely lunch and afternoon with them and then drove down to Worthing to stay the night in a cute little B and B.

Monday morning saw us drive down to Portsmouth in one gigantic traffic queue, we crawled our way to this lovely city in time to catch the ferry to the Isle of Wight. Our destination was the famous Carisbrooke Castle, holiday home of Queen Victoria and favorite holiday spot of her daughter Princess Beatrice.

Stayed on the Island that night and in the morning left the port of Lymington for the mainland.

Drove for hours and finally reached Weymouth to greet Auntie Joyce and to have a welcome cup of tea.

Now I am up to date, today we have left Weymouth and have reached Shaftsbury here in Dorset, and having a quick blog stop at the local community center, before we make a visit to my Uncle Martin and Christine.

A Castle in Kent

This is Scotney Castle in Kent that we visited the other day, it is quite near to where we are staying and has superb grounds and a very interesting family history.

Yesterday we drove down the Kentish coast to Whitstable, and spent a very enjoyable afternoon browsing the shops and walking on the beach.

I found a little wool shop "Seaside Sadie" where I bought some 2 skeins of lovely Colinette Jitterbug for more socks. Ian had his haircut at the barber shop next door, and we bought some delicious Kent cherries to eat on the drive home.

Today was the day of the Matfield Village Fete, and my Aunt , who lives in the neighbouring village was participating in a W.I Display...the theme being The Madhatter's Teaparty.

Her exhibit won first prize, and here it is:

Tomorrow we are leaving this very dear place, to make our way further down the coast visiting more family and friends. I plan on seeing a few more castles yet !

The Garden of England

We flew from Split very early on Sunday morning to arrive in a much colder UK than Croatia.

It didn't take long to get through customs and collect our luggage, then we found our little Ford Focus hired car, jumped in and drove to Tunbridge Wells, where we stopped and bought some flowers for my Aunt and made our way through the little lanes to her village.

On arrival she showed me the quilt that I had finished and sent to her, it did indeed fit her bed perfectly, and I was pleased to get a photo as I had sent it off in such a hurry I hadn't bothered to see what it looked like on a bed. Yesterday I bought some beautiful Rowan wool to make a guernsey pullover for my Uncle Tim. I am using RYC Cashsoft DK in a lovely shade of teal. It is lovely and soft and a joy to have in the hands.

Today we went to visit Batemans, the home of Rudyard Kipling.
The gardens there were beautiful and walking through the rooms in the house was fascinating, everything was left just the way it was when the Kipling family lived there. I was totally entranced, and was so pleased that I had seen the film " My Boy Jack" just a few months earlier.

This is my Aunt and Ian standing at the open front door of Batemans.

Island life

We have been exploring the Island of Brac and beyond over the last two days and have fallen in love with this beautiful place.

Yesterday we took a ride on this boat for a day across to the Mainland


Then we boarded another smaller boat to take us down this river ...

After all that time on boats it was nice to return back to our little villa and the airconditioning, and finish this for Tom.

I used Rowan Summer Tweed in the shade of reed. It is a silk cotton mix and I know he will wear it a lot at work when he returns to Norway. A very satisfying day all in all.

A Lizard's Life

We have been basking in the sunshine here like a family of lazy lizards, and have been

shopping daily from local vegetable and fruit stalls, beautiful big juicy peaches for breakfast and huge watermelons for lunch, along with the delicious pastries and bread. There is a very early fish market too, that we are going to try if we wake in time.

On a crafty note I am very happy to say that I have still been knitting and hope to have Tom's sleeveless pullover finished by the time we leave on Sunday morning. In the evenings it is lovely to sit outside in our little courtyard, knitting and talking and taking in the sounds of the nightlife around us.

The beautiful blue of the Adriatic

This morning we left our Pensione with this balcony view, and took Arlo and Keira along with all our luggage down to the waterfront to catch the ferry from Split to the island of Brac.
Melissa and Tom were speeding down the highway to catch the ferry too, and they just made it in time much to their family's joy. There were big smiles all round and happy squealing from A and K.
One hour later we arrived at the beautiful island of Brac and drove to our villa in Sutarvan where we are all staying for a week.

We took a stroll down here to the beach this afternoon and the water is very clear and warm. I saw lots of little fish swimming around and I can't wait to have a swim tomorrow. The temp. is still in the 30's and we are told that we are in the middle of an unseasonal heat wave. We intend to buy some beach towels tomorrow and hats and sun cream!

Did I mention the ice creams ? They are simply divine and a must have for every day.I shall try to take a photo of all the choices. It is strange that I love them so much as my family will testify I am not usually big on ice cream.

Arriving in Split

I am sitting in the Laundramatt here in Split waiting for a load of washing to finish its cycle...ha domestic life goes on as usual, even in such an exotic location such as this.
The temperature outside is 38 degrees...so they tell me...it is certainly extremely hot and we are staying in a little apartment right in the middle of the old city...no air conditioning, but we do have fans.
Our three flights here from Sandefjord yesterday were ghastly. We were flying from Amsterdam with Croatian Airlines and when we arrived at the transfer desk with Arlo and Keira after a long wait in the queue, we were told that it would be unlikely that we would be able to fly because we did not have written permission from their parents...Melissa and Tom. We hurriedly had to phone them both in Norway and they had to do a speedy trip to the school to send a fax with their signatures to the airline in Amsterdam....all while we were waiting. It took a while for the fax to be received and processed but after a mad dash and several queues later..phew we were on the plane with our two precious grandchildren, having been suspected of child trafficking!!!The next flight from Zagreb was delayed an hour and we were all feeling rather the worse for wear, especially Keira and I. We have a nasty head cold and a chesty cough.
I am unable to download any photos on this post..the computer here in the laundry doesn,t have that facilty, but as soon as I am able I will do so.This city reminds us so much of places we have been to in Italy, it is very beautiful with lots of artifacts and many little alleyways crammed each side with boutique shops for the thousands of tourists. We have all been sampling the icecreams, and they are the most creamiest and full of fresh fruits and other goodies, that I have ever tasted.
We have seen a huge fish market..lots of different sized fish packed in boxes with ice..lots of haggling going on there with the locals.
I will try and post again soon ...with photos of this amazing place.

A visit to Sweden

Yesterday we took the ferry to Sweden from Sandefjord. The ferry itself was similar to the Interislander except that it was full of duty free shops, and the Norwegians all climbed on board with shopping trolleys, that by the end of the 2 1/2 hour trip were chockabloc full of stuff...alcohol mainly!
We spent the day here in Stromstad

Stromstad is a cute little coastal town that reminded me of Picton. Lots of very nice boats moored up to the wharves that Ian liked.

There was a small market on the waterfront and there we found this lady selling her knitted and crocheted goods.This coat took her twelve months to knit, and it tells the story of the Swedes leaving Sweden for America and arriving in Minnesota. She had it for sale for 25000 krona which Melissa said is about six thousand dollars.

Her work was amazing and I rather lusted after the coat, especially right there and then, because there was a cold wind blowing as we headed back to the ferry.