Wonderful daughter Ellie’s birthday pressie to me this year was a trip out of my choice. I chose to go to York to visit the Minster and we were also hoping to go to the Quilt Museum as well but sadly it was closed so I will have to go back another time to do that.

We had a fab day out – it was great weather and we had a really nice train ride and lovely lunch in a little old pub and a good wander round the lovely shops in York after we went to the Minster – they have a Cath Kidston shop which was full of such cute things!

The Minster was amazing as I had expected with the usual abundance of embroidery! This piece was one of the first we saw – one of the finest and most detailed pieces I have ever seen.

There was no info with it but it depicts the Minster on the bottom right and two figures one of whom is being given a key detailed below.

 At the back of one of the chapels was this more modern piece composed of a series of goldwork crowns – I couldn’t get any nearer to take close ups but it is really stunning.

The Minster Broderer’s Guild had done a series of panels based on animals found in the church – this is a detail of one of the many Lamb of God pictures to be found there.

 The pic below shows some 13th century chests used for storing priests’ copes – note how they are shaped like the robes so they could be stored with the minimum of folds.

We also spotted this fab fruit basket in one of the gift shops near the Minster which we loved!

Thank you Ellie for such a fab pressie! I had a wonderful day and I am very lucky to have such lovely kids who give me such thoughtful pressies all the time.

We are away this weekend in South Wales for the last show of the season at Caldicot Castle – please keep your fingers crossed for good weather for us last year this event got cancelled at the very last minute due to the site being flooded which was not good news for anyone!

Term starts on Monday with a new group of students to welcome to the wonderful world of teaching and then Ellie is off to University next Friday!

She has had all her joining info re the course and the modules she will be doing and yesterday got details of all of the entertainment planned for the first week of term so is busy working out her new social calendar. We will be going down with her on Friday so I will post next week when I can as it is likely to be a very busy one!