Month: June 2023

Days out with Rosa and Dave!

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We have two excellent coach companies here that do day trips and longer tours and we use them a lot, especially when we have visitors. Not only are they great value for money, the drivers are very good at navigating the often winding mountain roads around here! Rosa Tours and Dave’s Coaches both offer more or less the same trips, but often on different days. They always have knowledgeable guides who also tell you more about the history of the places you are visiting.

Murcia is a beautiful city about an hour inland from here. Like many Spanish cities it is a combination of Art Deco and classical buildings, and Islamic inspired water gardens.

It also has a cathedral with a very ornate Baroque frontage, and a wonderful chapel with the most intricate carved stonework. It is just amazing to think of the hours of work it took to make this. I love the way the light comes through the windows.

I always like to take pictures looking up, to see the contrast between the stonework and sky.

The Bishops’ Palace was open as well and I loved the stonework and arches here. Also some good inspiration for more blackwork designs.

Possibly the most awe inspiring building is the Casino, which in Spain means gentleman’s club. The building is stunning throughout, but it is the entrance hall, which is modelled on the Alhamabra in Granada, that is the most amazing.

The flamingo ironwork in the reading room was really unusual. This year we have more flamingos than ever as they are now staying here year round and nesting so there are hundreds of them on the salt lakes.

Sharon and I also discovered a very lovely haberdashery shop that I will definitely return to. The décor was brilliant, we loved the Darth Vader sewing mural ! The shop is called La Mercerie Café Buton if you are in the area.

A few days later we went up into the mountains. Sadly it rained a lot on the part of the visit to the waterfalls so no nice pictures from there, we sat in the café overlooking the falls rather than climbing up. Thankfully the weather cleared for the second part of the trip to the mountain village of Guadalest, famous for its castle, tiny chapel and views of the amazing turquoise water in the reservoir below.

The clouds made the photos extra dramatic and I love the contrast between the water and the sky.

There are also always coach trips to see the fiestas, which is especially helpful as then you don’t have to worry about parking. We were at the Fiesta of St John in Alicante last weekend, which celebrates the birth of the saint, and the midsummer solstice. The Fogueres festival consists of beautiful sculptures which are created from polystyrene all over the city. At midnight on the last day there are fireworks, and then all of the sculptures are set alight in huge bonfires, which you can one of in the last picture. People then party long into the night.

I do love a good fiesta, or festival, anything where people are enjoying themselves, and it is great to people watch. The Spanish really know how to party, and there were bands, dancing and firecrackers going off everywhere.

I am so looking forward to a summer of festivals in the UK as well, I have 3 music ones to go to, none of which I have been to before. I am excited about making new friends from my campervan Facebook group, might just be taking a few campervan pics for you 😉 and continuing to live the dream.

I have just celebrated the second anniversary of my retirement, it has gone so quickly, and been so amazing. I still can’t quite believe that I don’t ever have to go back to the busy summers I used to have with endless marking and recruitment. I can just spend all of my time planning more adventures. I am so lucky 🙂

This will be my last post from Spain so I will see you next on the road, somewhere in the South West of England. Hope you have a good couple of weeks until I next post, as always, have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

What Katy did next …..

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The title of this should probably be, ‘what I bought for Katy next’, but as this is an homage to the books that Katy is named after, which I still need to read again, I will leave the title as it is.

As you may know, I belong to several campervan groups on Facebook, mainly ones for women travelling on their own. I have used my original van purchases blog post several times for people who are starting out, and people have found it useful, so I thought it would be a good idea to do an update post in readiness for this season.

Often people like to look at links to where I got things from, and as links are difficult to put in posts, and often not allowed, I thought that I would do a new post. I did a little update last autumn after my first 2 months in the van, so this can serve as a before the 4 months and first Europe trip post. By the way I am not sponsored, neither do I get any commission for these items, links are just in case you would find them useful.

Van structure and decoration

The basic van has not changed much since the first post, apart from the addition of the flower stickers to cover up the ouch, and a very appropriate sticker from one of my favourite songwriters, Jess Silk.

Katy has a couple more stickers to be added, with her name and another one of my favourite quotes.I will take some more pictures of those at one of my next camps. The quote sticker and this band one were made by Draycott Decals, who my sister uses for all her custom ones.

I have also put two layers of foam carpet underneath the boot carpet, to smooth out the feel of the boot flooring ridges. I bought theses from Aldi, but you can get them from most DIY stores and they just jigsaw together.

I did buy some very gorgeous seat covers to make her look even prettier and I love them. These were from Amazon and were £35. They are a really nice velour type fabric rather than nylon, so very comfortable.

I also bought a thin net curtain and expandable curtain pole from The Range. I fix the pole to the van ceiling with my magnetic hooks and it works really well for a bit of privacy or keeping out flies when I have the back doors open.

Storage solutions

After trialling several different storage solutions for clothes etc, and realising that I pack far too much, I have narrowed it down to just two of the fabric storage cubes, the original blue one from Amazon, and another grey one that my sister wasn’t using, originally from Dunelm. You can see them both in the pictures below. The grey one picture is from when I was trialling things at my sister’s house, and the blue one shows the van in day mode without the kitchen in it. More on that later.

The little airline lockers you see in the above picture on the right are brilliant for storage, I have food in the left and toiletries in the right.

I use the space above the front seats for my sleeping bag and coats, so that they are accessible from inside the van.

The fabric storage boxes sit on top of the two grey plastic storage tubs that I bought from The Range, which fit into the footwells of where the passenger seats would be. I haven’t done a fixed floor yet, maybe I will for next year, but for now this works well.

In the grey plastic storage bins I have room for all my kitchen stuff if I need to pack it away. I have found that it is fine travelling with things in the camping kitchen, as long as I pack it tightly enough, and I usually pad it with one of my fleece blankets for longer journeys.

There is plenty of storage in this camping kitchen for everything, I have two collapsible plastic bowls, all cooking stuff, crockery and cutlery and a cubby for my crafting stuff. Excuse the mess in the picture below but that is what it looks life in real life!

I also have a soft cool bag behind the kitchen, again from The Range. I chose this one as it is on wheels, if I want to take it shopping, and as it is squishy fits better into the limited space there.

The front passenger footwell is where I keep the little folding table and chairs, the window blinds, and a few other essential car supplies. There is a surprising amount of room there and I keep the seat free for other storage such as my day rucksack.

New purchases for this summer

Although I have the camping kitchen, and the small folding table I wanted something else for outdoor cooking so I bought this slightly larger table, which slides down the side of the camping kitchen when not in use. I got mine from Go Outdoors but this is similar from Amazon.

I also got this cute little worktop saver from the Poundshop, brilliant for putting my kettle on.

I added a larger collapsible kettle as well, for camping during the colder weather so that I can fill hot water bottles and I love it. Again it was from Amazon.

I also got a little toaster for my gas stove, and treated myself to a small Ridgemonkey, which I love for making toasted sandwiches. I am looking forward to trying out more things in the Ridgemonkey this summer as I have gained so much inspiration from the Ridgemonkey Recipes Facebook group. Mine is the compact one and it is the perfect size for one person.

The latest purchase has been a collapsible toilet, for emergency use when I am in France and Spain, as most of the time I will be staying on campsites. I have not tried it out yet but the different toilet solutions are a popular topic of discussion on our Facebook forums 😉

Thoughts going forward

I think I have now got just about everything I need and am happy with the flexibility that the layout and equipment gives me. I like having the option to move the kitchen outside to cook when it is hot.

That gives me more space inside the van, where I can sit in my little reading nook in the shade.

For the moment I am still happy using my small tent as a storage awning. I am still looking at other types of awning to fit onto the back of the van but they are very expensive at the moment, up to £700. I have bought a new throw from the market here for £5 and will be trialling that this summer so will take some more pictures of how that works over the back doors.

The tent also gives me the ability to just book into sites as a tent and car, and to sleep in it comfortably if needed as I still have my inflatable mattress. That will be useful for one of the festivals that I am going to this year, as they only allow officially converted vans in the campervan field. Some campsites do object to micro campers so I like having the option of both. I have never had any problems with the van at the Caravan and Camping Club sites but know other people have at other sites.

I have all of the lovely things in Katy as well to make her feel like home, my cushions and hangings, and my new tin. I am really pleased with how the lap quilt has turned out and will take lots of pictures of her looking pretty for you soon.

I hope that you have enjoyed this little update. I will be back soon with more Spanish fun in the sun updates for you. Until then have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

The Reading List

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As you may know, I love reading with a passion. I read for relaxation, education, information and entertainment. One of my greatest joys about retirement is the chance to usually read for at least 2 hours a day.

One of the books that I really enjoyed recently was called The Reading List, by Sara Nisha Adams. It is not just about the power of books, but that is its central theme, and as the title suggests there is a reading list at the heart of the story.

At the end of the book the author gives her own version of a list of books that she thinks everyone should read, and some of these have already gone on my wishlist.

It got me thinking about what my recommended list would be, so I have put one together for you, along with some short notes on why I chose these books. Some are from many years ago, some I have read recently, but all are chosen for their power to transform what we think, as well as their story. They are in no particular order, and all images are from the internet.

‘The Women’s Room’ by Marilyn French

I have read this book twice, and will definitely read it again. Sometimes with books what you get when you first read is very different from a second reading and for me that was very much the case between reading it in my 20s and in my 50s. A really powerful novel, that although it didn’t change my life, certainly made me reflect on it a lot.

‘The Forty Rules of Love’ by Elif Shafak

This was the first of Elif’s books that I read, a charity shop find some years ago. I love her work, but this book is exceptional. For me, it was the way that the two sides of the story are woven together, and the chance to find out more about the literature from another culture in such an exciting way, that makes this so brilliant.

‘The Book of Lost Names‘ by Kristin Harmel

Another charity shop find, I read this book in a day, it was genuinely that compelling a story. It is one of the books that tell you about things that you never thought that you needed to know. While it is about World War Two, it is a very unusual aspect of what happened, and brings together so many different themes about books themselves and their power.

‘The Beekeeper of Aleppo’ by Christy Lefteri

This is one of those books that I have recommended to so many people, and one that I think deserves to be on school reading lists. It is not an easy read by any means, but the fact that it is based on Christy’s volunteer work, makes it all the more powerful.

I also loved the fact that a local beekeeping project in my old village of Marsden, The Buzz Project, is run by a Syrian refugee who was a beekeeper in Damascus. It is run in conjunction with a project for refugees that a friend of mine works for and it is a fitting real life end to the fictional story in the book.

‘The Storyteller of Casablanca’ by Fiona Valpy

I have read most of Fiona’s books and this is the most stunning of all of them. The two stories are beautifully written and it is one of those books that makes you want to visit the city. Again it is partly set in World War 2, but gives a very different part of the story about refugees in Africa.

‘The Ballroom’ by Anna Hope

One of the reasons that I love this book is that it gives a very human perspective to something that I used to teach about, namely the debates around compulsory sterilisation in the early part of the twentieth century, and the 1913 Mental Deficiency Act. You can tell from this that the book is not an easy read, but the characters and the debates are portrayed so well in this novel.

‘The Echo of Old Books’ by Barbara Davis

I discovered this as a suggestion from my Kindle Unlimited and what I love most about this book is the wonderful quotes about the power of old books that start each chapter. There are so many themes about books explored in this one, it is a book lover’s dream, as well as a wonderful story.

‘The Poppy Factory’ by Liz Trenow

Another charity shop find, I nearly didn’t pick this one up as I thought I had read enough about the impact of World War 1. However this book has a very current and thought provoking storyline and the way that the story is told is just beautiful, if heart breaking at times.

‘The Sunrise’ by Victoria Hislop

I have mentioned this one before, as my inspiration to visit Cyprus. Victoria is a very well-known author, but few people seem to have read this, which I think is one of my favourite novels ever. A superbly well researched story about an event that still has drastic repercussions for the city and its people today.

‘To The River’ by Olivia Laing

This was one of the books that we read an extract from on my WEA Writing Course last year and I just had to go and buy the book that day. It is part a travel book, writing beautifully about the River Ouse in Suffolk, and its history. It is also a personal story, and links to the author’s love of books, and the rivers connection with the writer Virginia Woolf.

You may have noticed that most of my titles start with ‘the’. I think that this is just a coincidence but will have to monitor my future reading to see if this is a theme!

I hope that you have enjoyed reading my list, and that you might be inspired to look at some of the books I love, or make up your own list. I hope that you read books, and if you don’t please try it, it is the most magical thing!

Until next time, have fun, (read something), take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

Busy doing something, working the whole day through…..

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I have been getting on really well with the list of things that I have to do before I leave for the UK, so much so that I managed to sneak another thing on to the crafting list.

I was getting some new stickers sorted for Katy, as she is going to be at various festivals and in the display field at one of them, and I saw this lovely slogan that I thought that I would adapt. I have various hoop embroideries featuring caravans in Katy, so thought that a Renault Kangoo would be good, in case she starts suffering an identity crisis 😉

The plan is to chain stitch around the outlines and backstitch the lettering, and add some stars stitched in metallic thread.

I have been really enjoying doing the hoop embroidery with my friends from sewing group so wanted to do some more myself. They have all been very inspired, there were lots of finishes in beautiful colours last week, and some very good works in progress.

Lynne was extremely inspired and has started a sampler of different stitches.

I have done well with the new dress for re-enactment, the dreaded holes have come out fine and I am now on the tidying up all of the seams, which involves lots of nice hand stitching while binge watching on Netflix 😉

I have also finished this cute little cross stitch, that I started last year. This will go in the front of the van when I am at meet ups with one of the van life Facebook groups that I am a member of, so people will know it is me. The slogan of the group is , ‘carpe diem’, which means, ‘seize the day’ . The pattern is an adaptation of one from a cross stitch magazine, not sure which one now.

I have backed it with some of the lovely van fabric that I also used for the other cushions in the camper.

I will also need to sort out the summer crafting projects. I will be taking some cross stitch Christmas ornaments, as I have another 8 to stitch. I will also knit at least one of the unicorns from the latest Little Cotton Rabbits’ pattern.

I will also be making some more of the Textured Dresses as they are so useful for both the knitted animals, Barbies and the Rainbow Rascals dolls that I have been knitting for Christmas boxes this year.

I have only finished Poppy so far, Violet is still in bits in the cupboard!

I have also packed my flower book as I am determined to learn to crochet flowers for a garland for Katy this summer.

They are all great projects for doing in the small space of the van. I am so excited about the summer ahead, I have 4 months on the road and can’t wait to share all of my adventures with you. Last summer I was looking forward to it, but this year I am even more excited as I know how very much I loved it last year 🙂

I will hopefully have chance for a couple more blog posts before I go. Until then have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

Lesser known Venice, and floor to ceiling awe

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As I mentioned in my previous posts we were able to see lots of things that people maybe miss in Venice, including some of the lesser known museums.

Our museum pass included the gorgeous Palazzo Mocenigo, which houses The Study Centre for the History of Textiles, as you can imagine a prime location for me! The palace itself was beautiful with some wonderful paintings of scenes from Venetian life with such a focus on costume.

However, the most amazing thing was the small room with 18th century embroidered waistcoats. We just came round a corner to see all of this splendour!

These are just incredible, especially when you consider the hours that each must have taken to embroider.

They also had a small display of kimonos, proving again that culture spreads so rapidly through fashion. These were in a section about casual wear around the house.

We also visited Casa Goldoni, which is the house of one of the most famous 19th century playwrights, Carlo Goldoni. This was a small museum but very interesting, including this sack back dress, particularly the lace on the dress which referenced back to our previous museum visit at Burano. Goldoni wrote about fashion in some of his plays which makes him a great source for textile historians and he was referenced in the Burano Lace Museum’s interpretation.

It was also great to see inside what is a fairly typical Venetian house with its internal ground floor courtyard and stairs leading to the living area.

As well as Burano we visited the island of Murano, which is famous for glass making. The museum there was excellent, with fascinating displays of how they make the millefiori glass, using tiny tubes of individual colours. Again there was very good use of video in the museum’s interpretation.

There was also an art exhibition, by Simon Berger, called Shattering Beauty. I am not usually a fan of modern art but this was absolutely stunning, not only in the technique used of carefully breaking glass to create faces, but also in the inspiration for the technique, which came when he saw a shattered windscreen from a car accident. I loved the way he had thought about the images and the use of the cubes and reflection, so you got to see yourself at the same time.

Other wanders included a trip to the Arsenale, which takes up a large proportion of the island. This was the old shipyard, which is still in operation today as a naval base.

Many of the paintings that we saw earlier in the week featured this area, and the incredible amount of ship building that was done here, which made Venice such an important naval power. This is a painting done by one of my favourite artists, Canaletto, that I found on Wikipedia, which shows you how it would have looked in 1793.

Although you can’t go inside, you can wander all around the walls and appreciate the scale of the place. This map from All About Learn, dated 1797, is wonderful for its detail of all of the vessels being built there.

On our last day we took the number 1 vaporetto out to its final stop, the island of Lido. We had seen this from across the bay all week, and I really wanted to go and visit.

It has a completely different feel to the other islands of Venice, there are long sandy beaches and lots of gorgeous hotels and houses on wide streets. We loved it and would encourage you to go if you can to see a different side of the city.

Our final visit was to the very famous, and much visited, St Peter’s Basilica. It is a truly remarkable building, the scale of the gold mosaics and architecture just incomparable.

The floors also fascinated me, their sheer complexity and attention to detail was stunning, so much inspiration as well for textile creation!

Venice, you were wonderful, thank you. I probably will not go back, just because there are about a million other cities I need to visit, but you are beautiful and unique, and I hope that going forward tourism does not have too a severe impact on your future.

I shall be back in a few days hopefully, with an update on what I have been doing here. It has been a very busy, but lovely week, temperatures are around 30 degrees so there have been plenty of visits to the pool in and amongst my textile endeavours. Until then have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

Everyday life in Spain, cockroach wars, the beach and lots of embroidery!

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This is a catch up post with lots of things to show you. Life here continues to be wonderful, the weather is still very good and I had my first sea swim this week which was brilliant. However I am having a constant battle with cockroaches!

In Spain they are as common as spiders and I know that they are often associated with dirty conditions but I do clean a lot, honestly! However, despite my best efforts, at least once a night one of the dastardly little creatures strolls by, while I am sitting on my sofa. They then then stop and glare at me, as if to say, ‘what are you doing here?’ I have taken to trying to catch them and remove them to a garden of an empty house across the road but often they are too fast for me. This week’s score is about 5-2 to the roaches. I love the fact that I have geckos and flamingos in my life, but not the roaches 😦

As well as the beach visit on Sunday we had lunch there on Saturday, to celebrate National Knit in Public Day in the UK. We had a lovely time, didn’t get much knitting done, but one set of the reindeer legs are almost complete now.

I have also finished the bear that I made from the Moses Basket cover for my great niece. This was a free pattern from here. The original was designed to be made from fur fabric, but it worked well from the jersey.

I added interfacing first, which I then zig zag stitched for extra stability. I decided to hand sew as the pieces were small and jersey is very mobile!

I am pleased with the end result, I am calling him Bertie for now. He has a slightly padded muzzle, and his eyes and nose are made from wool felt from a scarf.

Hopefully Willow will really love him and remember the hedgehog fabric. Apparently she used to ‘talk’ to the hedgehogs when she was in the basket so hopefully Bertie will be a great friend for her.

The Liberty lap quilt is now all hand quilted, that was two afternoons of binge watching Netflix, including the wonderful ‘Queen Charlotte’, an excellent Bridgerton prequel. I just did some very simply running stitch following the seams.

My plan for this week is to get the backing on this, and to machine sew the seams on my new peasant dress for Tewkesbury Medieval Festival. Then it is just the dreaded holes for the lacing and some nice relaxing hemming and seam tidying up to do! I am on a countdown as I leave for the UK in 3 weeks 🙂

The embroidery workshop went really well. I shared my selection of the wonderful Jenny of Elefantz’s patterns for this and also directed people to her website as there were quite a few who said they would like to do more things after their hoops. These are some of the previous ones that I have made that people were doing.

The aim was for everyone to stitch a small motif in a hanging hoop, and most people have already finished their hoops.

I always ask my friends for permission to share their photos on my blog and Brenda, who is in the photo on the right above was keen that I should tell you that she found the stitching fine even with her compression bandage.

I always aim to make workshops as accessible as possible so it was great that everyone could achieve what they wanted and found it relaxing. I love doing hand embroidery. I haven’t done any for a while as I have a large pile of finished things that have no current homes to go to, so need to find someone who wants a wool basket, hanging or pouch.

We are doing another session on how to finish the hoops with different types of backings this week. I have added Liberty and lace to my three small van embroidery hoops, and some ombre fabric and lace to the mandala embroidery, as I realised that the felt backing that I had looked very plain from the back when the hoops are hanging in the van.

So I have a busy few weeks ahead as I also have to finish sorting all of my bookings for the summer and my route through France and Spain back here in the autumn. I can’t tell you how excited I am about all of the wonderful things I have planned for next few months 😉

I hope that you are all having a good time as well, and whatever you are doing have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

Textile miracles

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I am often witness to some amazing things that I see people making, or have made, in my travels to museums, or in my own groups. It always amazing me how people can turn sticks and wool, or just one little stick with a hook, into the most gorgeous pieces of art.

Lacemaking is, to me, the highest form of these miracles, probably due to its complexity and the sheer amount of labour that goes into each piece. Added to that the fact that I can’t do it and that always makes them seem more complicated!

I had been waiting to post about our recent visit to the Venice Lace Museum, in Burano, until our own brilliant Lace Day, here in Spain was over, so that I could post pictures of both things.

You may remember that I first went to Lace Day last year. Vivienne in our sewing group is an amazing lace maker, and we had a workshop led by her in the group as well in November. It was a brilliant day once again, not only seeing the work of the other groups, but also the beautiful crocheted sunshades everywhere in the park.

It was also wonderful to spend time with my friends from my knitting and sewing groups. I know that I may have said it before, but I am so pleased to have met these wonderful women, who have become very good friends over the last two years. There is just something about people who craft that make them my kind of people 😉

The Lace Museum on the island of Burano was the second lace museum that I have visited, the first being the one at Nottingham Castle. This museum was housed in the school of lace that was opened in 1872, located in an old Palazzo. I particularly like the old sign for the school displayed on the wall here.

It is is very well interpreted museum, with a small display area that changes periodically. It looks not only at the techniques of lace making, but also the social and historical context of lace in fashion.

They also have a brilliant map in the entrance showing different lace from around the world and the coolest lockers of any museum I have visited!

Quite a lot of the interpretation is through video, which was excellent, and this is complemented by the wonderful pieces in the display cases.

As you know I am a little bit obsessed with seeing the wonderful people behind the craft, so it was brilliant to see these local ladies portrayed in the video, and learn about their work with groups of children.

I loved the fact that there were, not only pieces of lace, but some actual garments, such as this dress and wedding dress with veil.

I also loved these little baby bootees!

There were also patterns, dating from different eras, and paintings of people wearing garments with lace.

The earliest samples in the exhibition were from the late 16th century. Not only are they wonderful, but the fact that they have survived so long is amazing.

There were also lots of samples from the 1700 and 1800 hundreds showing different types of lace, such as bobbin lace, and lace stitched on tulle.

The island of Burano is one that is much visited, as it is famous for its beautiful painted houses.

You can also buy lots of small samples of machine made lace on the island, and purchase larger pieces of hand made work.

The Lace Museum was really quiet, so it is sad that more people don’t go as it is a fascinating part of Venice’s history. It is very centrally located in one of the main squares and is very much worth a visit, as is the island itself.

The advice given that I referred to in my last post, about more sustainable tourism in Venice recommends visiting the outer islands and less popular places and we were lucky enough to see lots of those, which I will tell you more about in a future post.

I am currently working on finishing up a pair of knitted reindeer for one of my friends at knitting group. Lots of little ends to sew in! I have also just got onto the hand quilting stage of the Liberty lap quilt. My wadding has arrived and I have done some of the basting. I have had fun choosing which colours of perle to use for each square.

I am running a workshop this week at sewing group doing some hand embroidery with perle thread and some of the designs I have collected over the years. I will take some pictures of that and share them at the end of the week. My friend Sarah, from Marsden, gifted me some small hoops a while ago, so everyone will be able to make a little framed picture to hang somewhere.

The weather has thankfully settled here and we are having lovely sunny days so I am going to the pool a lot. I can’t believe that in a few weeks time I will be celebrating 2 years of retirement 🙂 It has flown by and I am loving every minute of it. Who wouldn’t? Time to study, to craft, to write my novel, making new friends, and being pain free enough to enjoy exercise and life generally is so brilliant.

I feel so very blessed and am conscious that there are so many people who never have that opportunity. Like most of us, as we get older there are more friends who die far too young, and I am feeling incredibly grateful that I have had this time, and determined to make every single day count.

I hope that you are too, and that you are all having a happy life. Have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.