Month: January 2026

From Speyside to Deeside

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Although I could have stayed at the Tarland by Deeside campsite as part of my welfare weekends, I had already booked six nights there in September, so I ended up staying as part of my tour of the north east of Scotland after I finished my contract. This is an absolutely stunning area of the country, with the Dee similar to the Spey, a beautiful shallow river spanned by many Victorian iron bridges, with lots of pretty little towns and villages around it.

It is also castle country, so on the way there, and while I was staying I visited a few of the ones I have previously blogged about. I didn’t have time to visit all of the ones in the area, so am hoping to see a few more on my way up to my caravan storage this year.

The campsite is gorgeous, very similar to Speyside as it is very wooded, with shaded pitches and views of the hills.

The village with some lovely shops and cafes is within walking distance, and the first day I was there they had a food a drink festival, so I got to go and see some more fantastic pipe bands.

There are also the Tarland Trails near the campsite, with lots of purpose built mountain bike trails, and part of these are in Drummy Woods, which is right next to the site. I had a short walk through the woods after the food festival, and met some very nice cows!

As well as a couple of lovely chilled days sitting reading, stitching, and enjoying the peace and quiet, I also ticked off somewhere that has been on my bucket list for a long time. Several of the people I follow on Instagram have done this walk and it looked fantastic. Ciss Outdoors, who I have followed on Instagram for a while, has just set up a fantastic website full of useful information about hiking in Scotland and beyond. Sam Culley has a You Tube and Instagram that I have used when planning lots of my adventures in places like the Peak District and Yorkshire.

The walk was on the Balmoral Estate and covered visiting some of the memorial cairns built for Queen Victoria’s family. The royal family were there at Balmoral when I visited, so I couldn’t do the full trail, but did get to see Princess Beatrice’s and the famous Albert Memorial, which is a pyramid overlooking the edge of the Cairngorms.

This was an amazing moment, it is quite a steep climb, but so worth it, and a very emotional one for me. Those of you who have been following me for a long time know that I have had a number of issues with my mobility over the years.

For about five years before I retired I was struggling to walk, and needed a stick even to walk short distances in the last years, which was partly why I took early retirement. To be able to do all the things I do now, especially after a season of tough physical work, is amazing, and standing up there looking at these views is something I will never forget, and be eternally grateful for.

The following day I visited the nearby Muir of Dinnet, a nature reserve with trails up through the woodland, and around Loch Kinnord. It was a beautiful day, the views were stunning, and I had a quiet picnic by the loch, just thinking about how lucky I am.

If you get a chance to visit the area, please do. It is so beautiful, and a real undiscovered gem of Scotland.

I am on the final two days of life here in La Marina. It will be sad to leave, I have had a fantastic few months, but am SO EXCITED to be going back to the UK and to Scotland!!! I still have to pinch myself that this is my life, it really does keep getting better and better.

There will be a quiet couple of weeks, blog wise, as I am visiting friends and family, but then am having a couple of weeks of caravan life where amongst some outdoor activities, I will be mainly writing. I have been very disciplined this week and have gone back to the first novel, in an effort to finally finish it this year. The last few chapters are the most difficult, but really interesting, as they are the ones set at Hardwick Hall in the 1940s, so I have been doing lots of interesting research.

So until I see you again, have fun, and thanks for visiting.

Empty places

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Although I love visiting historic houses and castles full of textiles, and all of the possessions the owners have accumulated over the centuries, there is something really powerful about visiting those places that are ruined, either though the ravages of time, or single events that destroy the place.

I have visited a few of these in the last few years, and what strikes me about them is the ability to give a glimpse into how these places must have looked as they were being constructed. Bare walls, no roof, the stone or bricks the most important feature, without the distraction of tapestry hangings and wallpaper.

There is also the way that the light works in these buildings, often without windows and curtains to filter it, and the blinds to preserve the delicate fabrics from decay. There is a magical quality to the way the light illustrates the bare bones, the way that you see shadows, rather than wallpaper.

I recently visited somewhere that has been on my wishlist for a very long time. The birthplace of Mary Queen of Scots, Linlithgow Palace, is just one of the many places that I have yet to go to, on my quest to know more about this fascinating woman. If you have been here for a while you may know that I have visited many of the places that Mary stayed, either by plan, or suddenly finding myself there. I have been interested in Mary for so many years, sparked by seeing her needlework at Hardwick Hall.

My first novel, which I am hoping to complete sometime this year, is centred around Hardwick, and I have really enjoyed the research for this, including reading more about Mary and her stitching. A couple of years ago I bought this fascinating book, which delves into Mary’s relationship with textiles, both her clothes and her needlework.

This was a different type of visit, to the empty palace where it all begin. Before she became a young widow, an exiled queen, and ultimately a prisoner, stitching alongside her companion Bess of Hardwick, gradually losing hope that Elizabeth would meet with her and grant her freedom.

It was a particularly significant day to visit, although I didn’t know when I was planning the trip, but this notice was on display in the entrance of the palace.

Such a beautiful and atmospheric place to spend a morning, and I am exceptionally glad that I was able to get there on this trip, as in the gift shop I found this wonderful book.

We have often joked as a family that everywhere we went, Mary seemed to have stayed, or slept, and this is going to form a large part of my planning for other Scottish visits this year, as there are many I was not aware of.

A couple of weeks later I visited Seaton Delavel Hall, on my way back to Yorkshire to catch up with friends. The hall was destroyed by fire around 200 years ago, so what remains to visit is a scarred and empty building, with the most wonderful architectural details to see. I loved the stairwells, the way the light streamed into them, and the fact that you could see the melted railings in the upper floors, recreated to ensure that visitors could access them.

Even though it was a dull day, the light was beautiful, and so were the gardens, with their displays of blossoms in my favourite colours. A beautiful place, and I am so glad it is still cared for and accessible.

I am at the start of my last full week here, so that means lots of last meals out and events with friends. I am very lucky to have such a great social life here in Spain, and this week will be out virtually every night. My poker skills have been improving, I even won a tournament a couple of weeks ago, coming second out of eight people, so am very happy about that, and have enjoyed learning the game a lot. This week also means the all important task of sorting out my projects for the coming year, and deciding which crafting stash is coming with me, based on that.

I will have time for one more post before I leave, have just returned from a marvellous trip here in Spain but will leave that for a while as I need to finish the Scottish and Yorkshire adventures first. So will see you all here next week. Hope you all have a very happy week whatever you are doing, and thanks for visiting.

Spanish celebrations

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I had been waiting until now to write this post as I should have been able to tell you about the last of the coach trips we had been on, celebrating Spain’s final Christmas celebration, the Three Kings, which takes place on Jan 5th every year. We were due to go to Cartagena, a beautiful city south of us, that I have visited many times. Sadly due to a very bad storm, the fiesta was cancelled, so we didn’t get to go. Global warming is certainly changing the weather here, with much wetter autumns and winters and very high summer temperatures.

Thankfully all our other trips went off very well. The first was to the Benidorm Fiesta in late November. I have been before, but this was Mum’s first trip. Last time I wore the tablecloth jacket that I mentioned in my last post and my purple top hat, but they are in England at the moment.

Mum and I decided that we would do a modified version of my steampunk Seamstress Squadron outfit, which has the top hat decorated with sewing themed items. So we bought a couple of posh hats from one of our local charity shops and had a very productive afternoon decorating them. I knew all those orphan patchwork blocks would come in handy one day! I also pinned some blocks to my top, and Mum had some crochet motifs stitched to hers.

We had a brilliant day, it was really hot, around 27 degrees, so we really felt for those who had chosen very furry costumes, like these people. The Artic Explorer costume was so good, and he was constantly being stopped for photos.

Although a lot of people buy costumes from fancy dress shops, (there were hundreds of Fred and Wilma Flintstones), many people create the most gorgeous and elaborate unique costumes. We particularly loved these beautiful mermaids and fairy godmothers.

It is a really fun day out, the culmination of which is a parade, organised by all the bars, restaurants and shows that Benidorm is famous for. So many brilliant floats and dancers, especially the amazing sea themed dancers.

We also had two trips to nearby cities to see the Christmas lights, and the belen nativities that are in every Spanish town and city. The first was to Elche, famous for its palm gardens. As well as a beautifully decorated Christmas market in the square near the town hall there was a stunning, Three Kings themed display next to the cathedral, featuring their crowns, and a small belen.

The second trip was to Orihuela, a small city near my favourite mountains, famous for its many churches and the cathedral. This trip was on a little Christmas train, around the city to see all the lights, and stopping off at two churches to see their belens. It was brilliant and everyone waved at us as we drove around through the narrow backstreets.

I love the detail in these extended nativity dioramas, they are so wonderful in their attention to the tiniest little reproductions of life in the towns and villages of biblical times. The first one was about 20 by 8 feet in length and we walked around it.

The second one was much bigger, it took up two rooms at the back of the church. Not only is it the largest one I have ever seen, the detail and craftsmanship was amazing. I loved the depictions of the textile crafts, and the one of the three kings studying the stars in the library. Look at the detail of all of the scrolls!

As well as some lovely, and unique scenes from the story of Jesus’s birth, there was a separate section detailing the flight to Egypt, with the most amazing modelling that I have ever seen. The tiny little sections, such as the temple carvers, and the embalming and mummification displays were incredible.

We are off on another longer trip tomorrow, so will post about that at some point. I am still playing catch up on my Scottish adventures, so hopefully will get those finished before I leave Spain in a couple of weeks. Although I will be sad to leave family and friends here, I am so looking forward to getting back to Scotland, and to the new camping season starting!

Hope you are all having fun, take care and thanks for visiting.

A different kind of textile heritage

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Although I love visiting historic houses such as the many castles in Scotland, I also really enjoy industrial textile heritage as well. I have posted before about some of the textile heritage that is represented in the Great Tapestry of Scotland, and mentioned Dundee in particular, celebrating the city’s nickname of, ‘Juteopolis’.

I have friends from Yorkshire who have lived near Dundee for many years, and on my second visit to them this summer I took the chance to see some more of the things that they had been telling me about. Dundee was famous for three Js, Jam, Journalism and Jute, and on my last visit we went to Arbroath and saw the many strawberry greenhouses there, that go to make the famous jams. This time it was the turn of the jute production.

The Verdant Works is a fascinating museum, in the heart of the city, it is housed in an old jute factory. The name suggests greenery, somewhere lush and beautiful, and this is anything but. A beautifully restored building, but you can only imagine how dirty and dusty it was when production was at its peak.

What I love about textile heritage, is that it permeates every aspect of our lives. You’ve probably never thought about jute, but it was once one of the most important materials for making the bags that transported everything. At its height in the late 1800s the industry employed 50,000 people, and brought many migrant workers to live in the city.

What was particularly interesting about the museum was the focus on the engineering. A lot of the displays are video based, so I don’t have much in the way of photos, but it was fascinating seeing all of the stages of jute production, and thinking about the many engineers that were needed to build and maintain these machines. The main hall is given over to reproductions of some of the earliest engines that helped shape the Industrial Revolution.

As with most industrialised textile production, it was a female dominated workforce in terms of the labour handling the many bobbins and weaving machines needed to produce the jute, and male dominated for the engineering and foremen. This led to Dundee having a reputation for being led by strong women, with lots of links to early equality campaigns.

I loved the many pictures of the women who worked there, in their jute aprons and flowered overalls. Just sobering to think about the very hard lives that they had, a world away from the women embroidering the gorgeous needlepoint cushions at Fyvie Castle!

There were also links with the Empire, as the jute was imported from India, and you may remember this beautiful panel from The Great Tapestry celebrating those links as well. A really fascinating museum for anyone interested in social history, and I would really recommend a visit.

While looking for background information for this post I came across another tapestry, this time just concentrating on the history of Dundee, the exhibition was at the V and A in the city, and has sadly finished, however there is another fantastic representation of the industry in stitches here.

Being the first post of 2026, and having missed my blogaversary in December, and my all important 1,000 post celebration as well, I thought I would end with a little reflection on Stitches of Time. This is post number 1,024, over the last just over 18 years. My 1,000 post was actually one about travels in Spain, published in Feb 2025. The very first post, as I think I have mentioned before, was about Christmas ornaments, published in Dec 2007.

My most viewed post every month is usually the one about my tablecloth jacket, which is lovely as it is one of my all time favourite makes, and has been worn so many times.

It is difficult to gives stats for how many people have visited my blog since it started, as there was a change in the way the figures were collected in 2021, but since then I have had 89,100 visitors, which is absolutely amazing! My top three countries that visitors come from are the USA, UK and Australia, but I actually have had visitors in that time from 165 countries, which is incredible :-0

So a huge thank you to all of you for your visits, likes, comments, and general appreciation of my sharing my life and loves. Hope that you have a very good 2026 and that you and your loved ones are safe, well and happy.

Until next time, thanks for visiting, each and every one of you lovely people!