Leominster, a history in stitches

I spent most of last week at a beautiful campsite near Hereford.

I had chosen this site as there were a lot of things that I didn’t get to see last year in this area, and one of those was an embroidered history of the town of Leominster that I had seen mentioned in a tourist brochure last year.

The embroidery is housed in a community centre which in itself is well worth a visit. Grange Court dates from the 1600s and was once located in the centre of the town where it was the market hall.

It was sold in 1855, dismantled and moved to its current site near the Priory. It was a family home and is now used for many different community purposes, including a cafe and wedding venue.

The embroidery panels were done by a local group of stitchers and were made over 4 years by 15 stitchers in time for the Queen’s Jubilee in 2012.

They feature a wide variety of techniques such as crewel work trapunto and applique. Some are themed, such as the history of the Priory, or WW2, others summarise the events of one century.

There was some amazing work in the panels, I think my favourite were the early history ones that featured wool work and applique.

I also loved the trapunto ones, featuring stonework from the Priory and the woodwork details of the market.

A really wonderful labour of love from the embroiderers and a very special way of portraying the local history.

We had a lovely weekend at the Evesham event, it was raining on the Saturday but nice and sunny in Sunday and we had the miracle of a dry pack down.

It was also brilliant to see all of the talented people who make all their own clothes for events. Dave, in the black below, also does leatherwork. You can find him at Buffy Leatherwork on Facebook and Instagram. He had made things for film and TV including the recent movie about Richard 3rd, The Lost King.

These boxes above were made by my other friend, also called Dave. He also made and painted the bed in their tent. They are absolutely stunning, museum quality.

I will leave you with one of my favourite pictures, of me and Kerry in her tent. She is wearing one of her beautiful gowns, which is a wonderful red and gold in real life. I do love the sepia version of the picture though.

I am off to another festival this weekend, where Katy is in the show field, so I am very excited about that. I will then be in Lincolnshire for nearly two weeks so hopefully will have lots of long beach walks and even see some seals.

Until next time have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

Clouds, coastlines and cottages

I have now been in Somerset for nearly a week and am very much enjoying my time here. The weather has been variable, but that has meant lots of opportunity to watch the cloud formations over the sea and moorland so I don’t mind at all.

There have also been some fabulous rainbows across the bay.

I have had various posts from friends who are melting in Spain, so am enjoying my 17 degrees!

Minehead is a very cute little town and is the start of a coastal walk, of which there are many sections. I have only done a bit so far due to the rain, but have enjoyed the sea and pebble beach views, very different to my Spanish scenes.

The harbour at Minehead has some cottages with beautiful little gardens.

Somerset is full of quintessentially English thatched cottages and today I went to Selworthy, a National Trust village.

There are four gorgeous little cottages, grouped around the village green, with gardens with some of my favourite flowers in.

Two are a tea shop and gift shop and I think the others can be rented.

There were lovely views over the valley.

The church there was also very impressive, with stunning carved pews and a ceiling full of carved angels and bosses.

There was also another of the Mother’s Union Virgen Mary banners that I have seen in so many churches.

I would love to know if the patterns were centrally supplied for these, as I have seen so many that are similar on my travels.

I also went to Porlock Weir, for another set of cute cottages and pebble beach, and one of the smallest museums I have ever visited.

This was a packed room of all things sea related.

There was some great stuff, like this set of signalling flags from the 1800s.

I am trying out a new app that allows me to make collages which are faster to upload while on the road so I hope you like the layout.

I have another four days here so there will be yet more Somerset fun to share later in the week. Until then have fun, take care, stay safe, and thanks for visiting.

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

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

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!

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.

The beauty of Spring

We were lucky enough to be in Japan during spring, landing in fact when the cherry blossoms were at their peak. This time of year is very significant in Japanese culture, not only are there drinks, ice cream and cakes flavoured with the ‘sakura’ or blossom, but also the season has a spiritual significance, signifying the new year.

This is very much reflected in art and we saw some beautiful examples of art and textiles honouring nature and blooms at the Tokyo National Museum. The museum is located in Ueno Park, which is one of the main places that the Japanese visit to see the blossoms and the exhibits are themed seasonally.

There were some stunning robes on display here. We had seen an exhibition about the kimono in New York, which looked at how it has influenced Western fashion, and how Japanese fashion changed in the early 20th century as more Western fashion began to be worn.

So it was brilliant to see the different types of kimono, from the early kosode seen here in the red and gold embroidered examples from the Edo period of the early 1600s above, to the later furisode below which is dyed using the shibori technique. You can read more about the history of the kimono here in this article by the Victoria and Albert Museum.

What is also very interesting is the parallels with costume in Europe at this time, the long sleeves of this kimono signified an unmarried women.

Similar long sleeves with yards of excess fabric are common in medieval dress, signifying in this case that you have the wealth to afford excess material and servants to do the menial tasks.

There was also legislation banning excessively decorated kimonos, as there was legislation about who should wear certain colours and fabrics in medieval Europe, the sumptuary laws.

The garments are stunning in the sheer amount of embroidery and goldwork on them. This peacock was one of my favourites, the work that has gone into this is amazing.

There were also many examples of delicate art and calligraphy, all framed with silks and brocade.

The museum itself was a very gorgeous building, full of decorative doors and lamps, it dates from the early 1930s. As with many of Tokyo’s buildings, an earlier one was destroyed in an earthquake.

A really beautiful collection and I loved seeing all the detail of the gowns. Sadly the other museum we wanted to visit, covering the Edo period, was closed for refurbishment, so this was our only museum trip while in Japan.

I only have one more post for you about the Japan trip and that covers something that I didn’t really expect to find, but was great fun! More on that later. I have friends coming to stay for the next two weeks so I will be out and about with them, showing them what Spain has to offer.

I will pop back later in the week as I have been hard at work in the craft space. I am actually ahead of myself in terms of targets for this block of time here so have been spending some time with my machine. More of that next time, meanwhile, have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

Developing my skills

One of the great things about having a blog, aside from all the lovely new people I meet through it, is that I can track progress of my skills. I had a lovely afternoon yesterday, finishing off the quilt top for Katy. I am so pleased with the end result, which overall has taken about 3 years.

I first started developing my skills with quilt blocks about 5 years ago, and made many for pouches and bags for friends, or that that were sold at my friend Sarah’s stall at Yarndale each year.

I have some particular favourite blocks from those makes, including the Churn Dash block, that I made so many versions of including this scrappy one.

A major leap in my skills came about 3 years ago, at the start of lockdown, when I was doing the Riley Blake Challenge to make a different block each week. I ended up with a really good selection of blocks.

It is very interesting to read those post, not only talking about developing my skills, but also looking back on how I felt at that time. It is very heart warming to think that 3 years on we have been able to return to almost normal, and have the precious freedom to travel, and more importantly spend time with friends and family.

Every year at this point I like to reflect on what was a very low point for me, after the first few weeks of isolation, when I just had to leave the house and have some human contact. Although making quilt blocks was brilliant, it was so nice to see other people again!

I am celebrating that anniversary today in my beautiful little house in Spain, still working on quilt blocks but with a very happy heart, especially after the last wonderful few months of travel!

During that challenge I learnt so many new skills, and made lots of blocks that I had only ever heard of. At the time I wasn’t quite sure what I would do with the collection. Last year I finally decided to use some of them for a lap quilt for the van, adding some blocks with embroidery to some of the Riley Blake ones. This was the progress in January.

I was debating whether to add a scrappy border after I had finished the white sashing and I am so glad that I did, it really adds to the overall effect and you can never have too much Liberty, at least not in my world 😉

I really love all of the blocks, though I think that the ones with the embroidery left over from making the tablecloth jacket are a particular favourite.

The task now is to hand quilt it, once I have got hold of some batting. I am hoping one of the local craft stores might have some, but if not will have to resort to Amazon. I am planning some hand quilting in perle thread so that it will tone in with the mandala and embroideries that are currently in Katy.

I don’t think that I have shown you the cute new tin that I got for her as well. I am collecting campervan and caravan themed tins and decorations for her as well.

Riley Blake have another challenge for this year and you can find all of the patterns here. I have been admiring people’s creations on Instagram, and although I do have other projects to focus on will definitely be making some more blocks to join the ones I have left.

I hope you are having a happy Monday, and enjoying the extra Bank Holiday if you are in the UK. I will be back later in the week with some lovely Japanese textiles for you. Until then have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

A wander around Wolverley

The planned visits to Trust properties didn’t happen due to some heavy rain so instead I have been taking advantage of the time to organise the van and have a walk around the village.

This is what I love about being able to travel with no time restrictions, I can spend my life being able to not worry about seeing everything at once, and just enjoy where I am. I will be back in this area in the summer so will add the properties to my list for then.

Wolverley is a very cute little English village, and had a couple of unusual features that make is special.

The first is a local legend concerning the Lord of the Manor, Sir John Attwood, who went off to fight in the early 1200s in the Middle East. He was injured and captured, but was then allegedly mysteriously returned home by a swan.

The legend is commemorated by a carving near the river and the knight’s effigy can be found in the local church.

The Manor House is now a nursing home, but there are many other beautiful old houses, showing this has always been a place of importance. This one below was built in 1876 and reminds me of Lacock Abbey, another Trust house.

There are also some very cute cottages in the middle of the village, some made even more special by the matching garlands on the doors!

I love the idea of spring or Easter wreaths as well as Christmas ones, these tulips are so pretty. It was lovely to see all the trees in blossom along the river.

The village is dominated by a beautiful church which sits high on the red rock outcrop, with a winding path up to it.

As with all old churches there were some gorgeous headstones.

There was also some beautiful embroidery done by the local Mothers’ Union and WI.

I have seen a similar Mary stitching in other churches so maybe it was a common thing for the Union to make.

In the church there was also this very unusual stitched map. There were cross stitched pictures done from photos of village locations with an embroidered map of the village, and information about the houses.

It was there I discovered that the village had some old Rock houses. Similar to the cave houses in Spain, these are a feature of this area.

There were two old ones in the centre of the village, clearly long abandoned but it looked like one had maybe been used for a Nativity or Santa’s Grotto.

I love little wanders like this, off the main tourist trail, it is so interesting what you find. I ended with a nice pint of cider watching a boat go through the lock, all in the name of canal history research you understand!

The van is now sorted properly, I needed to live in it again for a while to work out where things would be be stored and maximise my space.

I will be going back to my sister’s tomorrow and leaving Katy behind for a few months. I still have lots of adventures planned though so will be back here with more of those soon.

Hope you all have a good week, have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

‘Here within the Severn Valley ‘

The secondary school I went to was a very traditional one, with a founder’s day and a school song which started with this line. I do also remember something about it being ‘bright with gardens and rich in streams’.

We also had four different houses that you belonged to, a bit like Hogwart’s, and my house was Severn. The others were Avon, Bredon and Cotswold.

So I grew up knowing the Severn Valley quite well, at least my part of it, but have been keen to explore other areas on my UK trips. I am currently camping in Worcestershire, just outside a little village called Wolverley.

I chose this location as it is right by the canal as well so I’ve been doing some canal walks and visiting some canal heritage sites. There are also squirrels that play in front of the trees and I love seeing them.

The River Severn was a very important one in terms of trade in the area. It is the longest river in the UK and runs from its source in Wales, through the major cities of Worcester and Gloucester to join the sea near Bristol. This meant that the river, and the canals that joined it, were vitally important for trade.

I have always loved visiting canals, living so close to the one in Marsden I walked there a lot. It was doing the history of canals course with the WEA last autumn thar gave me a new appreciation of what feats of engineering they are. I love all heritage and appreciate industrial heritage just as much as the grand houses that I love.

Walking alongside this part of the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal you can only marvel at the rock that had to be cut through to make the route. Many routes followed contour lines and so this canal has many bends in it.

It is also very wide in places, making it good for trade, though there are lots of locks that can still only take one boat at a time. Ultimately it was these delays that made the new railways so much more competitive, and so many were closed.

Happily there has been a lot of restoration for leisure purposes and so boats can be seen up and down this canal. Many of the houses also have their own moorings. I love the decorations in the second photo from one of the canalside houses.

I also visited Stourport on Severn, which in the Georgian era was the second biggest inland port in the UK. The canal linked with the river and with the Trent and Mersey canal, enabling goods to be transported north.

The river was very high, probably as a result of all the snow that we had last week melting. There are often floods in this area.

Thankfully the canal basins have been saved and although there is no trade now, there are places to hire narrow boats and the surrounding wharves and canal hotels have been preserved.

It has been lovely being back camping in Katy and I have not been too cold at all. There was one night where it was -3 and I woke up to ice on the inside of the windows, but I was warm and toasty with my fleeces and hot water bottles.

I have a couple of new things in her, the mandala I stitched looks very lovely and I have a cute new storage tin. A friend had a similar one which I loved so found this on Ebay.

I was also given these cute lavender sachets for Christmas and they have the same fabric as my cushion backs. So all is very pretty in Katy!

I am also planning a couple of National Trust visits and some woodland walking so will hopefully be able to post about those before I return to Ellen’s next week.

I hope that you are all having a good weekend, the sun is shining here and it feels very spring like, there are so many daffodils around which is lovely.

Whatever you are doing have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.

A little rest stop

I am currently enjoying a longer than planned visit to my old home village of Marsden. I spent a week at my sister’s getting Katy sorted, and then had a wonderful drive to Ellen’s. It was brilliant to be back driving Katy after 5 months away. At Ellen’s I was able to volunteer at the food bank for a day.

They have so many new projects starting. They have recently set up a mobile supermarket for rural areas. They are also planting an allotment and orchard, and have plans for fixing donated white goods, such as washing machines and fridges, to donate to families in need. Although it is not good that they are still so needed, it is brilliant to see everything that they do.

I drove over to Kerry’s last weekend, and we went to Hardwick for a research visit. I have written most of one character timeline for my first novel, and am now starting on the other, which is set in the 1940s. I wanted to see what interpretation they have for Evelyn, the last owner of the house.

There were some really interesting display boards referring to the notebooks she kept when she started conserving the textiles. I am going to contact Chatsworth, where the archives are held, to see if I can visit in the summer to look at these.

One of my favourite displays was of Evelyn’s reproduction of one of Hardwick’s most famous pieces of embroidery. The original has ES in the centre, for Elizabeth Shrewsbury, Bess’s last married name. Evelyn’s had ED, for Evelyn Devonshire.

What was even more exciting than seeing that piece, was seeing her sewing bag. It is often these little human touches that mean the most when looking at textiles, and that is really what the novel is about. I have always been interested in the people behind the textiles, whose stories are often lost.

The plan was then to do a short tour of friends in Yorkshire before heading off to Derbyshire camping, but snow has altered that somewhat.

My lovely friends had all offered me accommodation for my stays, but when I got to Marsden on Monday it was clear that the forecast was not good for the rest of the week.

Two days of snow later and we were digging the cars out of 14 inches of it. In the picture below you can just see Katy buried in the snow!

So I am still at my friend Jane’s house, where I am house sitting for the weekend, and looking after her lovely Frankie, who is not very impressed by the snow as it is so deep. We have been cuddling up on the sofa in fleecy blankets.

Jane managed to get away to see her family by train, but was delayed by 24 hours. The snow has caused a lot of problems here with road closures, as the village is surrounded by moorland.

This has meant though that I have had chance to catch up with everyone here, and go to the new knitting group, which is located at the new wool shop in the village.

Woolly Tap is a gorgeous place, and they have knitting and crochet groups three times a week. If you are in the area do call in, they have so many beautiful things, including accessories and very cute bags.

The wool shop is located in one of the old mill buildings, very near these original tenter posts in the photo above, which were used to stretch the cloth as it dried. This is the origin of the phrase ‘on tenterhooks ‘ as the woollen cloth was hooked between the posts.

I am currently working on a little dress to go with the rainbow dolls that I shared with you a while ago. This yarn is from a friend and is a lovely variegated denim colour. As I will now be here until next week I am hoping to get the last bits of the other set of reindeer knitted, just the feet to go.

I am still hoping to do one week of camping, further south, weather permitting. I will then be back a Ellen’s for a while so can post the last pictures from Paphos then.

It will not be long until I am back in Spain, where it is currently 24 degrees, rather than 1, but I have really enjoyed being back here for a bit.

I hope you have all had a good few weeks, and have coped with any strange weather. Have a good week ahead, and see you all soon. Have fun, take care, stay safe and thanks for visiting.