The Galloway Peninsular

Howdy! Long-time no blog! I’ve been busy recently and a bit stressed, so I treated myself to a weekend away. I went to the Galloway peninsular in south-western Scotland (it’s the bit that sticks out into the Irish sea and is just 20-odd miles away from Northern Ireland).

Apart from getting stuck in a traffic jam for over two hours that resulted from a fatal car crash (can’t really complain, I wasn’t dead and I got some knitting done) the trip went well.

Here are a few photographic highlights (the full set is here):

Portpatrick shrouded in early morning fog

Wigtown – Best. Bookshop. Ever.

Seriously, it was like a TARDIS in there – seven kinds of awesome!

Kirkcudbright (pronounced ker-koo-bree) showing signs of spring

Thank the gods for the Co-op – I bought a make-shift picnic lunch and ate it overlooking the harbour at Kirkcudbright. How British is that?

The Mull of Galloway (most southerly point in Scotland) and its lighthouse – stunning place. Very, very windy (obviously!)

Feeding some mountain goats in the New Galloway Forest – their eyes look just unreal!

Don’t knit cables while distracted

Why? Because this happens:

Can’t see it? Compare to the pattern and have a look at this

That cable is supposed to go under, not over. I wondered why it didn’t look quite right. I now have a dilemma; do I make the same mistake on the second glove or do I actually pay attention to the pattern this time and do it right. I’m not afraid of asymmetry, and would anyone actually notice if they were different? On the other hand …

Photo Projects:

I’ve signed myself up for Project Spectrum: Cardinal Directions (see the page I’ve set up for more details – eyes top). For March and April the theme is North (green, earth, minerals).

PS: CD

1. IMG_3327, 2. IMG_3326, 3. IMG_3313, 4. IMG_3311, 5. IMG_3287, 6. 365:076

I’m also still going with the self-portrait Project 365 (a photo a day for 365 days) and here’s my mosaic for February;

Knitting Projects:

As well as the Knotty Gloves, I’m still working on Guided by Love socks as well as my Ample Knitter’s design and I’ve added a pair of Baudelaire socks to the pile

Oh, yes!  Sorry to keep you in suspence about the holiday thing!  Turns out my grandma might not be able to fly (and if she can, she might find getting insurance nearly impossible).  She does have a back-up plan of Pembrokeshire (Wales) which she can drive to!  She wasn’t keen on the Barcelona idea, so I’ve decided that I could do that myself at some point in the future.  Thanks for the advice anyway, and I’ll certainly add a couple of those places to my “must see” list (it’s getting longer, not shorter!)

I need some travel advice

If you could go somewhere with Winter sun (April – avoiding Easter) within a 2-3 hour flight of Manchester (UK) where would you go?

This would be for me and my grandmother (the one I visited in January), so nowhere with giant hills and no buses!

It needs to be somewhere with good/extensive public transport.

I know a few words of Spanish and a few phrases in French, but no Portuguese.  I’m sure I’d be able to pick up a few essential phrases before I go, so that’s not too much of a problem.  I’m kind of ruling out Northern/Eastern Europe because, you know, no sun!

So far I’ve quickly looked at Barcelona, Mallorca, Southern France, Corsica or maybe Malta (but I’ve already been there, so maybe not!).  I’m after personal experiences (where you loved, where you didn’t, not necessarily limited to the places I’ve picked out) or places you want to go, but haven’t.  I’m also open to tour operator/airline/hotel recommendations.

Back but busy

How’s that for alteration?!

I worked frikin’ hard in sorting through one small portion (4 full filling cabinet draws of papers going back to childhood) of my grandpa’s paper work, but it has inspired me to plough through my own “stuff” so no-one has to curse me under their breath when I’m gone.

I got one afternoon of tourist-time and my grandma took me to a couple of my favourite places

I did get some knitting done (not much, but the odd round or two watching TV and on the train did add up)

Photo taken on the train home

The socks are the only things I’m actively working on now because I’m designing a top for the Ample Knitters and that’s taking up quite a bit of my brain right now. The visit has put me back about 2 weeks, but the list have been quite understanding about it!

With that in mind, I’m probably not going to be blogging much in the next couple of weeks, but I’m a month in to the Project 365 thing (a self-portrait every day for 365 days) and I’m still “doing” Plurk if you want to see what I’m doing with my non-blogging time!

The Lake District February 2008

Note: this is a quite image-intensive post. Apologies to those on dial-up or limited broadband.

Just a week and a bit after returning home, I finally have some photos to share!

I took a lot fewer pictures than on previous trips. There were a couple of reasons for this; the cold, the wet, the cold, the juggling two crutches and a camera, the cold and finally the cold.

I’ve cherry-picked a few of the best to show here, but for a slideshow of all 17 (!) of them go here.

I stayed in the town of Windermere, approximately 1 mile from the lake of Windermere itself.

The view north from Bowness-on-Windermere:

An atmospheric shot from the west across to the east of the mere (mere is a Cumbiran word for lake):

There was some snow on the high peaks, thanks to some falling on the Saturday before I arrived. It’s still a lot less than was there even 10 years ago (so say the locals). I was delighted to see it in any case!

An un-remembered body of water with some snowy peaks behind:

The crag of Helvellyn:

I ran out of time (and energy) so unfortunately I wasn’t able to actually go around, but The Lake District has it’s own Pencil Museum!

I captured this old van outside the museum/shop:

I had a very nice and relaxing time in Grasmere, especially in the daffodil garden behind the small church there. In the graveyard, William Wordsworth and family are buried and this garden is dedicated to him. It was pretty tranquil and I enjoyed eating my lunch there!

Overlooking the daffodil garden and towards the river:

And to prove that it wasn’t always rainy or overcast, here’s some sunshine!

There were a couple of places I wasn’t quite so taken with, but I wouldn’t have known that if I hadn’t visited them! All-in-all, I over did it (again) but it was a lovely break from day-to-day life and I’ve finally been to the Lakes (something which everyone else around here seems to have done).

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