Gorgeous Sunsets

Been some gorgeous sunsets recently as the seasons are starting to change.

I love the lighter evenings and yesterday, when we got home from school, Sophie and I spent ages in the garden taking lots of photographs in the afternoon sun.  even the cat came to join us!

This week the sun has been shining down and hopefully into the weekend.  I shall be at work for some of it but I intend to be in that garden on Sunday.

Many thanks to those who have started to come back and visit this blog after being away for nearly a year.  It is appreciated.

Enjoy the rest of the week.

xx

Greece and Turkey - Part 2.

Crikey, September already!

Best get the last of the Holiday snaps done before Halloween is on the door step.

We are now back on the boat lounging on the shady decking, reading, drawing and just staring out across the water towards Bodrum.

To cheer Sophie up we organised her to have either her toe or hand nails done.  This is an organised activity and carried out by professionals. So I dropped her off at the beauty salon, signed , then went back for her an hour later.

Sophie picked a lovely colour, matching with much of her clothes this summer.  We then  added some nail art of our own a few days later.  I had bought some nail charm stickers from Asda.

All of the girls who attended were also given a pretty little hair clip which she wore in the evening when will a navy blue dress.  Goodness, my little girl certainly looked grown up.  Good in so many ways but for me I am just a little sorry to see my little Sophie gradually going.  Hope that makes sense.  She is a lovely girl.

 Below we are just trying it on for size.

 In the evening we found that our towels had been sculpted in to a lobster.  Now this was our first towel art due to Sophie being ill and there were several more through the week.

 Our next stop was Kusadasi.

 I have been to different countries with different approaches to buying and selling.  The hard sell here is not very nice and actually put us off.  We tended to go in shops w ere there were not  groups of men outside trying to hassle you in or shouting at you from the door ways.

 Whilst walking around we found this very decorative drinking fountain.

 Lovely tile design.

 Shopping area.

 A more modern version.

 Sophie in the sun and our boat, Thomson Majesty in the background.

The Turkish flag in the harbour by our ship, I should say.

 Yet another lovely fountain.  No sign of a hose pipe ban here despite the 49 degree heat.

Very green walk ways.

 Turkish carpets are world renowned and several carpet shops had ladies sat outside doing weaving demonstrations.  This lady agreed to a photograph.

Such an intricate design.  A small rug about the size of a door mat cost $600.00 USD!

I certainly could not afford that s I bought some book marks with traditional carpet designs on them.

This was my busman's holiday moment and this........................

 was my hubby's moment.  He is a boat surveyor.

Local area as seen from the ship.

Lovely scenery, by this time we are back on the ship and spending lazy time on the shady decking.

We found our new friend when we got back to our cabin just hang'in around. 

By Sophie is starting to feel much better and even managed a decent dinner.

The next day we were off to Athens.

xx

Greece and Turkey - Part 1

I have looked through my photographs and there are rather a  lot so I shall just add a few and perhaps show you my travel journal/ scrapbook that I made during the week and just completing now we are at home.

The above is the sunset in Corfu as we are waiting to leave as passengers turn up in stages during the day otherwise there would be chaos if everyone turned up at the same time.

Here is Sophie and I took a similar picture in the same spot last year.  Due to problems with our first holiday booking coming on this cruise with Thomson Majesty was a last minute booking, we had no intention of coming on the same boat two years running.  Grown up sooooo much!

We decided to book an inside cabin as it is much darker and a bit quieter first thing in the morning and to be honest we do not spend that much time in it anyway.

Saturday is a day at sea and I had already read two books by this time during the summer holidays at my sister in law's which is unheard of.  It usually takes me ages to read just one so it was great to start my third which was a freebie on my Kindle plus some word searches which I love doing.  A very lazy and relaxing day and Sophie spent most of it in the pool where she made a friend called Becky.  We also signed her up for the Kids Club this time and in the afternoon she popped along.

Unfortunately she was not very impressed at all and it may have been because she was the eldest at 11 and they did not seem to do very much during the two hours she was there, never mind.

Unfortunately that evening Sophie became quite ill and due to being on a boat we had to stay in our cabin for 24 hours and then be given the all clear by the Ships Doctor who was very god with Sophie.  This has never happened before on any holiday and we had only just got there plus we even took and used  extra hand sanitiser with us.  But if you look around you when on holiday just people watch.  How many sneeze over the buffet?  Cough into their hands and then touch a door handle or serving spoon you then also pick up?  Same applies to menus in restaurants, hand rails and so on.  Now I know that you could easily get paranoid and you can not live like that but when you have been up with your daughter for 6 hours during the night and watched her vomit like she was you do sort of get a little irritated when basic hygiene and common sense are not observed  by others especially when there is a lot of people staying in one place such as a hotel or boat and sanitiser is available and not always being used.  Please do not be put off in any way but it is the same with anything, you do not notice until something happens which makes you look at a situation differently.

Anyway, after room service and thank goodness we put several films on hubby's ipad plus books and drawing we were given the all clear with a few guidelines on what to do.  Avoid the buffet which is hard as that is all that was available for lunch so we had to skip that meal and it took Sophie several days to fully recover which was harder in the heat as well.  Hubby and I felt totally ok and this is often the case which I did not know.

So we missed Crete which was our first stop and with no window we could not even look out at it.

Our next stop was Bodrum in Turkey.

This was extremely hot and poor Sophie struggled so we only managed a couple of hours.

We did buy some ceramic plates to go with our collection from our travels.  Rather than buying tourist rubbish, we try to find a street artist or bring back a plate to hang on the wall in the kitchen.

The shop we went in to had so many to choose from it was quite hard to decide.  I did the same when we went to Spain last month and everyone was convinced that the three plates I had would be broken when I got home, but they are all fine and waiting to go on the wall.

We all liked this design and thought it looked very Turkish.

The port of Bodrum has quite a mix of boats and hubby enjoyed seeing what he could spot and where they had come from.  Bus man's holiday for him but that is what he enjoys which became his job.

The little beach that there was did not have any sand but what look like fine coarse shingle/slate bits but there were loads of sofas and chairs outside which you would not dream of doing in the UK due to the rainfall        ( had some this morning now it is bright sunshine and about 26 degrees!)

We had a drink in a street cafe which was freshly squeezed orange juice and then we made our way to the local museum but we could see that Sophie had had enough so we headed back to the ship for some quiet time before she headed off to "Stage School" which she had signed up for and felt she could have a go at.  We lounged on one of the decks on the shady side of the ship and read some more while Sophie was at her workshop.  It did the trick and she was really perky when she came back and then she settled on a sun lounger and snoozed for an hour or so.

Every evening there is a music show of some kind and Sophie wanted to go seeing as she had spent part of the afternoon with some of the entertainment department and when there was a chance to take photos with them after the show Sophie practically floated when they called out her name to come up on stage for a picture!

So that was our first (second for everyone else) day and things got off to a bad start but were showing signs of getting better.  A good nights sleep was had by Sophie which was good after the previous couple of days and a little bit of cheeky humour showed us that the old Sophie was on her way back.

xx

The Watering Hole - Perranporth Beach

Image from Google.

Due to the lovely weather and Henry was not going to his radio control car race club, we decided to go out for tea and somewhere near the sea.  I have been to The Watering Hole before, but not for some time and this venue suddenly popped into my head.

So, once we had got home from school etc we had a little wash and off we went to Perranporth Beach.
We ordered some food, which, when it arrived was way to much to actually eat!  It was glorious weather and was just on the comfortable side of very hot.

image from Google

After the meal we went for a walk along the beach and paddled a little in the water which was very cold but pleasant after a hot day on your feet all day.
Sophie of course took this one stage further.  She paddled a bit and then gradually ended up in the water and absolutely soaked!  She loved every minute of it.  Loves the water does my Sophie and she ended up going home wearing my spare top and sitting on hubby's work overalls.
It was a nice little trip to go on just after work and a change from just sitting in on a Friday night.
We have promised Sophie that we will go again next week but better prepared for example take a towel!!
Hope you have had a lovely weekend, off to a friends house for a BBQ tea this afternoon. Finished and posted my mini swap so some work for the day job is next.
Only a week to go before the holidays!!!

Brighton Rocks!

Our last excursion before going home was to visit Brighton.  It was soooo hot, plenty of high factor sun cream and hats.  Oh yes hats pity I left mine n the car and we decided to go to Brighton on the train.  Never mind.

It was packed everywhere, the shops, streets, beach and pier.  

A glorious day without much cloud cover at all so we did avid going on the beach itself but walked along much of the seafront itself.

Every time we have visited the Pier n the past Sophie has been too small to go on any of the rides.  Now, my daughter loves slides of any kind to she was quick to spot the Helter Skelter but also that she is now big enough to go on it by herself.

I really tried to get it all in my picture but my little digital did not quite manage but I think you get the idea of the size of it!

Needless to say she came off it with a big smile on her face.

We began to walk into Brighton to meet my sister in law who had had to pop into work at the University as part of clearing and future student questions due to the A level results having been issued.

Hubby spotted this shop.  It has very high windows on two sides with shelves and shelves of old hand sewing machines!!

It reminds very much of a window display in a shop in New York (I think) it was featured on a Craftzine post that I was emailed.  It was certainly attracting a lot of attention.

Some of the machines were so pretty.  Even though our machines of today are very clever, I do feel that they have lost any individual character and attractiveness as an object.

It was then off for some very nice lunch at English's which just so happens to be

right next to the 

Cath Kidston shop.  How handy is that?

I bought a new flask for the Autumn term as my other flask had broken after someone put it in the dishwasher.

I could not resist taking a picture of my dessert as it seemed a shame to cut into it, but I only had that feeling for a short while...............

After a very good lunch we thought we would see if we could find the chocolate shop featured on a programme that Sophie and I have been watching on Friday evenings.

Choccywoccydoodah.

Oh dear this picture did not turn out too well.  There were so many people inside and out looking at this shop.  It is a lovely cake shop and the cakes that are created are so clever it is hard to realise that it is cream and icing etc.  Works of Art.

google images

Well worth a visit.  We did treat ourselves to a extra special twist on the marsh mellows and choc crispies.  Lovely with a cup of tea later that evening.  Lasted several days by the way.

Then it was off to catch the train home again.

Another excellent day out had by all.

xx

A time to fish

On Friday we decided to try a little fishing on Seaford beach.  The last time we tried we did very well and caught enough for tea.

High tide and hubby was trying to keep his feet dry due to leaving his beach shoes in the car!

The waves were frequent and quite spectacular.

This is the first year that Sophie has really been able to have a go herself.  Always watched but actually doing it is much more fun.  Sophie is not quite so sure about the lug worms though!

A glorious day and the sound of the sea could easily lull you to sleep.

I keep me awake I decided to take some photos of interesting finds on the beach that I might be able to use next term.

Shapes, textures and colours.  Being a very pebbly beach shells are a bit thin on the ground but there are still some lovely things to photograph.

I do find seaweed a bit awkward as it never looks as good as it does in real life but the shapes and colours can be seen here.

Plus, of course, too many stones to decided which to take pictures of!

We did find a well rubbed oyster shell and since then we have found one that is even more interesting.

It was a lovely few hours just sitting, looking, helping, photographing and basically not rushing around.

Oh and the fishing?.....

We did not catch a single thing.

So we went off to the local fisheries in Newhaven and bought some to make a lovely home made Fish and Scallop Pie with the help if Delia Smith...............gorgeous it was.

xx