The Circle, Bath

Roman Baths, Bath

Stonehenge

The Long Man of Wilmington

HMS Victory

For some reason I managed not to take photos of a lot of what we did – we spent a day up in London at the V&A and just wandering around, but I didn’t take any photos, and a day in Brighton, a night in Swanage, and an afternoon in Arundel, all undocumented. However, all will be much repeated, I don’t get tired of any of them. If you visit Brighton do pop in to the Pavilion – despite living just down the road I’d never been inside before, and it’s really something to see.

Well, there’s only one answer to that question, so I got up at 4am on Tuesday to make the 6.30 flight, and by 8am we were on the airport bus watching a beautiful sunrise over the city.

Our first stop, at an hour that really was too early to expect such wonderful hospitality, was with Karen from Cornflower. Karen welcomed us into her lovely home with tea and a delicious passionfruit cake that was light a creamy and sweet and mmmmmmm. (and some lovely Scottish angora yarn that’s deciding what it would like to be). I’ve been reading the Cornflower blog for a little while now, and I suspect that some of my reading material for 2009 will be based on recommendations from there. Thank you so much for having us to visit Karen, it was lovely to meet you.

Delicious treats chez Cornflower

Our next stop was a short bus ride across the city. Ok, It was walkable sort of, but we had bus tickets, and a long day planned, and the bus went right where we needed it to. So. Justification over. Our next stop: Fidra Books. Oh boy, am I glad I don’t live near here, I don’t think they’d ever get rid of me. Ostensibly a children’s bookshop, Fidra also has a small but extremely well selected (to my mind) choice of adult books books for adults too. The shop was welcoming and friendly, and Vanessa, Malcolm and Teaga all lovely. Teaga (the dog) is quite big, so I think they would have noticed if I’d tried to sneak her home with me, but I was very tempted.

Fidra also have a publishing arm, for classic children’s books. The editions are lovely, and if you’re a fan of classic children’s adventure stories or books about ponies do check them out. They also have the later books in the Trebizon series, that I didn’t know existed. I may need to see if my local library has the earlier ones, as I haven’t read them since I was a child.

Lovely Fidra Books editions

Now, when we’d arrived in Edinburgh, the very helpful lady at the information desk told us about a German christmas market and a highland market that were on in the city. These were down by the Scott memorial, and also featured a ferris wheel. Hmmmm, is all I have to say about that.

The market was, well, small. A couple of stands, some hot wine or sausages, and that was the German market. The Highland market was pretty similar – tablet, fudge, or hats knit in Nepal with the Scottish flag on them. Oh, and crepes. Meh. It was raining at this point anyway, so we didn’t linger, and instead visited the National Gallery of Scotland for art and lunch. There are some fabulous pieces there. I especially liked the fact that their famous painting of the ice-skating preacher, The Reverend Robert Walker Skating on Duddingston Loch, by Sir Henry Raeburn, might not have actually been painted by Raeburn, was probably painted ten years after they thought, and doesn’t seem to be of Duddingston Loch.

Anyway, refreshed from our lunch and culture, we ventured up many steps…

…and down more, to K1 Yarns, which is a lovely and friendly shop with a small but nice selection of yarns. I’d imagine it’s a lovely place to hang out and knit.

K1 Yarns

By this time it was about 3.30, and we were flagging a little. Coffee, shortbread and knitting were required, and we spent a very pleasant hour in Always Sunday, a bright and comfortable cafe on the Royal Mile.

Chocolate chip shortbread and a cappucino

A very small shop later, and a stroll along Princes Street, and we were ready for home.

A very quick photo of the castle in the dark

I fell in to bed back in Dublin at about 11.30pm, very tired, but very happy.

We took the ferry over again this year, which meant we could pack as much as we liked in the car, so I was able to bring plenty of books and way more knitting than I could possibly need. Irish Ferries have been making much of their new ferry for the Ireland-France routes, and it was indeed much, much nicer than the old one. It wasn’t really new though. It was new to Viking Line in Finland in 1987. 21 years later it’s new to Irish Ferries. Lovely though, and I do like being able to bring whatever I like with me on board and just sleeping through the whole journey.

For our first night we headed to Fontainebleau, to see the Chateau. We didn’t make it inside but the gardens were stunning. I can totally understand the revolution though. The place was massive, and incredibly opulent.

Then it was off for a week in our first Gite, a little way outside of Dijon. Here’s the link – I really couldn’t recommend it more. It was wonderful. Huge, beautifully furnished, comfortable, clean, a great location. Close to wine country (ok, we were in France, pretty much everywhere is, so more specifically the Cote d’Or in Burgundy), close to national parks for walking, and close to a few interesting but not busy tourist sites.

Next we headed off to Limousin, for four nights in our second gite. No link for this one. This was a bit different. It was absolutely in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the most rural part of rural France, in a beautiful setting.

A converted hayloft in a watermill, with windows the full length of the room and a lovely art deco style to the furnishings, overlooking a weir on a small river, this should have been perfect. It needed a really good clean though. There were a few too many spiderwebs for my liking. Also, that a mouse had been living in a former hayloft neither surprised nor bothered me, but the droppings not being cleared up did. Grrr. So much potential. Didn’t stop us having a great time though.

For our last two nights we treated ourselves to the Hotel Villa Cap d’Ail in La Baule on the coast. This hotel was just perfect. Beautifully furnished, lovely service – I would definitely go back.

So, what did I actually do? Well, walked some walks, drank some wine, saw some sights, read some books, knit on some knitting, relaxed, slept, drank great coffee, ate delicious ice-cream, and generally had a fab time. Lovely.

This, my friends, is the best ice-cream you’ll find.

To find it you need to fly to Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria, get a bus for 2 hours to Plovdiv, and take a walk down the main shopping street, past the roman ruins, past the on-street cafes, until you come to the small ice cream stand just before the main square with the post office on it.

Then take your pick from the selection there. I recommend two scoops, although scoops implies a carefully measured small portion, and in reality it’s a giant spoonful or two in a massive sugar cone. Add your choice of sprinkles, and you’re off. The cost is calculated by weight, and the above ice-cream cost a bit less than €2. Yes, you read that correctly.

I tried a selection of flavours, some mine, some a sample from my companions, all of which were excellent and obviously made from what they claimed to be made from: Cherry – Mmmmm, Strawberry – Mmmmm, Vanilla chocolate – Mmmmmmmm. Above you see hazlenut, which was the nuttiest most delicious nutty ice-cream I’ve ever had, with chunks of praline chocolate in for good luck, and the one I came back to time and time again: Coffee and Whiskey flavour. Oh boy. This tasted like it had a generous slug of both in it and was top. Just wonderful.

It’s a good thing I was eating salads most of the rest of the time, I had a giant ice-cream each of the 4 nights I was in Plovdiv. I’d do it again too.

I’d been down there twice before, once as a sulky teenager on a family break in Mevagissy, and once on a geology field trip.

The family holiday I remember very little of. I suspect this is because I was stroppy and sulky and antisocial and generally horrible to be around and I’ve blocked the whole thing from memory.

The a level geology field trip was mainly spent on beaches in the rain, mapping the layers and taking notes on the folds, or down mines. Actually, it was probably only one mine, but quite frankly that’s enough.

This trip was different. This was a few days relaxing by ourselves as a treat after lots of rushing around.

We stayed in Lostwithiel, a lovely little village with a pretty river to walk along and a surfeit of delicious places to eat. With only 2 full days we had to be selective about what we did, and I’m very happy with our choices.

We spent a day at the Lost Gardens of Heligan, which were beautiful and fascinating and I can’t recommend them enough as a day out. I’m halfway through the book written about the history of the gardens and their restoration and it’s really interesting.

The Jungle

Mud Maid

Giant Head

Our second day we decided to spend exploring some of Cornwall, ignoring the pull of the nearby Eden Project.

We started off in the little port of Mevagissey for a walk up above the harbour and to see if we could find where Merry lived.*

Then we headed off to just outside of Fowey, for a hike along the cliffs by Menabilly, the house that Daphne du Maurier lived in for a while, down and around to Coombe Farm.

Coombe Haven, a smugglers cove that I have no photos of because as we walked by it was playing host to a naked elderly man stood up to his knees in the sea.

While in Mevagissey we’d cunningly bought our lunch: pasties.

Cheese and onion pasty, and a chick pea and cumin one that was delicious. I now want to make everything into pasties.

After our big long walk it was time for a treat, so we headed into Fowey for high tea:

The Dwelling House is a grade 2 listed property, and serve absolutely fabulous teas and cakes. High tea in the garden was a delight.

I think next time we visit Cornwall we’ll be heading back there. I may have to diet first.

*Mevagissey is the model for Trewissick in The Dark is Rising books by Susan Cooper.

Today we started off with breakfast at Muffins, an award winning tea shop.

Cornish tea (yes, grown in Cornwall), fruit with local yoghurt and museli, followed by fresh granary toast with local orange marmalade.

We spent the day at the absolutely wonderful Lost Gardens of Heligan, where I had a roll with Cornish brie and cranberry sauce followed by a fresh cream lemon cake.

Then a snack of vegetable crisps and organic St Clements (lightly sparkling orange and lemon juice drink).

Back to Lostwithiel in the evening, to Trewithen Restaurant, for one of the best meals I’ve had in ages. I can barely move right now, but I just couldn’t stop.
Parmesan and herb bread, and olive bread as a pre-starter.
Pea, spring onion and pesto risotto with parmesan shavings to start.
Red and yellow pepper tarte tartin with chilli and mango as a main, served with fresh steamed vegetables, new potatoes and potatoes dauphinause (yeah, I cant spell that.)
Then strawberries and champagne sorbet almost to finish.
I say almost because our enormous pot of great coffee was served with home made petit fours.
An awesome meal, in a lovely location, with great service.

Everywhere we’ve been, on top of all the delicious food (actual choices for vegetarians!), everyone has been super friendly and nice and helpful.

I don’t think I need to eat at all tomorrow.

We flew out really, really early on Thursday morning. That time of day should not exist.
My journey: Taxi to airport – fly to Frankfurt – fly to Sofia – taxi to city centre – bus to Plovdiv – lift to hotel

Our taxi from Sofia airport to the bus station in the city centre cost twice what it should have, and twice what it cost on the way back. I think we were brought around the city a bit, while the driver tried to convince us that we should pay him to take us all the way to Plovdiv. Nothing that we could do though, and at the end of the day it meant a €10 taxi ride rather than a €5 one, and my taxi out to Dublin airport that took the same length of time had been €30, so it’s hard to get too upset about it.

Buying bus tickets, finding our way around, everything really, was a bit tough. The alphabet is Cyrillic rather than Roman so it’s really difficult to read, and I just couldn’t get to grips with Bulgarian. Most people were friendly though, and between their smatterings of English, French and German we got by.

Plovdiv is a lovely city. It’s about 2 hours by bus from Sofia, and is the second largest city in Bulgaria. Everything felt and looked really run down, with lots of communist-era apartment blocks. However, there was no litter on the streets, and although the buildings were run down they weren’t vandalised, and there were loads of trees and lots of greenery everywhere. The city felt safe.

The Old Town was interesting to walk around, although we didn’t have a huge amount of time for exploring. (It was a working trip). The city was founded by Alexander the Great’s dad, so is very old. There are Roman ruins dotted around the place, and an amphitheatre in the Old Town.

All round the residential parts of the city were play areas – playgrounds, basketball courts and the like. Mostly a bit overgrown, but attractive in their way.

Yes, those are rocks taking the place of the net, and yes, it does get used – we saw kids playing table tennis there earlier in the day.

I had been a bit worried about food for me, being vegetarian and not liking eggs, but I ate really well – heaps of salads and delicious vegetables. The coffee was mixed, but I realised that it was partly due to the preponderance of UHT milk, so stuck to espresso and Viennese coffee and it was top notch.

Cake wise, I did well. I wasn’t there for long, and was too full of salad and fruit most of the time, but did sample a giant portion of apple pie in Sofia along with my knitting on World Wide Knit in Public Day on my way back to Dublin.

Bargain apple pie: €2.00!

The weather was fabulous – really hot, which caused the noisiest thunderstorms I’ve experienced in a long time. I had a great view from the hotel window.

Saturday morning we got up early, had a quick breakfast outside (Outside! In the sun!), took a taxi to the bus station, the bus to Sofia, had lunch in Sofia, took a taxi to the airport, flew to Frankfurt, flew to Dublin, and was collected from the airport and brought home.

All in all it was a lovely little trip. I’m looking forward to heading back there in August. Need to brush up on my cyrillic before then.

I went up on Friday afternoon by myself, and had a relaxing evening wandering around the city before a swim and an early night at the hotel, which was just what I needed after a long couple of weeks.

I’m still not completely sure what I think of Belfast – it was strange seeing Dunnes Stores right next to BHS, and O’Briens Sandwich Bar right by the City Hall with the statue of Queen Victoria in front of it.

Saturday morning I did much the same – a wander and then a sit for a nice pot of tea in the Linenhall Library. I forgot to document it, but my teapot totally looked like it was the sort to spill tea all over the table, but turned out to be a perfect pourer.

At lunchtime I met up with Diane and then the rest of the group, and we headed out for a delicious lunch, then back to the hotel, off to the Belfast Wheel,

and then on for cocktails, a delicious dinner, and then the rest of the night!

Sunday we went out for breakfast and a quick spot of shopping before heading back down to Dublin.

Sara’s sisters did a wonderful job of organising everything, and it was a lovely weekend.

~~

Side note about knitting:

I picked up the boyfriend sweater again to find that I really don’t have that much more to do, so I’ve been working on it over the last couple of nights. It’s dark here, and it’s not easy to photograph anyway, so you’ll have to take my word for it that it’s looking great, fits well so far, and doesn’t have too much further to go. (The neck looks a bit small here but that’s only because the stitches are all bunched up on a 40cm needle.)

In Belfast I also cast on for Cozy from Knitty in a 4 ply cashmere yarn. I wanted a soft, light, warm wrap that I could use as a sort of small blanket on aeroplanes and also squish up around my neck as a scarf, and I think this is going to do just the job, although it’s hard to tell at the moment:

~~

Now, after a weekend away, preceded by a full weekend of work, 3 weekends of guests, and a different weekend away, I’m quite looking forward to spending the bank holiday weekend at home. Although maybe there are some last minute deals out there…

Friday passed in a blur of pottering and visiting my grandma, who is amazing. Over the summer she had to move from her flat to a nursing home, she was very ill with neuralgia, and there was talk about how much longer she’d be with us. I visited in early September, when the prognosis was a little better, but still grim, and found her confused about a lot of things. She’s 91. It was sad, but that’s the way things go. At christmas she was heaps better and almost back to herself. Still quite frail, and after an hour she asked us to go (which was fine, she’s a short walk away from home so several short visits are easy to make).

This visit she had improved even more, and it was hard to tell that she’d been so ill before. She reads a lot – this time last year it was the Times bestseller list, now it’s whatever the visiting library brings in large print, but The Guardian’s still her newspaper, and she’s in tune with everything that’s going on.

Knitting for her is hard – she knows what she wants, and it’s acrylic, machine washable and soft. A hat had been requested, so I duly provided:



I’d be lying if I said that it was the item I was most proud to have knitted. It’s some form of novelty yarn, and my pretty swirly decreases are lost in it. However. It is the softest yarn I could find, and it’s really cosy and comfy and what she wanted, and that’s what matters most.

Saturday we took a family trip up to London – although despite all starting from and returning to the same station we managed to travel on separate trains quite a lot (lets just say that mum ended up on a train that the rest of us didn’t and it was my fault and I don’t expect to hear the end of it). Anyway, we had a lovely lunch by London Bridge, took the excellent Thames Clipper boat service down the river, under Tower Bridge

to the Millenium Dome O2 Arena, which is very grubby.

We were there to see the Tutenkhamun exhibition. The Dome itself is, well, a giant tent filled with chain restaurants. Meh.
The exhibition was fascinating, and it’s hard to take in how old the pieces are and the exquisite craftsmanship that went into them. I have two howevers though. Firstly, I would have loved a lot more explanations of things – the history, the process of making the pieces, the discovery of the tomb etc. Secondly, and this is an important one. I had the impression that the death mask would be there. It was what I had assumed I was seeing on the website and ads for the exhibition, although I now know that the pictures are of the very small (but exquisite) container that once held his mummified liver. The exhibition sort of gave that impression too – all the rooms told a story, that seemed to be leading up to the death mask, or one of the coffins. When I turned the last corner though, there was just a big screen playing a recording from BBC News 24 and a person asking for my audio guide. It felt a little flat.

However, we had a great family day out in London. I have very fond memories of mum bringing my brother and I up for day trips to various museums, and it was nice to do it again with all our partners there too.

Phew! Tired yet?

Sunday then. Sunday was a lovely family day, notable for getting to spend time with three of my youngest relatives, who are all adorable and good natured and beautiful and lots of fun. It was far too short a visit, but a lovely one. There are many more notable pictures from the day, but the one I’m going to share is this:

My mum and my aunt are both fabulous cooks, and I’ve come back a good few pounds heavier from so many delicious meals. The picture above is Glenys’s chocolate pudding and oh my it was soooooo good. There was lemon meringue pie too, which I know from experience is delicious, but I just couldn’t manage it.

OK, almost done!

Monday was another visit to see my grandma, another giant delicious meal, and then home to Dublin, with a bag full of chocolate from the weekend that was in it. Might take a while to shift those pounds…

We braved heavy fog and low visibility on the way over, pausing only to admire the burnt out cars and santa gnome shrine by the side of the road:

About half way there the sky cleared for a tiny bit, the sun came out, and some of the beauty of the mountains was revealed:

Lets take a closer look at that view:

We arrived at Avoca at about 10.30 – an hour after opening so we’d missed one or two tasty purchases (that earlier visitors were paying for as we arrived).

I’m happy with my purchases though – I managed to grab what feels like a 2kg cone of blue tweedy wool for €20 and one or two other pieces, including some lovely, lovely handwoven fabric that would usually become a high priced Avoca blanket.

Holly, Cheryl and I were very restrained, and there was even space left in the boot of the car…

So, after this photo Cheryl and I popped back in to buy more!

At the weavers in Avoca you can pop in and take a look at the wonderful hand and machine weaving in progress – it’s very colourful, mesmeric, and noisy!

Then, after a brief restorative rhubarb crumble and cappuccino, it was time to head back over the mountains. The fog had cleared, so we were able to appreciate the beautiful bleakness of the peat and heather.

Time for a quick cup of tea in the lovely Bell House, then home for wonderful Valentine’s evening with my love.

Super.