Finished projects

For Bethany's baby shower
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

I found this simple pattern in Quiltmaker, March/April '08, and thought it might be a quick piecing pattern to put together for a baby shower I'm attending in June. The designer, Fran Morgan of Tyler, Texas, called her design Warm Embrace. She included two versions - one with Chenille by the Inch between soft, pastel squares, and one with rickrack between brightly colored squares. Both were beautiful and caught my eye immediately.

I didn't want to go to the expense of purchasing Chenille by the Inch or rickrack, so I used sashing between the squares - not as novel, but equally pleasing, I thought. My version of her quilt is called Sing a new song, from Psalms 96 and 98. The color combination, from fabric I had on hand, looked so joyful to me.

I cut out the pieces on Friday and finished the quilt Tuesday afternoon, just before we went to see Prince Caspian (which I liked!), so it was a pretty quick quilt by my standards. The quilting is simple, and that shortened the time considerably. As a rule, I like heavy quilting because I like the small crinkles after I've washed it; but heavy quilting stiffens a piece (so much unyielding thread) and takes a lot of time, and I wanted something soft for a baby and I wanted to finish the piece fairly quickly.

The outer squares have a wavy quilting line cross-hatching the squares, the inner squares have a diagonal line radiating from the center, the inner sashing is moderately stippled, and the outer sashing is more or less scribbled.

I hope Bethany, the intended "mom-to-be," enjoys the brightness of the quilt. My idea is that it should attract the attention of the baby and keep him (yes, it's a him) occupied for long periods of time (is that possible for a baby?).



Two baby sweaters, bottom up
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

Having gotten the quilt off my machine, with a couple days to spare before we take our sometimes annual vacation to Pagosa Springs, I decided to bite the bullet and do the finishing work on two baby sweaters that have had gaping holes under the arms, incomplete work around the neck opening (thanks, Donna - I didn't think I could pull off that neck opening, but it works well!), and threads hanging out that needed to be woven in, so I sat myself down in front of the TV (which I listen to like a radio), hunted up the right needles and made myself do it.

For my first completed sweaters using this method (Jacqueline Fee's Sweater Workshop book), I'm not displeased, although it's hard to be satisfied with much, if any, of my work. I have another one on the needles, completed from the bottom through the joining of the sleeves while I waited to see if I could handle the neck opening to my satisfaction.

With this neck opening at the raglan seam (with basic instructions from Jacqueline Fee's book), I cast on and added a six-stitch extension under the overlap to give the opening a little more substance. On the beige sweater, I carried the extension only through the sweater body, but with the gold sweater, which I did last, I continued the extension through the ribbing. I think I like the latter method best, and that's what I'll use for the sweater currently on my needles.

The buttons are 1/2", and they have shanks at the back. It's hard to find kid-like buttons with shanks, but I'm not sure if flat buttons would work well. There's a lot more choice in flat buttons - lots of nice soft colors. I guess I could make a thread shank, and maybe I'll finally get to that when I use up the buttons I purchased.

Jacqueline Fee suggests you crochet the button loops, but I just made a loop and then wrapped it with a blanket-stitch, and I like the looks of that a lot. Either way would work, I'm sure.

Because we're going to be away next week, I'm getting another sweater on the needles to take with us. That should give my fingers plenty to do, I hope, while we're gone. I'll make it the larger size, like the beige one. The gold one, while very stretchy because it's made using a slip-stitch pattern, is still small, and while working these two sweaters, I've decided that it would be safer to make these sweaters just a bit large. Babies come in all sizes, and we saw some pretty big ones while we were in the U.K.

All these sweaters, by the way, are for a Lydia Circle project, not (yet) for anyone I know.

A six-hat trip

Hat No. 6 during UK trip
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

If I had any consistency, I would knit hats every time I traveled and then give every trip a hat rating. Our tour of the U.K. would be a six-hat (plus one headband) tour. This was the sixth and last hat I knitted while we were gone.

I don't ever remember knitting a hat before this year, and I think I fell into doing it because it seemed to be a good way to try some stitch variations, using a quick project; and, besides that, it was knitting, and knitting is comforting to me. Last year, I made a few belts and scarfs, but somehow, that wasn't as satisfying. I guess I'm a hat person.

Donna and I knitted daily while I was visiting in the Philippines, and I made three or four baby hats there. I don't think that's a fair measure of the hat-rating for that trip, though, because we knitted a bunch of other things as well.

This hat formula or recipe is of my own devising. I thought I'd like something with a bunch of crown room, and this recipe gives it because the decreases, when they begin to happen, happen every 10 stitches, so the decreasing happens fast. Many hat patterns decrease 6, plus or minus, stitches every other round at the crown; but with 140 stitches to begin with, this one decreases 14 stitches every other round. To compensate, you knit more rows (inches) before you start the decreases, and the result is that you end up with a nice, comfy (and not quite so hair-flattening) crown.

The basic recipe for this hat is simple.

- Find your gauge for the needles and yarn you want to use, and make it divisible by 4 for K2, P2 ribbing.

- After the ribbing, increase 30 to 40 percent (unlike a tam which is generally increased 50 percent), and adjust the count so it's divisible by 10. Use whatever pattern you devise for the 10 stitches.

- Knit to within an inch or so of where you need to close the top of the hat, and then K2tog every 10 (for the first row) 14 times. Work the next round in whatever stitch pattern you've chosen.

- Continue the decreases, knitting one less stitch before decreasing every time, until you have only a few stitches remaining on two needles. Knit them up (and decrease a few more, if necessary) into an I-cord to close the top, making sufficient I-cord to twist into a button (or more if you want something other than a button), and then bind off.

- Weave in the ends and do whatever you want with the I-cord closure.

- Done!

I find the picture of the hat is interesting. I stood against a light peach-gold wall in the hallway and Lauren took the picture, using flash. My glasses look really thick, which they aren't. But if you look closely, you can see where the flash caught something of Lauren's image in the lenses.

There's no place like home ...

A favorite view in Poway
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

There's no doubt about it, I am a travel junkie. I am always glad to be home - that's true, too; but it takes a while before I am ready to settle down and be at home for an extended period of time. Being able to see views like this, though, helps me settle in more quickly. I think I am not only addicted to traveling, I'm addicted to looking at beautiful scenery.

I see this scene every time I go somewhere in town and then come back. There's this little road that I travel each way, and each way has a view that grabs my attention quickly and doesn't want to let go. Although I always say I'll take a picture next time, I never do - at least not until today.

I passed up the entire spring season, when everything everywhere was covered with the most remarkable green for our neck of the woods; and today as this picture came into my view, now in its near summer state, I caught myself once again saying "I'll take a picture next time."

Kicking myself as I rounded the corner and watched this view disappear, I made a U-turn and drove back. So here it is - beautiful, golden brown, blue skies with lovely white fluffy clouds, clear air.

The hillside to the south of us, over Poway-Scripps Parkway, is now a variety of golden shades. It will turn a dull brown before too much longer. The sun will scorch the life out of it, making it no more than fodder for fire. The light plays around the goldness throughout the day, and it's a joy each time I go out into the back yard and glance that way. A picture of it wouldn't be good because there are so many rooftops and all their jutting things and lamp posts in the way, leaving only a thin strip of the hillside; but take my word for it, it's beautiful.

Around our neighborhood, jacarandas are in bloom. Those beautiful lavender trees provide a wonderful color against a green and golden brown background. There's color everywhere.

I am so lucky to live in a place where I can look in so many directions, so many months of the year, and see something so pleasing to the eye. I am so very, very lucky!

Second morning at home ...

Mumbles, Wales
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

When you've traveled long distances across several time zones and are back home again, sleep and dreams play tricks on you. All night, I travel across green moors and plains, walk neatly laid footpaths, wondering what I will see around the next bend, and I hear the sounds of sheep bleating in the fields. We have a cool wind blowing in Poway; and both yesterday and today, I woke to the sound of chimes and cowbells (yes, I have some in our back yard), enhancing whatever dream I was in at the time.

We are tired by 9:00 at night, and we are awake shortly after 4:00 in the morning. It's about an hour off for me, but two or three hours off for Lauren. By this time next week, Pacific Standard Time will have caught up with us, and we'll be back to our normal routines - except that Lauren's job for the season is over and he'll be home most days. That's a good thing. We enjoy being around together. It must be a good sign that's true when you stop to think we've spent 24/7 with each other for the past 30-plus days. Not too bad. Not too bad at all!

Yesterday, we weeded and trimmed the yard. The weeds had nearly covered our little stone patio out back while we were gone. The amaryllis blooms had come and gone, as I knew they would, and our roses had faded. We filled two garbage cans full of trimmings and grass and adjusted the sprinklers for the season.

Our tomatoes grew while we were gone. Last year, we planted them too late because we were traveling during the early part of the season; so this year, using a contraption a friend gave Lauren, we planted before we left. Lauren spent several days designing a path for the sprinklers so the plants would stay watered, and it seemed to work. I hope these tomatoes are as delicious as last year's. The English eat grilled tomatoes for breakfast, and I loved them. Fresh ones will do for me, though - juicy and sweet!

There were so many images to remember from our tour of Britain, and although I took many, many (and maybe too many) pictures, there were many more I wanted to take.

One of the pictures I didn't take was a good one of the stone walls separating the fields, especially in the Midlands and south and west into Wales. This picture isn't good, but it does suggest a little of the detail of the stones placed in a vertical position on top of the stone wall.

Not only is the picture somewhat blurry, taken at the last moment just as we passed the wall in the car, but the stones are more carelessly placed than most of the ones I saw.

I grew seeing pictures of Britain, the hazy green fields in the distance as one hill rolls just past another, and those pictures came to life for us. It's an amazingly beautiful place!

Yesterday, I finished the 6th hat I started during our trip, with the yarn and needles I bought during the first days of our tour. I'll take a picture of it and post it later. It's modeled after the same 10-stitch recipe I used for the last one. I like the fast decrease at the end, decreasing every 10 over 140 stitches. It makes for a roomy cap and only a couple inches of shaping at the crown.

Today, I'm going to cut out pieces for a crib quilt for a shower in June. I found a pattern in the March/April 08 Quiltmaker magazine (page 20, if you have the magazine), and I'm going to adapt that and use some bright greens, blue, yellows, and oranges. I think I'll use a flannel plaid for the backing and use something really light, maybe plain white flannel, for the batting.

Soon, I'll be quite content to be at home again; but it will be a few days before my feet no longer want to trod another footpath, turn another corner, see another waterfall, wonder at another view. Travel is so addicting to me. My sense of being tired always fails, and I just want to keep going on to the next thing I've never seen before.

Day 32 - One last view of an English moor

View of the moor from Moorside Grange hotel
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

It certainly wasn't planned that we spend our last night in Britain looking up at magnificent moorlands and down into the plains where Manchester lies. In fact, before we left the United States, we really didn't know what a moor was, even though we had seen the word all our lives.

Today, we know that a moor is a beautiful work of nature in Britain, a mountain unlike our craggy or tree-lined hills and mountains in the United States.

Our first realization of what a moor was came when we were in Kingsteignton and we toured the Dartmoor National Park on our first day there. We made it a point to look up the word when we got back to our apartment. I'm not sure what Lauren thought moor meant, but I had always assumed, without thinking about it, that it was swampy land. Not so. Not so at all.

It was with a good bit of surprise, as we turned off the M-6 toward the Moorside Grange in Stockport, that we found ourselves climbing a treeless, narrow road up a mountain. We recognized what it was right away, and the higher we went, the more sure we were that we had chosen the wrong hotel, that this was a place we should have stayed at the beginning or middle of our trip, not at the end.

The Moorside Grange (& Spa) isn't in Stockport at all, but south of Stockport, just up the moor from a little village called Disley. Even so, it's only 16 miles (and about 30 to 45 minutes) from the airport, so we're really not far away.

The Grange is a Best Western hotel. We usually think of the Best Western offering adequate motels near the interstate back home, but twice we've stayed at Best Westerns that were much more than adequate - this one and another in Portugal that had been the hunting "lodge" (a huge estate) of someone royal many, many years ago.

I watched the sun set to the west of the moor this evening, and the light playing against the roundness and the shades of green was mesmerizing. I, who have a tendency to topple to my face if I'm not looking directly at the ground, found myself wobbling left and right as I gazed at the hills. Far off in the distance, through the haze, we're pretty sure we can see Manchester. Although it's about 15 miles from here, driving, it's closer as the crow flies.

After we figured out where we were in the grand scheme of things, related to Manchester, we went into Disley this evening and had supper at The Ram's Head, a lovely former bed and breakfast that has its origins in 1840. We had a fillet of pork wrapped in ham and a tomato-based sauce, accompanied by fresh vegetables. It was delicious!

May 20 - Swansea, Wales - Day 31

It's hard to believe our trip is almost over. I believe we could go on for another several weeks. Even with 31 days in this country, we've only touched the surface of it.

The British are friendly people, and we've really enjoyed getting to know them just a little bit better. I will never see them in the same light again, and I will always have a warm spot in my heart for them. Their country is beautiful and has such a variety of landscapes, beautiful gardens, and miles and miles and miles of public footpaths through all the towns and villages. I found a brochure in the lobby of our hotel here that advertises walking tours from June 7 through 22, all here in the Gower region. Wouldn't I like to be here then! The walks and the views look fabulous!

The Dragon is a four-star hotel, located in a great place for walking around in Swansea. We didn't pay much attention to the ratings of any of our hotels when we booked them months ago, so we've had some that were two stars and some that were probably no stars but certainly adequate for our needs.


When we checked into the Dragon and I told the clerk that we were prepaid (something we've learned to verify as we went along), he said yes, we were, and that he would upgrade us. I don't know why he did that, but as a result, we ended up with a two-room suite instead of just a room. It's utterly gorgeous!

Yesterday, we walked and walked and walked. We must have covered 4 or 5 miles! We were driven by curiosity - what would we see if we walked in that direction? Turned that corner? Checked out that street? It was fun. I posted a few pictures on Flickr.

Swansea is situated on the sea shore, and their beach is huge, huge, huge. Neither Daytona nor Myrtle beach can boast such wide beaches. We were surprised to see only a few people there. It could be that they were all out doing their weekly shopping, because we saw many people carrying shopping bags in town while we were on our way to the sea.


Swansea, Wales
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

Today, we're planning to drive along the shore through this area (Gower region).

We came into Wales again, beginning and ending our trip here (except for the airport in Manchester) hoping to find Welsh cakes, that wonderful scone-like pastry we discovered while we were on the boat on the Llangollen Canal. So far we haven't seen any. Maybe Welsh cakes are only a northern Wales pastry. Of all the things we tasted on this trip, Welsh cakes have been our favorite. That will be part of our quest today - to see if we can find them.

A little bit about Bath, before I end our travel journal, and the Redcar Hotel where we stayed. When we first came into that town, it seemed that there were so many people and so many buildings lining the valley that I knew would hate it. It felt closed in. But how wrong I was.

We found the Jane Austin museum and went inside, but it was so small and crowded with people, and so hot, that we just didn't think we could tolerate being there. The museum boasts air conditioning, but they surely didn't have it on that day. So we walked on.


The town center in Bath isn't too large, so it's really easy to get around there. We went into the reception area of the Roman baths, but that was crowded, too, and we just didn't think we wanted to wait in line and pay 10 pounds each to tour them. So we left and wandered around the town some more.

(Later, as we were sitting on a bench eating ice cream, we noticed that we could see people touring an outside part of the Roman baths. Some were standing at the walls in the bath, looking at all the people on the streets. Lauren wondered if these people had paid 10 pounds each so they could stand inside the Roman baths and watch us on the streets.)

As we wandered and watched the people congregate here and there in outdoor and indoor cafes and restaurants, I began to hear echoes of Mrs. Bennett's voice. Bath seems like a place where people go to socialize and meet other people, and the idea that the whole of Bath is the Jane Austin museum began to form in my thoughts.

There are throngs of young people in Bath, and as evening came, we began to see them leave their hotels and head toward town - usually guys with guys and gals with gals, many probably looking to meet someone in town.


The Redcar may have been one of those no-star hotels (we're not sure because we couldn't find the rating), but it was certainly charming. It occupied a few (Victorian?) row houses on Henrietta Street. The rooms were really tiny, but they were clean. It's the only hotel we've stayed at where I could take a shower and watch the news on TV at the same time. It's run by a family or group of friends of young people - we guessed from Hong Kong, who were the most friendly and cordial hosts we've had. We would recommend the Redcar to anyone!

Not only were the rooms small, but the walls in the Redcar Hotel were thin - just as they were in north Chester in our Victorian lodgings there. You just had to laugh and think about what it must have been like in years past, in Jane Austin times. Thin walls are perfect for gossip. The thin walls became part of the charm of the place, and we loved it!

The reception (lounge) area, comprised of three connecting parlors with a bar at the end of one, was beautifully done - so comforting and inviting, and advertised free entertainment that evening. Free is good, not only because it doesn't cost anything but because free is generally not as compromised by commercialism as costly things. We think we get more of a taste of local culture when we stay out of the way of the commercial events.

Oh, are we glad we took advantage of the "free" entertainment. The singer was Felicity ____ (I'll have to get her last name from Lauren), and she accompanied herself on an electric guitar. She must have known every American country and near-country western song that's ever been sung, and she had a lovely voice for singing them all.


Bath - In the Redcar Hotel - Felicity and her friends - excellent
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

There weren't many other people there - an older couple who will soon be celebrating their 40th anniversary and who seemed to be "Felicity groupies" and a man who seemed to be with Felicity were the main attendees, with a few who wandered in and then out again from time to time.

Because the crowd was small, Felicity kept a dialog running with us all the time and she made the evening so much fun. We sang along with her when we knew the words, and the man and woman danced to the songs from time to time. Lauren had requested that Felicity sing Marty Robbins' El Paso, so at the end, Felicity did it for us. She couldn't quite remember all the words, so she grouped up with her following and they kept feeding her the words as they came to mind. It was all really good fun.

I think the town of Bath originated because it's a natural place (with the Roman Baths) for people to congregate, and it still thrives as a place for people to congregate. No wonder Jane Austin could use Bath as a place for her characters. It's perfect. Bath is perfectly Jane Austin, and Jane Austin's characters are perfectly Bath.

Friday, May 16, Day 28 - Locally in Kingsteignton

Last day in Kingsteignton - getting ready to go home

We'll spend another day close here in Kingsteignton and Newton Abbot before we take off for the last few days of our tour.

While we're here, in spacious quarters, we'll take the time to get everything ready to wind up our trip. Our perishable food supplies look just about right to get us through tomorrow morning, and I'll fix some peanut butter Wasa Rye Crisp sandwiches, with dry roasted sunflower seeds, for the remainder of the days we'll be on the road.

Apples, bananas, and grapes also travel well, and we've become used to drinking room-temperature diet Coke and Pepsi. We'll carry some of each the next few days.

We'll purchase a bit of local baked goods as we travel, and we look forward to finding Welsh Cakes (a flattened scone with sultanas - a type of grape) again. Of all the pastries (not pasties, although pasties are a kind of pastry) we've tasted on this trip, the Welsh Cakes have been our hands-down favorite.

We carry large chocolate bars with us so we can break off a square now and then. We both like the kind with nuts better than the plain. I also carry a nut mixture with me wherever we go so I can grab a hand full when I start to feeling a little weak or hungry, to stave off headaches and that near hypoglycemic condition that plays havoc with me from time to time. The protein and fats from the nuts do the trick for me.

Yesterday and today are cloudy and sometimes rainy, so it's good we did most of our driving around during the early part of the week.

Today, and a trip into town

Lauren absolutely doe NOT like driving to the town center in Newton Abbot. Part of his dislike is my fault because I've taken him into the town from both the north and the west, robbing him of the experience of going into town the same way twice so he could memorize the turns to get to where we want to go.

There's something mean in me, I think, because I can clearly identify the easy ways to get somewhere and yet I can't help but choose something a little more challenging than the course of least resistance. I seem to do this consistently; and then, recognizing what I've done (and almost feeling guilty), I compensate by congratulating Lauren on passing another driving test. I never intend these little trips to be tests, I'm sure; I think my idea is simply to see something we haven't seen before. Of course, when he's driving in these strange and often tight quarters, Lauren doesn't see much of anything except the few car lengths in front of him as he tries to avoid oncoming traffic on a road that's hardly wide enough to support one-way traffic, let alone oncoming traffic. Anything he accidentally happens to see is bound to be for the first time!

Although Newton Abbot isn't a large town, it's larger than Aberfeldy, and it's laid out in curves rather than straight lines.

Once you get into town, you're faced with an array of signs which you need to be able to read immediately because the streets and the traffic seem so chaotic. According to a paper placemat-sized map we have, there are 9 public parking places in and around the town center, all labeled with that big white "P" on a blue square; so immediately as you come into town, you have these 9 big blue signs in your face, all pointing in different directions, as well as signs to the train station, the race track, the town center (and everything is in the town center, of course), and for anything else that might be of interest to a casual tourist, so how in the world are you going to digest all that and take the right turn at the right time! It's as though you've run into a wall plastered with signs when you reach the first curve leading to the center of town.

Nevertheless, after a full day out of the car, I have convinced Lauren that we will go into Newton Abbot today to walk the town center again. It really is an interesting town for its small size, with more than one street with lots of shops for browsing and at least one big market (that's like an indoor flea market), so you can walk and look for quite a while before you've run out of things to see.

There are several bookstores in Newton Abbot, and my quest for today is to find something by a local author or to find something historical about the area or a personal journal-type writing about the local environment. I haven't really been tempted to buy any books on this trip because I haven't been reading. Knitting has been my full-time idle-time activity, and I've been well contented with that. But I saw a book while we were in Cornwall by a man who had explored the area on foot in the mid 1800s, and it's the first book that, in retrospect, I wish I had purchased. Whether or not I find such a book doesn't make much difference; if I find one, I'll have something to pick up and read from time to time and enjoy the descriptions I read; if I don't find one, I'll still have my money in my pocket, and that's a good thing, too.

Yesterday


The old locks (now closed) near the towpath
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

Yesterday, other than playing cribbage, eating, knitting (me), and looking up various things on the Internet (Lauren) (like: How do sim cards work on cell phones? What's the definition of a Moor? Who makes Astra automobiles (the answer is General Motors) and how long have they been around?), our only activity was to go for a nice walk on the path from Passage House Inn, through the marsh, to the edge of town where the race track is. The path follows the canal where they used to tow the barges (narrowboats) that brought goods to town and to transport clay for export to other parts of England. We found the old locks - just behind the race track. The canal is no longer in use and the locks are now sealed off; but because of our experience on the Llangollen Canal, the finding was all the more interesting to us.

St. Ives and the man who went there

One of Lauren's research assignments was to find the old childhood riddle about St. Ives, a place near Land's End in Cornwall. We both thought of it as we passed the sign that would lead off the mountain to that place. Here it is:

(As I was going to St. Ives refers to the name of a quaint old village in Cornwall, England.) Earliest traceable publication date is 1730.

Poem - As I was going to St. Ives
As I was going to St. Ives I met a man with seven wives.

Each wife had seven sacks, each sack had seven cats,

Each cat had seven kits.

Kits, cats, sacks and wives, How many were going to St. Ives?

The Answer to the Riddle: Only one man was going to St.Ives! He met
the following who were going the other way: A man (1) with 7 wives; 7 x 7 (49)
sacks; 7x7x7 (343) cats; 7x7x7x7 (2,401) kits; for a Total of 2,801 wives, sacks, cats and kits!

The lagoon-estuary from our balcony


The boat floats
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

Yesterday, the tide in the lagoon came up as high as we've seen it. The sail boat, which has appeared to be totally beached up until now, was in enough water to sail out to the English Canal if the owner had so chosen. Lauren didn't think the water would come that high, so it was fun to see that it did.

The swans love the lagoon filled by the high tides, and they come out in numbers (I counted 14 this morning) to play around the marshes.

There are two Canadian geese who seem to hang out together day after day. Are they a pair? Do the male and female look alike? I don't know. This morning, they were swimming upstream, antiphonally honking as though they were having a conversation, and then they simultaneously took off out of the water and flew across a broad circle back to where they were. It seemed as though they were saying something like "On the fifth honk, take off and circle the pond." It was fun to watch and wonder what communication they have. Their honks all sound alike to me. Just minutes ago, I saw them walking near the reeds at the edge of the lagoon, and there were about 6 baby goslings walking around nearby.

I wonder if there are marsh wiggles in this lagoon. I look for Puddleglum, but I'm not sure if I would recognize him if I saw him. He's my hero from C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia.

Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things -- trees and grass and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones.

Inspiration is everywhere here. No wonder we have such beautiful and lasting tales of the imagination that come from this place and other parts of Europe.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow morning, we'll drive to Bath. We'll be staying in a hotel on the side of the Henrietta Square that's nearest to town, but you have to walk several blocks and cross a bridge to get to the town center. It looks like we'll need to drive into the town to see what's there (Roman baths, among other things). Hopefully, I can locate a "P" on a blue sign that's easy to get to so it's not too much of a challenge for Lauren. He's passed all previous tests magnificently, and he really doesn't need to take many more. He's proven his road-worthiness for this trip again and again! (And he's still speaking to me. That's a good sign!)

Then, after one night in Bath, we're off to Swansea, Wales, for two nights. It looks like we're pretty much in the town center in our hotel there. I hope that's true. It would be nice for Lauren because I know we are going to get to that town center and to the wharf, and it would be nice if he didn't have to drive.

And then there's Manchester. When I purchased our plane tickets, I also purchased our first and last night lodgings. For the first night, I managed to get a hotel really near the airport at a reasonable rate (well, considering the circumstances, with the exchange rate being nearly US$2 to 1 GBP), but the rate for the same hotel going back was twice that amount. I ended up booking our last night in Stockport, not too far away from Manchester, for about 25 percent more than I paid for our first night; and as I watch TV and see the riots that have taken place in Manchester because of the football games (soccer) and learn that there will be another game this week, maybe I'm glad we won't be so close.

It looks like we will have Internet in Swansea and Stockport, so maybe I'll be able to blog once or twice more before we leave this beautiful place. But maybe not. We'll see.

Home soon

Soon we'll be home, and that will be good, too! We wonder if our tomato plants, planted in an upside down contraption, have survived. Lauren worked off and on several days to make sure the sprinkler was high enough and directed well enough to keep them with drink.

Our neighbor, who had rented out his house for the last 15 or so years but has now retired from the Coast Guard, is moving back and is in the process of making the house suitable again for his family. In exchange for the use of our lawn mower for his own lawn, he's kept our front lawn mowed, so the front lawn isn't going to be screaming at us as soon as we pull into our driveway.

I bet the back yard is a jungle, though!

My pink quilt is waiting for me, and I hope to get back to it within days of our arriving home. I have a couple baby things to finish knitting, ready for a shower in June, and I am now behind on my military quilt tops.

At this moment, life seems good, indeed.

Hat No. 5


Hat No. 5
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

Just for the record, I finished Hat No. 5 yesterday, and I started on No. 6. No. 6 will begin with burgandy ribbing as a contrast color, a purl-bump beginning border in burgandy, some cables in the pale brown or sand color, a burl-bump ending border, and then I think I'll do a rib-like K8, P2 around, using the same 10-stitches as before but a different pattern - all in the brown sand color. I like the fast decreases at the top (decrease at each 10-stitch marker every other row until I have only a few stitches remaining), making for a rounder crown of the cap.

Thursday, May 15, Day 27 - Early morning in Kingsteignton

We had a good storm last night, and the waters of the estuary are high. I was up at 5:30, and was glad I was because there must been a dozen or more swans, plus herons and other birds, enjoying floating on the waters. Again, I heard the loud plop-plop beating of a swan who had taken flight, but I didn't get a picture.

I accidentally figured out something this morning: Even though it seems silly to take a flash picture of a large area (like the outdoors), the camera operates according to its flash rules and keeps the shutter open only a brief time, reducing the chance of blur. The pictures, taken with a little zoom, are somewhat dark and grainy; but with a little increase in light using PSP, I actually did get a few distinguishable pictures this morning. How nice. There's nothing like seeing the real thing, but a picture to stir the memory and imagination is a good second best.

I just can't believe the view we have from here, sitting just above the marsh with a clear view for a long way. Passage House has built a new set of condos, and they opened just days after we checked in. We're lucky they didn't put us in the newer (maybe bigger and better according to their standards) units because they are further away from the marsh and their view is blocked by our building. We are really fortunate to have this place.


While we were checking our e-mail and I was posting my little blog last night, during the storm, I mentioned that the roof was leaking in the Reception area of the hotel. Here are some pictures. It was rather funny, but it wouldn't have been had the glass roof caved in. As I was trying to get pictures of the marsh through the windows, one of the gals who was trying to catch rain water as it dripped through the roof told me that the area was out of bounds, and I had to move back to the main area. They were good natured and looked like they were even having fun chasing the water with a rag and what looked like something no bigger than a flower pot.


Here's a picture of my navigation tools - two maps, one with a detailed view and one with an overall view, and the GPS, all sitting on my lap. At the same time I'm trying to keep track of our position and anticipate where I need to tell Lauren to prepare for another roundabout or merging of roads, I'm looking up to try to see signs that will identify a place name with something on the map and something the GPS tells us - plus, I'm snapping pictures when I think there's something in the side or front view that might be an interesting detail of our trip. Because Lauren's eyes are constantly on the road (and many of our pictures will tell you why - cars coming in all directions, blind curves everywhere, hilltops with no view of oncoming traffic), I also try to give him a running commentary of what I'm seeing as well as any information I've read about the place.


While we were traveling to Cornwall yesterday, I spotted a Hawkins sign - it's a restaurant, according to the sign, and we didn't drive down there; but I have to wonder if perhaps ... well, probably not. There were a number of Hawkins families who immigrated to the U.S. from here during various early stages of development in the New World - but it was interesting nonetheless.

Devon and Cornwall have spent a good bit of money on their roads in the past year or two, and they're really nice. Here's a picture where our GPS kept telling us to make U-turns and take other roads because, according to it, we were out in a field somewhere! It was funny. We've learned to argue with "her" (our Nuvi has a woman's voice) and tell her just to be patient because we know what we're doing at that particular moment. Most of the time, we haven't a clue what we're doing, and we are very reliant on our Nuvi!

Land's End in Cornwall is much like the Land's End we visited in Portugal - very, very windy, huge rocks left in the ocean where the waters have eroded the land, and absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. Like the Grand Canyon, there's no way you can get a picture that even begins to explain the swelling of all your emotions when you see such a place. All our tiredness immediately went away and we were totally joyful and relaxed. All my pictures are on Flickr in the Cornwall set for UK 08.

We thought it was funny that we found this bake shop at Land's End advertising that it was the "Home of the Cornish Pasty" but it had nothing but cheese and onion pasties (which we didn't want). We just had to laugh. And then there's a Land's End Clothing Company, but they don't sell any Land's End products! I have to say it again (and those who know me have heard me say it over and over) - Marketing!!! Yeh, sure!

We had our minds so set on Cornish Pasties, especially the meat variety, that we left Land's End, drove just a short distance and took a long, narrow, winding road down to the cove at Semens in search of a local place where we could get the real deal - more than one variety of pasties. What a lovely little town. We found steak pasties (chopped steak, onions, potatoes, and perhaps a little carrot) at the Breaker's Cafe and were able to enjoy eating them indoors, watching the wind blow outside and mess up everyone's hair.

The view at Semens was also lovely - but what else could we expect from such a place! We stayed there just long enough to soak in a good dose of the ambiance and left just before the marine layer began to overtake the area. We had a little rain in places driving back, and considering the storm we had last night, we figured we lucked out with perfect timing to get the most out of everywhere we were yesterday and then to get home safely.

There's much to see in Cornwall, especially at the tip of the peninsula, and touring it certainly isn't a day trip. We didn't see any or many of the ancient Roman ruins, although we saw evidence of them from place to place as we drove by. We now have a mental picture, based on reality, of where they lie, and that's more than we had before we traveled here.

It was interesting to read in my Berlitz Travelers Guide (one of the best I have seen) that Land's End has been owned by Nycal, Inc., of Washington, D.C. since 1991. That corporation may own the land and the buildings, but the views belong to the earth and its inhabitants. That an American, or any other corporation, could think they could own anything of real value such as those fabulous views gives me a great laugh. Marketing, again! You can charge me to park, but you can't charge me for the joy I receive when seeing these awesome natural surroundings. Disney is fun, but Disney isn't real. To me, the technology to create Disney is more impressive than the results.

Last picture for my blog - my birthday supper - pizza and a salad of grapes, strawberries, and yogurt topped with Cornish saffron bread crumbles, all put together by Lauren. I am lucky to have a husband who takes such care to put together a meal for me, even when we're traveling and have to do with what we can find! Thank you, Lauren! Now we are the same age again. Let's go for a bunch more of these dual birthday / anniversary events!

And next to last note for today's blog: There's this fellow on BBC named Jeremy, on a show called Top Gear, who loves to drive, and he takes these exotic road trips to less populated areas of Britain and even as far away as Iceland. He's on the Dave channel, whatever that is. We love his show. I wish we had it in America. He's in John O'Groats now, and that's at the northeast tip of Scotland, just south of the Orkney Islands. What a beautiful country that is.

Although the U.K. is a beautiful country no matter where you go, if I were to come here again and have a choice of where I would spend nearly 5 weeks, I would go to Scotland and drive and drive from one coast to the other, from the north to the south, from ferry to ferry. It's not that I wish we had done that this trip, because this trip has been perfect. We've seen so much and learned so much. But there's something about Scotland, in particular, that stirs and intrigues me in a special way.

Last note for today: It's amazing how busy this place, Passage House, is. There seems to be a regular stream of business travelers here, and we've casually heard any number of interesting conversations about business issues while we sit here, do our e-mail and blogging and picture uploading. Today, I'm listening to two business people, a man and a woman, who are discussing someone on the job who is "a lovely person" but who shows up drunk on the job too often. She will be dismissed, according to what I hear, and they're discussing just what language to use to give her the termination notice. As the conversation continues, I think these two are from Human Resources, so the conversation is very interesting to me. I enjoyed being a Human Resources specialist for a few years out of my work career. It was a lot of fun (as well as hard work).

On another day, we listened to a conversation between two men about driving and cars in England. One man purported to be the expert who was advising the other. I didn't look at them, and I assumed the expert was an older, fatherly figure, who was impressing his younger son about buying a car and driving here. Lauren informed me, though, that the two men were nearly the same age. Interesting.

Last night, the conversation was among three people who were discussing how to switch off during a presentation they were giving. They had been in Cornwall and, I presume, had given the presentation, and they were preparing to do it again here.

At the same time, last night, a large group of German tourists had just gotten back from their day's bus tour and they were lining up at the bar for a tall cool one before supper. We have learned, from casual conversations over the last few days, that supper here is usually late and people have to wait. This is a nice area to sit in, though, with windows everywhere providing a view of the estuary, so I don't hear many grumbles that people are having to wait too long.

Wednesday, May 14, Day 26 - Random thoughts while traveling

About war

I haven't written much about the history of any of the places we've visited during our U.K. tour, although the history is ever on my mind. We study much of this history throughout our education and the history is readily available in any guide book or publication about these places. I suppose I take English and Scottish history for granted.

As in the rest of Europe, the history of wars feels more prominent here than it does at home. At home, I think of the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, and I remember blackouts and ration books during World War II, trains passing our back yard carrying huge tanks and other war equipment, and other inconveniences of war. But since the Civil War, war hasn't been a real presence in our land, as it has been here.

There are many here who who remember being bombed and shelled. They remember soldiers marching their streets, air raid sirens, evacuations, and all the reality that war means in your home town. Those people are my age and older. We see many people our age and older here - so much that the fact almost shouts at us, so we know there are a good number of people here who remember those days with strong clarity. Their reality is different from ours.

There are monuments everywhere listing the names of those from the local area who were killed in the more recent wars of the 20th century. Every time we've been to Europe, I've been strongly reminded that war in these towns is recent history, not long-ago past history.

Exeter experienced a blitz in 1942, and so much of the ground we walked on yesterday came under heavy fire from the air, and the buildings were either destroyed or severely damaged. A sign posted on St Stephen's Church tells something of the story of wars in Exeter. I thought it was interesting and well put. We made a tiny contribution to the effort. We like to leave a little of ourselves behind when we can. We don't really make a difference except when we are included with others who are working to make a difference together.


From our balcony

The view from our balcony is ever changing as the tide ebbs and flows. Last night, I watched some swans frolic in the water; and out of nowhere, it seemed, I heard a strong beating of wind as two swans flew close to our balcony on their way to join the others. There must have been at least six, and maybe eight swans moving about in the water.

This morning, I watched as two long-legged birds - probably herons, with about 6 birdlings between them, walk to the water and gracefully settle themselves in and swim away. Was it a couple? Or maybe two moms?

The distances are too great for me to be able to get a precise view of all that's happening out there in the marsh, and my camera will pick up only fuzzy figures, but I can tell there is activity everywhere.

As I watched last night, a plane took off in the distance from the water, and as it neared me, a huge flock of birds - probably gulls, took flight as well. It was a beautiful sight to watch.

Touring too many days in a row

As I went to bed last night wondering why we were so tired, I realized we had been traveling nearly all day every day since we left Scotland. That's four days in a row. We usually break after no more than three days, and we had passed that mark with our trip to Exeter yesterday. Today will be our fifth day on the road as we travel through the southern part of Cornwall; but the forecast is rain for the remainder of the week (including thunder tomorrow), and we want to get most of our touring in, in this region, before the rains start. We'll rest on Thursday and Friday, preparing to get back on the road on Saturday morning. I'm sure those two days will refresh us and make us anxious to be on the move again.

Knitting

I might be able to finish the fifth hat before we leave here, too. The hats go fast, but I knit only when there's nothing else for us to do and when we're "home." We're still playing a round of cribbage (three games) twice a day, most days, and there's meals to prepare and other things to do even here at our lodgings, so my knitting time isn't as much as one might expect. Having those needles and "wool" at my fingertips has been a lifesaver, though. I have no idea why knitting is so settling, but it's my thought that if everyone knitted, emotional therapists would go out of business.

Trip to Cornwall

We had a glorious trip to Cornwall today, to Lands End and the cove at Semens. Breathtaking. I'll publish pictures and write more about the trip tomorrow. At Lands End, there's a shop there that says it has fresh Cornish Pasties baked right on the premises daily, but they had only cheese and onion pasties. We weren't too interested! So on our way out of that place, where we had to pay 3 pounds just to park our car, we drove down to the cove at Semens, parked free, and found a place that had steak pasties - and so we met our "have Cornish Pasties in Cornwall" goal.
And speaking of Cornwall, the Duchess of Cornwall apparently paid a visit to a local area today. I didn't catch the place name, but I'll probably hear it 5 more times before I go to bed tonight. BBC is like CNN Headline News - repeat the news every 15 minutes. Well, we missed Camilla, wherever she was today, but we did look her up on wikipedia because we became curious about how her title came about. You can read about it, too, here.

BBC

We've watched some fun shows on one of the BBC channels here. We believe BBC has the broadcast industry sewn up - whether radio or TV - there's BBC One, Two, Three, and so forth, and BBC Radio Devon, Cornwall, Pirates (this must be Penzance), Scotland, or wherever you happen to be. One of the things BBC does on radio that's really neat is that they interrupt whatever station you're listening to with really good traffic reports when there's problems. As we get to know a place, we listen carefully to see if we're impacted. Today, during our trip, we were informed of traffic both in Devon and Cornwall on those roads we were most likely to take during our drive.

This morning on BBC, we heard that the Queen and Prince Philip were visiting Turkey, and then we heard something about a scarf. We didn't catch who was going to wear it, and we wondered all day. When we turned on TV this evening, we learned that it was the Queen who wore it, when she went to the Mosque. In my opinion, the Queen is quite a dame. I like her style!

Rain, rain, go away by morning

We had a nearly rain-free day, and while we were at Lands End and Semen, we had wonderful sunshine, heightening the intensity of all we saw. Beautiful. And we had a pretty good drive there and back, stopping at the grocery store before coming back to our condo. We got over her to the hotel, where we hook up and connect to broadband, before the rain started, but we were no sooner in the door than it broke loose. The roof in part of the lobby / restaurant / coffee lounge started leaking, and the people who work here were scurrying to find buckets and rags to sop it up. I took a few pictures. We'll see if they turn out, and if they do, I'll post them tomorrow.

Weather permitting, we'll be looking for nearby hiking trails the next two days. But if weather doesn't permit, we have our cribbage board, computer games, and (best of all) my knitting - plus TV or radio, whichever is most interesting at the moment.

It's really thundering outside. I guess it's time to close down this computer before the lightening closes it down for me! More tomorrow ... weather permitting!

Tuesday, May 13 - Devon (visit to Exeter)

Today, it was my turn to have a birthday. We planned lower-key touring today with a trip to Exeter, just up the road, and to Teignmouth, just to the east of us, where the English Channel flows inland and creates the estuary we see from our balcony. Our idea was to catch the nearest Park & Ride to Exeter and then take the bus into the city center; but when the sign said it would be two miles to the Park & Ride, we took it to mean that the access road would be two miles; instead, it must have meant that the Park & Ride was two miles away, for the exit went by us like a flash of light.

I punched away at the Nuvi, while its map turned and jolted around as we changed directions, and eventually we pulled over into a parking lot for a commercial enterprise while I located the approximate place of the Park & Ride and told the Nuvi to take us there. We would see signs for the Park & Ride, and the signs would be good through several roundabouts; then when we reached another roundabout, we would see signs to this place, that place, and Other. Other was probably the exit we should have taken, but we had no idea. The Nuvi finally did take us there, though, and we found a place to park.

The bus runs every 9 minutes or so, so we practically stepped out of the car onto the bus, and away we went. It was funny as Lauren, who was sitting behind me, kept saying "We've been on this street. We've been on this street." Yes, we were all over the southern part of Exeter just finding that place!

Exeter has a nice town center with wide open spaces around the cathedral and great pedestrian areas for shopping. They finished a new shopping area last fall, and we enjoyed walking it to the hilt. We were amazed at the number of people walking about, as we were when we went to Barnstaple yesterday; don't these people ever work? The weather is so beautiful, we think there was no one left at home anywhere. They were all in town at least window shopping.


My birthday cake
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

We picked out my birthday cake, and I found a really nice outfit complete with accessories.


Exeter - My birthday outfit
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.


Exeter - My birthday shoes and the price list
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

The dress is especially nice because it has a pocket in it. Not many things for women have pockets these days - not even sweat pants. And I love pockets.



Exeter - My birthday jewelry
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.

I topped off my choices with some nice jewelry from a local jeweler. It was all in fun, of course, because what need do I have of dresses and jewelry? I wear neither; but these were pretty and if I were the kind of person who bought dresses and jewelry, these would certainly be on my list.

Lauren said he also picked out a birthday card for me, too, but I was somewhere else when he found it so I didn't get to see it. I chastised him because he could have taken a picture of it for me, and didn't! Ah, men! No imagination!!

As a special treat for my birthday, we were serenaded by a clarinetist, in the pedestrian shopping area, playing smooth romantic tunes from the 50s and 60s; and then we enjoyed an informal piano concert in the Cathedral Chapter House! The young pianist (early 20s, perhaps) was especially gifted. She didn't have a program, but she played something wonderful from the classical period - it seemed the piece was just at the end of the classical period and not quite into the beginning of the romantic period; and then she played something vigorous that was reminiscent of Villa Lobos or Hindemith.

I would have loved to have know the composers whose music she played. The first thing I noticed about her when we walked into the Chapter House was the curvature of her fingers and the level top of her hands. She could have held a penny on the back of each of her hands, or should I say a pence, as she played. Her fingers were well trained hammers, and she controlled each of those hammers independently. Her playing was so energetic and precise! She has to be working toward a professional career, if she doesn't have one already (but I suspect she's a student at a local university) because a casual pianist would never develop that much precision. Wow!

It was fun walking around some areas of Exeter and looking for dates on buildings. The Cathedral was in existence before the 1600s, though not in its present condition, and so I suspect my 5-greats grandparents saw it as they were preparing to leave the country. We saw a few hotels and public houses with early dates on them, as well, and I had to wonder about them. Though seeing the city from which they left England for the New World was never a high priority for this trip, it was nonetheless fun to imagine that they were there and saw at least a little bit of what I saw today.

Tomorrow our plan is to see Penzance in Cornwall. We're both finally getting tired, but when I asked Lauren this afternoon if he wanted to skip Cornwall, he said that he didn't even know Penzance was a real place (as in Pirates of Penzance) before we came here, and he thought it would be worth our while to drive down there tomorrow. It will be about a 2-hour drive down, and the roads should be good, so off we will go. This is a tourist mecca here. It's summer on this coast and people come in droves and spend money - old money, new money, borrowed money, whatever. The area responds with some really good main roads, almost equivalent to a motorway (like an interstate in the U.S.).

While we're in Cornwall, we'll stop and have real Cornish Pasties in Cornwall. We've had them in the states, on the recommendation from some friends who discovered them on the east coast; and now we'll have the real thing. All the bakeries around here, and even north of here, carry them. They're just meat pies with some vegetables, including potatoes, but they're world famous. They're not something we would normally eat because they are really saucy and starchy, but we can't pass up the opportunity to have them in their place of origination - Cornwall! Our trip down and back may be just to go to Penzance and Lands End, but when we get back, at least we can say we've been there. As lovely as this trip has been - and we would do it over again were we younger, I just don't think we'll pass this way again. If we do any more long distance travels, there are still a few places that are interesting to us, so I don't think this one will come up again.

Monday, May 12, Devon (Day 24 in the U.K.)

Dartmoor - B3212
Originally uploaded by Suzie Rozie.
Yesterday, Sunday, was a local touring day for us, and we drove across the Dartmoor National Forest (sometimes called the Dartmoor National Park, we see). It's hardly a forest at all, because at the topmost points there are no trees. Just a little bit of earth beneath you, it seems, and lots of sky.

It just so happened that it was the annual bike Dartmoor day, too, and more than 1,000 bikers took off from a nearby town and crossed the mountain. We must have seen a good half of them on the road!

With narrow roads (and we took a yellow primary road - B3212, not one of those white one-lane white roads, although we did get lost a couple times at the end and wound up on white roads - "wound up" being the operative phrase), cars going in two directions, and the road full of bikers, it made for some challenging driving (and passengering).

We had a beautiful day. We visited a huge monestery in Buckfast where we attended the last half of a Roman Catholic service.

We found out that the Park & Ride was open only Mon thru Friday for Plymouth and so we missed that town because we had previously decided not to drive into it - probably a good thing because the annual Trans-Atlantic sailing trip began there yesterday, and the city was probably packed with people.

We got lost on a few white roads (mostly one-lane) and thought our Nuvi was going to throw up its hands and announce "I give up!"

We wound up accidentally in Moretonhampstead where we stopped for ice cream. Twice, driving through town and making impossible 300-degree turns, Lauren ended up on the wrong side of the road and we stared, like deer caught in headlights, at the car facing us while I regained my composure sufficiently to (calmly?) shout "Wrong side! Wrong side!" to Lauren.

And then we got back to our condo, thoroughly relieved after the day's challenges, plopped into our over-stuffed chairs in the living room, stared blankly at the estuary until we recovered, and relaxed until supper.

There's no doubt that the driving is stressful for Lauren, and being a passenger isn't always a piece of cake, either. The medication I take for the neuropathy pains in my legs lessens my fear of heights, but there were places on Dartmoor that were so high and narrow and winding that I felt we were high on Mt. Washington in New Hampshire, where I sat with my head beneath the dashboard and prayed while Lauren drove up and then back down the mountain, telling him to just ignore me for a while, looking over the ledge into nothingness.

I'm not only a passenger, either - I'm chief navigator, and Lauren relies on me to forecast and interpret the GPS's instructions, to watch the road to see that we're actually going to be taking the turn I see on the GPS, read the map, change our way points and destinations, and be pleasantly supportive while he does the tough job of trying to drive and steer through it all without clipping another car, a biker, a pedestrian, or whatever else happens to want to share those narrow roads with us.

And those bikers - how did they do that? That is a climb that would challenge anyone, and to pedal up that mountain? I have nothing but admiration for them. They have to be so disciplined to gain enough strength to bike that road. Wow!

A day like yesterday, though, is what makes a tour like this memorable. You see such beauty around you, you take a few risks, you learn about those around you - I'm so glad we decided to take this "one last tour" before we hung up our explorer's license. This is a great way to do it.

With this trip, we have the advantage of a more or less common language (English), our talking Garmin Nuvi GPS (with funny computerized speach), and lots of experience under our belts; so it's not as explorer-like as our earlier tours. Even so, it's a lot of fun and just what I was looking for when I proposed to Lauren that we go out on our own "one more time."

The world is a beautiful place. There's so much to see, and we've covered only a small part of it. But how fortunate we have been. We repeat with the psalmist, "our boundaries have been pleasant ones."

Sunday, May 11, 08 - Kingsteignton, Devon

Yesterday, we drove about 5 hours from north Chester to Kingsteignton, a little town joined to Newton Abbot in Devon, just south of Exeter. Our lodgings here are at a place called Passage House, and it sits on a beautiful estuary (is there any other kind?). Our balcony faces the estuary, without the obstruction of other buildings, and it provides many delightful views as the tide goes in and out. There's a sail boat on the property that's dry-docked when the tide is out, looking ready to take off toward the English Channel when the tide is in. Yesterday, we watched some adolescent boys playing in the low tide, running, jumping, and sliding in the mud; and then later, we watched a couple canoeing inland as far as the tides would let them, toward our place.

Passage House is a historic place, although our condo isn't, where laborers who worked the marine transport market stayed. The area is rich in clay, and the workers hauled it to and from the boats.

This condo is only a one-bedroom two-story unit, but it's light and modern and clean, and it suits our needs very well. Exchanging or renting lodgings like this is always a roll of the dice because you generally have little choice, but we luck out more than often and have rarely gotten something that we didn't like.

Our routine is generally to settle in, walk around the area, find the nearest grocery store, and get our bearings. Last evening, we found the local Tesco, a huge store, and did most of our shopping for the week. These big Tescos have a lot of aisles, shelves, and products, but they are almost too big for me to enjoy for the kind of shopping we do. We prefer the smaller stores, the Spars, co-operatives (co-operative (all lower case) is a form of a major chain in England and it has good assortment of products), and the local produce and butcher shops. We have found our standard fare there - the kinds of cereals, fruit, vegetables, meats, etc., there without any problems at all.

We don't like to eat out often, mostly because it costs a lot of money for something we can do healthier and less expensive for ourselves. We can't control the ingredients when someone else is doing our cooking, and we're sure that eating out often isn't awfully good for us. Our standard fare, whether at home or when traveling, is whole grain cereals and fruit for breakfast; half a ham, salami, cheese, and mustard sandwich, with fruit, for lunch; meat, rice, vegetables, salad, and maybe fruit for supper. We like thin crust pizza, too, and have it half the time at home, topped with a good sausage, along with our salad; and yesterday we found a thin-crust pizza at Tesco along with some chili-flavored sausage, and that was our supper last night. It was really good.

When we went in search of the Tesco yesterday afternoon, we drove randomly around a little bit, ending up on a series of one-lane roads on the hill near the Dartmoor Forest, a National Park. We'll definitely want to see what we can tour there. According to our map, there are some roads through it, but except for one that begins north of us and runs in a southwest of us, most of the roads look like very small tiny and may not be well maintained. There are a series of small towns there that we'll want to explore.

We spent some time last evening looking at the literature we picked up about the area, trying to figure out the best way to tour it. It's always a challenge to "debug" a new place, but we generally manage. Maybe the tourist information office is open this morning. We have often used their services to find good maps and driving tours. I found a map with the local bus and train stations, and maybe there will be information there, too.

This pair of towns - Kingsteignton and Newton Abbot, form the most populated area of the three main places we've stayed during this trip, so it will take a little more work to figure them out. There will be little or no walking to town from here, although there are many great walking paths that go from place to place. Walking paths are characteristic of England and of other places in Europe we've visited, and we've enjoyed them tremendously.

Just below our condo is a series of paths through the marshlands, but we're not sure where they all go. We took a short walk last night, and it's wonderfully picturesque. We'll check them out a bit more today.

It's from Exeter that my Hawkins ancestor (William and his soon-to-be wife, Margaret) sailed - first to Barbados and then to Rhode Island, in the early 1600s. I want to see the Exeter port just to get that in my memory. I also want to see Cornwall and the north shores of this peninsula, near Exmoor Forest and the coast there, but I'm not sure just how much traveling around we'll be able to do. From home, such a great distance away, it seems like we can do everything when we get "there," but we know that's never the reality and we're in the midst of the place itself. When you're in a place, getting around takes some work and always a great deal more time than it does in the imagination. Lauren may have some other ideas, and he's not only the driver, but his ideas are good, too - so we'll see just what we come up with as the week goes on.

Lauren greeted me with "Happy Mother's Day" this morning. I had forgotten. Coming toward the end of our birthdays-anniversary week, it has gotten lost in the shuffle over the years, and it always comes as a surprise to me. Yep - my most important and precious job over my lifetime - mothering. Happy Mother's day to me. Happiness is being a mother, for sure. I am blessed.

I think it's about time I changed my position on clean clothes, and I'll at least change my shirt when I shower today! It's getting warmer, and, well .... I think I'll give myself a little hair cut today, too, and hair sticking down your shirt isn't fun. That gives me justification to change my decision. These slacks, though - the pockets are so great for carrying just about anything and everything in them, including a knitted cap and even one with a brim for those days it's really sunny. I think we're going to have some really sunny days here. The knitted cap will probably go in the laundry bag and the brimmed one on my head to stay for the duration.

Speaking of caps, I finished my fourth one yesterday. It's my favorite, and I'm going to make another using the same pattern. For those who are interested, the pattern is this:

Start:
Using dk yarn (just a little heavier than sport weight, I think, but less than knitting worsted) and two 4mm circular needles, cast on 104 stitches (cable cast on) and join.
K2, P2 ribbing for 1-1/2 to 2 inches.
Increase evenly to 140 stitches for body of cap.

Border:
Knit 3 rounds.
(This begins a 10-stitch pattern. It's good at this point if you put markers after every 10th stitch because you will eventuallly decrease at the markers. You will have 14 10-stitch patterns throughout.)
Rnd 4: (YO, K2tog) 4 times, K2.
Rnd 5: Knit around.
Repeat Rnd 4 & 5 3 times.

Crown:
Rnd 1: (K1, S1) 4 times, K2 - around. (10-stitch pattern)
Rnd 2: K around.
Repeat until hat measures about 7-1/2 to 8 inches (depending on how loose you want the crown to fit)

Decreases:
During the decreases, move to 4mm dpns (set of four is good) when the circulars are too long to work with.
Rnd 1: Follow 10-stitch pattern, and K2tog on stitches 9 and 10); repeat around
Rnd 2: Knit around.
Rnd 3: Same as Rnd 1, but K2tog on stitches 8 and 9); repeat around
Rnd 4: Knit around.
etc. until you have 14 stitches remaining (1 for each of the 10-stitch patterns).
Arrange so that the first 7 stitches on one needle and the other 7 on another.

K1 from the needle closest to you. K2tog, one from the needle closest to you and the other from the needle farthest away. Repeat until one stitch remains, and K that stitch.

You should have 8 stitches now.

Slip stitches to other end of needle like an I-cord.

Working as for I-cord, K1, K2tog 3 times, K1, and slip to other end of needle. Should be 5 stitches now.

Work I-cord for a few rows and bind off, leaving tail long enough to tack down I-cord to make a button top and then to weave in.

Weave in all ends, and wear!

May 9 - On the road - Happy Birthday LDR

Is having to drive all day, from Aberfeldy to Chester, stuck for several miles at a time behind slow-moving equipment on a two-lane road (one lane going in each direction) a suitable birthday present? Well, that's what Lauren got, and the prize was that we arrived safely in Chester after leaving beautiful Aberfeldy this morning. It was a reluctant leaving, for sure. There can't be many places as beautiful as Aberfeldy in particular and Scotland in general!

We started the day with a nice breakfast of boiled eggs, ham, cheese, salami, strawberries and bananas with some great shortbread, and salad greens. It was yummy!!! And then we played our customary 5 rounds of ping-pong. Unfortunately, I won three out of five, and that wasn't nice of me, was it? But we had a good time, anyway. Each day we got better playing at Aberfeldy, and the last two days were pretty normal games for us - with the exception that I won the best three out of five today. That wasn't normal. Usually, I max at two games, if any at all.

This evening, we had supper at the Dene Hotel where we're staying. We paid $US 40 (20pounds sterling) for the meal you see in the picture - worth $15 max in the U.S. (The dollar is trading about 50 cents to a pound.) We eat so healthy - and inexpensively, too, that it's always hard for us to spend good travel or movie or fun money on this type of food, especially when it's nothing special, such as this meal.

We're paying 10 pounds for Internet tonight, too. The hotel has "free" Internet through its own server, but their router doesn't broadcast to our room, and the signal from the lobby is spotty, as well. So we bit the bullet and we're using a T-Mobile hot spot signal - at a fee, of course. It's slow and seems to cut in and out, but it's slowly but surely working. (I tried to load pictures to Flickr this evening, and out of 45 pictures over a period of about 2 hours, 15 loaded successfully.) We enjoy being able to get on line, and sometimes just being able to check our bank accounts, charge cards, e-mail from home, and so forth, is enough to help us relax us.

All in all, it was a pretty successful birthday for Lauren, though it would have been nice to spend the whole day in one place.

We saw some beautiful scenery today; unfortunately, my camera wasn't set to let in sufficient light to compensate for the overcast skies, but I got some pictures, anyway, that will remind us of the many, many shades of green we saw. We didn't know so many shades could exist in one view. Wow! As we neared the lake district, the hills got such a smooth look to them. It was as though they had been laid down by a master cake decorator. Scotland, Wales, and England are beautiful states in this country. I'm sure Ireland is just as lovely, and maybe one day we'll get there, too. There is much about this trip that we'll never forget - the canal boat, the beauty of Aberfeldy, and I'm sure Devon has its own charm and special interests that we will remember, too.

Lauren has learned to drive these roads like a pro! We're in good hands when he is behind the wheel.

Thursday, May 8, 08 - Aberfeldy, Scotland

It's day 20 of our UK travels.

Psalm 16 has been our psalm for this trip. It seems to sum up everything this trip means to us - celebrating our love of seeing new places, our anniversary, our birthdays. Here it is from the NIV:

Keep me safe, O God, for in you I take refuge.

I said to the Lord, "You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing."

As for the saints who are in the land, they are the glorious ones in whom is all my delight. The sorrows of those will increase who run after other gods. I will not pour out their libations of blood or take up their names on my lips.

Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure. The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.

I will praise the Lord, who counsels me; even at night my heart instructs me.
I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I will not be shaken.

Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure, because you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay.

You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.