Feeling the love

If you've followed my blog for a while you'll know that I always write up my trips away.
Our trip to New Zealand was no different.  Except the people who we rented our camper van from, Wilderness, thought it was pretty good and not only asked if they could put it up on their site, but entered it into their 'Your stories' competition!  Look our for the box titled 'Honeymoon in Middle Earth' and you can vote for us.
How cools that!  Maybe I should get in to this writing thing after all.

New Zealand

After nearly 4 weeks away its good to be back.  We had a brilliant time exploring New Zealand in a camper van.  You can read all about our adventures here and I'll be back blogging about stuff I've created once the jet lag has worn off!

Taking a break

I'm going to be a bit quiet on here for the next month or so, as we finally go away on honeymoon.  I've been looking forward to this trip all year and now it is finally here.
The idea of no knitting or making for a month is a bit weird, but I'm sure we'll be so busy I won't have time to miss it.  Of course I'll be keeping a journal and my sketch book will be coming too.  Once we're back you'll be able to read all about our adventures on my other blog - Not all who wander are lost.

So in the mean time, I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and I'll be back in 2015.

Paris - a long weekend

I've been a little quite recently I know and part of that is due to a long weekend in Paris.  We had a lovely time - you can read all about it on my Not all who wander are lost blog.
Things should get back to normal now, and I'll be able to get started on some of those projects...

An Island Holiday

I love islands.  Maybe it’s because I live on one or because of my love of the sea?  Whatever it is, I recently realised that a lot of the places on my visiting wish list are islands.  Cuba, Isles of Scilly, Lundy, Jersey and Guernsey, Skye, Greek Islands, New Zealand etc etc.

With our holiday in Egypt little more than a distant memory now, we decided we needed a long weekend away.  But where to go?  We couldn’t afford anywhere over sea’s so decided to visit the Isle of Wight.  Close to home and gazed at from afar (well across the Solent) regularly it seemed like the perfect opportunity to get to know this island better.

And we had a great time even with wind and rain and fog and brilliant sunshine.  You can read all about it at my travel blog – Not all who wander are lost

Scarab Beetle Necklace

While we were in Egypt I was lucky enough to win a scarab beetle bead for reading some hieroglyphics right.  There is nothing special about the bead, they are made by their thousand, scarab’s are after all thought to be good luck, but I love the colour and the circumstances make it special to me, not only were we in Egypt, but it was my birthday.

I’ve now had time to turn it into a necklace.  First I had to drill it – although it had ‘holes’ at each end, they didn’t meet.  No problem for me and my mini drill.  I then used a silver pin to hold the bead, but it was too loose and could have pulled through, so I made a tiny silver washer to hold it in place.  I then made a loop with the tail of the silver pin through which the chain would run, and finished it by knotting the excess round the top.

It’s not perfect, but then neither is the bead, so I think the whole sits well together.  I’m very pleased with it and it will be a grand reminder of a lovely holiday and my 30^th birthday.

My New Travel Blog

Well I finally decided what to do about my journal of our trip to Egypt.

Rather than wasting time trying to fix a problem uploading photos onto a site that doesn’t do what I want it to, I decided to move all my travels on to a self created blog.

When I travel, I normally stay away from technology, either because there isn’t any like during my trips to the Namibian desert or the Amazonian Rainforest, or because I’d rather experience the local culture and forget day to day life for a bit.

This means that I didn’t want a site that I am expected to update as I travel across a country, rather somewhere to write up what we did afterwards as a memory of the trip.  I think this gives you time to think about your trip and share the best bits with your friends and family, rather than feeling pressured to write something when all you’re really doing it chilling in a hammock.

I love travelling and love telling everyone all about my trip.  I’d love to be a travel writer, always off somewhere new to find great places for people to visit.  But at the same time I’m a home bod, and couldn’t leave ‘im outside behind and doubt he’d be able to leave the landscaping for long.

So I compromised, with our yearly? trips and my travel blog.