back to the future, and the hills are alive...

We had a fun visit with our son on Monday. We ate at the Lotus Cafe in Encinitas, one of my favorite places. And I finally got a ride in his new toy.

I took some photos from the inside, but I'm not sure yet if they turned out. This car sits very low to the ground, and it was manufactured when he was two years old. It has a flux capacitor. ;-)He played Huey Lewis and the News on the car stereo.

We also received some fun photos of our granddaughter and her new friends.

These are the new Nigerian goats. They are gentle and friendly. Look at all the grass they have to eat!

The platforms are for them to climb and play on. It makes me think of the Sound of Music, or maybe Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm.

They like Sammy, obviously.

She's getting so big! She'll be three in a couple of weeks. I love the bandaids on the knees. It reminds me of my own childhood.

An Exquisite Moment quilt

This is old news, but I was on my trip when I found out that my quilt, "Grocery Shopping with Sammy," was accepted into the "An Exquisite Moment" special exhibit by Dinner at Eight Artists. It will go to the Long Beach International Quilt Festival in August and I'm not sure yet where else. I am very excited to have my quilt included in this wonderful exhibit.

I didn't have an image to share when I was on my trip, but now I finally have time to share it with you.

It depicts my granddaughter when I was grocery shopping with her at Wegman's in Central NY. My husband is hand embroidered in the background.

Detail of my husband in the background. He has been in three quilts of mine, that I can think of. Lucky him! ;-) He's wearing a hat in two of them. He has a moustache in all of them.

As long as I'm sharing things, here is the knitted cap I made on my trip to the UK! I knitted on planes, on trains, and once in a while in hotel rooms. I started it and finished the whole thing on the trip. It was a challenge. Every single row was different! The design is by Alana Dakos, which appears in her beautiful new book, Botanical Knits. Check out the book, it's really wonderful. I can't wait to try some of the other designs.

Dublin

We stayed three nights in Dublin, Ireland. Dublin was great, but I wish we had had time to see more of the country. Oh well, next time. We learned alot on this trip.... At this point Dave's ankle was bothering him, so we toured the city via double-decker buses, the kind you can hop on and hop off. It was the first time we did this - good when you aren't up to walking much.

 

 

This is where they make Guinness. No, we never had any.

 

We visited Trinity College because I wanted to see the Book of Kels. We stood in a long line and waited our turn. They were beautiful.

 

Unfortunately we couldn't take photos of the Book of Kels. But we could photograph the Long Room. It was a library of old books.

 

Dave's friend here is Molly Malone. Do you know the Irish tune, she sells cockles and mussels, alive, alive-o? I used to play the tune on my recorder, not very well.

 

 

I was determined that we cross the Ha'Penny bridge across the Liffey River.

 

Lacy, dainty little bridge.

 

 

Nice views up and down the river.

 

These gorgeous orchids were hanging in the lobby of our hotel.

 

At one point we took a ride on the Luas transporation system. Nice, clean, kinda boring.

 

 

We saw apartments like this all over Scotland and Ireland. The doors were often painted bright colors. A snarky tourbus driver said that in the old days, the British lords all had places like this where they could rendezvous with their mistresses.

 

 

We spent our last night on Canary Wharf in London. We didn't know that it was a business district, not close to the usual London attractions. That's the Shard off in the distance.

 

 

 

These characters were sitting near our hotel.

 

And that's the end of our tour. It was a fun trip, and we are so happy to be home!

 

 

Edinburgh Castle

These photos were all taken in and around Edinburgh Castle.

Another tiny photo of me, I think only two photos on the whole trip. It was raining. I am carrying my Tomato Traveler purse and the tote bag that I sewed.

A view of the city from the castle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This made me think of quilt blocks, the next one, too.

 

 

You can't have a castle without swords and armour.

On the way back, we saw several people rub the big toe of this statue of Hume. So we did, too.

St. Gile's Cathedral.

A view of the castle from below.

We saw this monument during our walk around Edinburgh. I wish I could remember who it's for.

Okay, one more set of photos (for Dublin), and then I'm done with my travelogue. Sheesh, back in the day people used to bore other people with their travel slide shows. Now we do it on blogs! ;-)

Scotland visit

We stayed for two nights in Glasgow, Scotland. Glasgow is an industrial town, so there aren't alot of tourists. Still, we enjoyed the people and the places we visited. I discovered a fabric store and ordered a half meter of fabric! We stayed in a lovely hotel, called the Blythswood. This is the view from our room.

A view of Glasgow streets.

We discovered a very special restaurant near our hotel called "Two Fat Ladies." We ate there one night.

We thought the restaurant was connected to a TV show with the same name. (Is it on any more? I don't think so) But a waitress explained that it was named after the number 88, its address at another location. 88 kinda looks like two fat ladies, get it? One of the fat ladies from the TV show did visit this restaurant and gave it her blessing.

We had one of our favorite meals there, lemon sole, yum yum. Then for desert we shared a slice of mango pie with berries and chocolate sorbet. So good!

I used this tote the whole time. It was great, not too big. Small was good, so I wasn't toting around a super-heavy load. I also carried a fun purse, the "Tomato Traveller." I don't think I have a photo of that.

The next day we took the train to Edinburgh. This was one of the lovely views along the route.

Edinburgh was our favorite place on this trip. It is a lovely, walkable place. Our hotel, the Balmoral, gave us wonderful views, including this one.

Another great view from our hotel windows.

 

 

 

We were amused by the giant photo of Sean Connery from "Casino Royale" in our bathroom. Dave thinks "Goldfinger." Any opinions out there?

I thought this was a very stylish makeup mirror, also in the hotel bathroom.

We visited the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art, which was disappointing. But I liked the neon on the front of the building. It's hard to see, but it says "Everything will be alright."

I have several photos from Edinburgh Castle, and I will share those in my next post.