First Day of Spring

Today is the first day of Spring

so for those of you who are having

a bad time or just need a little bit of sunshine

in your life,take a trip down the 

Daffodil Road.

Gillxx

Scavenger Hunt February

It's time for this months scavenger Hunt run

by Green Thumb at Made with Love

We start with

3PM

This is part of my garden taken at 3pm .

CLOUDS

I have taken 2 for this one

the first with blue sky

and then more rain on the way.

F is for….

Fallen .

 This tree had to be negotiated on my long walk last week.

Grain

 I had a few ideas for this  then I saw this

sawn log in the woods and decided to go for Wood grain.

CLOCK

This one is on a church in Great Yarmouth and

yes it was taken during the last month

although that lovely blue sky didn't last long.

REPURPOSE

These curing works have been turned into

a town museum and cafe.

HONEY

I saw this lovely honeypot in a local antiques market

although I don't think it is that old.

FOUNTAIN

I had to go into my archives for this one as

Norfolk doesn't seem to have any fountains about,

none that I could find anyway.

This one is in Brunei.

LAMP

On the old railway station at Weybourne.

ROUND

This is one of the things I inherited from my Grandmother.

The flowers are embroidered over the painting 

and is one of my most treasured possessions.

SHADOW

Another one taken in my garden.

and lastly

GROUP

This is my walking group on our walk last week.

So that's my contribution for this month,

time to go and find out next months list.

Hope you enjoyed them and I'll speak again soon.

Gillx

Kelling Heath Wander

I went for a long walk with the W.I. 

walking group this week.

We started at Sheringham Park, which is a National Trust

Property, doing a loop through Kelling Heath and back

to where we started. It worked out to just under 10 miles.

The North Norfolk steam railways runs through the middle of the heath

but we missed the train by a couple of minutes.

 It is  a lovely area but unfortunately the weather was 

very grey with the inevitable rain at times so some of my

photos were too grey and dark to use. 

The old reading rooms at Kelling is a  great place to dry out a bit

and of course it would be rude not to have some  

coffee and cake while we were we there.

Then it was down to the coastal path 

past some temporary lakes.

The footpath then starts to go uphill

 through one of the stations

on the old railway

which is full of vintage cases and trunks all

looking as though they are

ready for the train.

They also do the restoration of the old trains here.

Then it's up the hill with the wonderful view across

to the coast

past the old Manor house, which isn't National Trust

 and through the park where we saw

 this fabulous hollow Oak which looks 

as though it is 

 actually still alive much to our amazement.

Sheringham Park is full of Rhododendrons 

which are stunning when they are all in flower but theoretically

we are too early for Rhoddies.

Doesn't appear as though anyone told the plants that

as there were a few of them in full flower already,

and very pretty they looked as well

Then, of course, as Sod's law states,

the sun came out just as we were finishing.

Made the view from this lookout point well worth

a stop for a couple of minutes though.

Gillx

Frayed

There is so much I want to talk to you about at the moment

but I decided that this had to go to the top of the list.

The wonderful Mr T (my other half) and I went along the coast

 to Great Yarmouth

yesterday to the Time and Tide museum where there is an

exhibition being put on by the Norfolk Museum service. 

It's called Frayed and looks at work done by people who

have used Textiles as a form of  Occupational Therapy.

As this is something I have done I was really interested.

As you arrive the first thing you see is this four poster bed

completely covered in patchwork, not only the counterpane 

but the hangings as well are all hand stitched.

They were made by a lady called Anna Margaretta Brereton between 1801-1805.

This lady had 10 children, 4 of which died as infants but it was when 

her eldest son died suddenly, aged 14, that she immersed herself in her

stitching and created this beautiful work which survives to this day.

Next to it is a collection of samplers sewn by quite young girls.

They have the tiniest stitches I have ever seen. 

This looks like me in the mornings.

They also had a couple of pieces from the Fine Cell Works group.

These are men who have been taught to sew in prison

and then make pieces like the one below which 

are sold to the public so they can make more. 

There were a lot of other pieces there, even one by Tracey Emin

but the highlight of the exhibition for me was the

"letters" by Lorina Bulwer.

Watchers of the Antiques Roadshow would have seen one 

of these on there last year but this is the first time

both letters have been exhibited together.

They are about 3 metres long and I personally would call them journals

as they are the ramblings of a lady who was in a lunatic asylum

and stitched everything that went on around her and the names of everyone 

involved. Very little of it makes much sense but the care she has taken is incredible.

The colour of the thread changes so that it shows up on the different fabrics all of which

are the same width and bound down the sides.

They have been able to trace some of the named people 

through historical documents as well which I think is wonderful.

She even made pot holders and other items with

wonderful figures appliqued on them.

She was in the asylum for a number of years so 

there is quite possibly more of her work out there somewhere.

If you live within travelling distance then I throughly recommend it.

If you want to find out more then here is the link to the blog.

The rest of the museum is also really worth a visit as it 

one of the most child friendly museums I have ever been to.

with a mock up of an old street where you can go into each shop or house

to see what it was really like.

I love these wonderful stencils for the boxes.

The history of the fishing industry in the area

and how they smoked all the herring that was caught.

 The whole museum is

set up in an old smoke house

The women used to put about 8,000 fish a day

onto wooden sticks ready to be hung like this 

in the smoke rooms.

They even have a film of a fishing boat on a stormy sea

with a commentary of the captain in the headphones.

This was Mr T favourite part.

There is a lot more to see and it took us 2/3 hours to wander around

before having a very nice lunch in the cafe which

strangely enough was full of women talking about quilting.

Gillxx

Storms, Dips and Hopes.

HAPPY NEW YEAR

I can't believe how long it is since I've written anything

on here, I've even missed the last two scavenger Hunts although I'm determined to 

complete this months.

 It was so long ago that  I still had summer flowers in the garden

whereas now my winter Clematis are in full bloom and look lovely

on the rare occasion it is nice enough to wander around the garden.

A lot has happened since we last met and I will show you some of the things 

I've been up to in my next post which I promise won't be far away.

The Norfolk coast, along with so many other places around the country,

has suffered at the hands of the weather and my heart goes out to 

all those people who have had their lives and homes destroyed.

I haven't seen the damage anywhere other than at Cromer but that 

was shocking enough with huge chunks of concrete ripped from the sea wall

and thrown around like drift wood along the promenade.

Great gaping holes left in the pier, beach huts reduced to 

match wood and tons of mud having slipped down the cliffs.

But the British are a resilient lot aren't they.

Within a few days the pier was patched up and the 

theatre was open for business again even if you had to have a head for heights

to walk out to it past the fenced off holes.

By Boxing day it was business as usual with the 

BOXING DIP pulling thousands of spectators to watch

hundreds of those mad enough to run into the sea, not just once but twice,

wearing swimsuits or flimsy fancy dress as no wet suits are permitted.

My Son and Youngest daughter were amongst those crazy people

even after my son said last year that he would never do it again.

All my family have now returned to their own homes

and I have returned to my sewing room after it's temporary

use as a bedroom.

Now I don't make resolutions as I don't keep them, year after year I tried to give

up smoking in January and finally managing it (many years ago now) in September.

So I thought this year I would set out a couple of things I hope to achieve this year.

Firstly--I want to do more hand embroidery.

This has been brought on by finding this fabulous 

embroidery stand in a local charity shop for £3.75!--can you believe it.

I had this old linen table cloth among my boxes of old linen

which is printed and ready to embroider 

and even if I don't manage to finish it, it still looks good

in my room.

Then on my sewing table, other than one of my new mugs,

is something else I'm going to add some embroidered embellishments to.

It started with a little foundation piecing

and will end up as a book cover.

The pattern is by Anja Townrow

which I bought when I did a workshop with her a few weeks ago.

Now to just add some stitching. 

My second hope for 2014 is to be more organised 

so that it isn't 2 months before you hear from me again.

So with that in mind I wish you all a very Happy New Year

and will see you again soon.

Gillxxx