THE END OF THE WORLD

This is the view that Prince Henry the Navigator looked out upon when he stood at the end of the world. He and many other "Navigators" wondered what was beyond the horizon. Most feared that they would be sucked over the edge into an abyss or even hell and it took a great deal of courage to venture out into the Atlantic Ocean in a small wooden boat, relying on the moving stars to tell you where you might be.

The cliffs at the south western edge of Portugal are massive and the view stretched further than it would have done if you had stood on the beach. Perhaps the fact that you still couldn't see the dreaded edge from up high fed the imagination and encouraged the early Portuguese explorers.

On the way to Sagres and these cliffs we passed through Lagos where storks were nesting on the tops of large chimneys. These are birds I have never seen before in the wild and they brought back memories of childhood stories in books showing storks nesting on the chimneys in Europe. Our tour guide was less than impressed and nearly spat at the thought that they might be an attraction. "Many more later in Silves", she said. "You can take pictures there!"

So I did. I found them nesting in the top of an old palm tree in the park beside the river.

I took pics with the zoom so they are a bit fuzzy but if you look carefully you can see the chick's head.

And this lovely fellow was taking the air along the banks, deftly helping himself to a slow sardine or two.

Back in Albufeira, my favourite bird was this cheerful cocky.

As you can see, he is obviously a close relative of my own Cocky, bought in a job lot at Watsons Auction Rooms and jealously covetted by visitors and particularly by DJ. These Cockies sport attire from the same outfitters! They have the same stance and they have the same vocation in life.

The fairly posh hotel where we stayed had a fairly posh pool, but once the sun had gone in as well as all but the hardiest of guests, the seagulls came for their daily dip. Portugal does big seagulls. These were easily the size of a large duck. They seemed to prefer the deeper blue of the tiles in our pool and eschewed paler pools in other hotels. I eschew all pools and didn't even put a toe in so they were welcome to their daily ablutions as far as I was concerned.

The rest of the hotel was spotless and the food was fresh and tasty, the sun shone all the time except for one morning and we loved the town, the bustle and lifestyle.

But just for one week!!! It's lovely to be home. I start getting homesick after about three days.

Cheers Gillian

SO MUCH TO DO

It has been a very busy time of late but at last the new snug is finished. I spent a couple of days being very tired. When I woke in the mornings it took a few moments to realise that we didn't have to get up in time for the tradesmen and builders.

But we did get up and have been out and about visiting interesting things and places. The old pumping station at Ryhope near Sunderland was open and in the grounds was a classic car show. DJ's favourite was this old Rover. I liked them all.

A couple of weeks later we went to Locomotion, the overflow of the National Railway museum in York which is full, and rode on one of the old replicas of The Rocket. Lots of old engines were out and about being polished and stoked up. Black smoke and steam everywhere and "blokes-who-love-steamtrains" were in heaven.

The first load of carpet for the snug was flawed and had to go back. The next load was too short. My fault. I had omitted the doorway when I measured up. Fortunately the carpet layer was very adept with a piece of oak trim and it all looks lovely. we moved the furniture back in the next day and have sat in it ever since. Tigger has spent some time in here with us but is still treating her bed which is on the settee in the sitting room as her default bed. She is in there now, probably wondering where we are.

Not far away from us, is Washington Hall. It is the old home of the family from whom George Washington was directly descended. It is now a museum with wonderful gardens. This is the most amazing hedge I have ever seen and is in their front garden.

The kitchen is laid out with everything there would have been in earlier times!

The house looks over some wonderful gardens, orchards, apiary, kitchen gardens and ponds.

The tadpoles abounded but the bees had all died and the hives were empty. They died of malnutrition because the harsh winter reduced their food supply drastically. Some new Italian ones have been ordered.

Another outing took us to Whorlton. A small, attractive village on the banks of the Tees which has a suspension bridge. There was a walk along the banks which had been outlined in the local paper but the midges were bad and so we shall return another day.

The fine spring has been very dry in this area and the river levels are low. But the Tees still has enough water to keep the waterfalls spilling over in places.

While all this has been going on, my computer has been sick and has been behaving in irrational and irritating ways. I was unable to blog because it was so disobedient. The local computer techie took it away to work on. It needed a new battery in a place that had been glued down! and other events such as a power surge may have upset it and its timing and desire to perform.

It's back. Quite a few quid later but worthy of a gold medal for performance. Photos which I thought I had lost are back where I expected to find them and stuff like that.

The comfort of having the laptop on my knees in front of me as I watch some cooking programme on TV and smell some real cooking happening in the kitchen is wonderful. DJ has set up the new TV and it gets everything in super sight and sound.

Time to sit back and relax for a while.

Cheers Gillian.

Showing off the new Shower

Well of course this isn't it. This is the new front door with an angled shot of the new "french windows" and then the new shed door. It's all a bit plain at the moment but the Virginia Creeper will grow as will the Climbing Rose to the left of the front door. The Wisteria to the right of the front door is doing well and we will soon be covered with vegetation again. These are porcelain tiles....not real marble!

If you look carefully you can see that the tiler has cut us a hole in the wall at about shoulder height and lined it with the same mosaics that have been used for the shower floor area.

The toilet area has been fitted with a shattaf and grab rail as has the shower area.

I managed to buy a heated towel rail on ebay for £40 and the ride up to Gosforth was certainly worth it.

I shall go out tomorrow and buy some towels and bottles of stuff to match....Wouldn't you?

Cheers Gillian

SCARBOROUGH

We went on a coach trip to Scarborough. So did everyone else it seems! Not only was everyone from the north east of England there, but all the "motor scooter clubs" in England were visiting too.

There were donkeys being ridden on the beach, Children paddling, queues at every fish and chip shop, billowing banks of mist rolling down from the cliff top and people absolutely everywhere trying to get some sunshine when it broke through.

The Grand Hotel is a little tatty on the outside but still has very grand Victorian features and an amazingly commanding position on the top of the cliff.

We crossed over the bridge after visiting the Museum which houses the remains of Gristhorpe Man http://www.rotundamuseum.co.uk/rotunda-museum/our-story/The%20Gristhorpe%20Man

The weather stayed fine and we explored the promenade, the shopping area and the back streets before returning to the Grand for a well earned drink with the motor scooter riders in the bar.

Much of the Victorian architecture survives and space on top of the cliff is highly prized. Buildings are wedged together and parking is extremely limited so we were glad we had chosen to travel by coach for the day out. Dozens of motorists got parking tickets along the promenade. They all seemed to have misread a parking sign saying "Three Hours Parking between 5pm and 9am".

Cheers Gillian

SO MUCH SUNSHINE

The spell of lovely weather continues. Clouds go over now and then but the sun soon comes out again. This fuzzy pic shows a black sqirrel in C's garden. She has black ones and grey ones and some blackish ones which must be the offspring. Occasionally she has a little deer visiting but I have never been there for that.

The new doors are on. This is the new front door and there are matching ones for french windows. The sun streams in them all for most of the day. The weather has helped the building go ahead steadily and each day brings it all forward. We are on the enhancing bits now. The plastering is done. The electrics are finished and the lights are all up...there are a lot of switches which will take a while to get used to. They are to enable the lights to be turned off and on at both doors. The window is back in and the tiling is getting done...beautifully.

The knitting is on its third creation. The previous two having been too small. The yarn is now blended with some mohair I bought in Tunisia a couple of years ago and haven't found a use for yet and the whole thing is on larger needles. It feels and looks good and is now up to the armholes.

The shed roof is going on today and the building inspector called unannounced but could find no faults. He has a reputation for being deliberately nit-picking. He boasted to us when we handed in our plans that he could always find something wrong!

But nothing can spoil this. I have always wanted a tiled porch and now I've got one. I was going to wait till it was finished and grouted before I took a picture but I'm so thrilled with it you can all have a look now!

Cheers Gillian

On Top Of Things

The weekend before last was lovely and sunny and so we joined a walk from Middleton-in-Teesdale. we climbed steeply up the Hudeshope valley into the old lead mining areas. These hillsides are heavily scarred with "hushes" and "dumps". The hushes form deep vees in the slopes where the soil was washed away from the lead ore and the waste dumps make the rest of the landscape look very lumpy. The double line across the middle of the picture is the dry stone walls on either side of the road. The mineshops still remain but in ruins. Ponies were so valued that six lived in the stables on the ground floor of this one at Coldberry and 42 miners lived on the next floor up. They were easier to come by!

The roof went on this week and it is all beginning to look less like a building site and more like a building.

I have finished spinning and knitting the merino tops I bought. They have become a large shopping bag. It spent a few days being just that, because I have never felted in the washing machine before and as I have a front loader, I needed to read the manual to work out the pause mechanism. Also, after such a lot of spinning and knitting I was a bit worried that it would be a disaster.

But it worked. It is now out in the sun drying, with newspapers inside to keep the shape right.

So I have embarked on spinning the blue-faced-leicester tops. There is a mixture of natural shades and I have spun and plied them randomly and am knitting them into a jumper. I always hope I shall look like the model in the picture, when I wear my version.

I shall spin more today so that I have some knitting to take south to visit C. I haven't been far from home for a few months and it will be fun to get out on the road again. DJ will stay and keep an eye on the cat and the builders and I shall do the same next week when he goes off visiting.

We are keeping up with our resolution to go to the gym three time a week and although I'm much the same size and weight, I feel fitter and see no reason to give it up. We shall also walk more again as the weather improves but I excuse myself in wet weather by complaining that it is hard to see in the rain when you are wearing glasses.

I don't like wind either.

Cheers for now

Gillian

TODAYS TOP PICS

Off to the seaside! It was the only way to play the day because the weather was just so gorgeous. We have to make the most of it "oop north". We headed for Seaton Carew, which is our nearest seaside. The tide was the furthest out we have ever seen it. I presume that this is the spring tide effect, linked to the moon being nearest to the earth last weekend. We had to walk for ages to get to the sea and things were exposed that we have never seen before. The beach was enormous. This is the view, after we had walked for an hour, back towards Seaton Carew.

This is the view of the sand under the water at my feet. I was wearing gumboots so that I could paddle about and this was the pattern of ripples under about two inches of slack tide near the water's edge. I loved the pattern.

At the jetty to the north of the entry to Teesport, an enormous object had been uncovered. No idea what it was, but it was about eight feet long and solid rusty metal.

We had a great lunch at the Staincliffe and then came home to the start of a new roof.

Great stuff all round.

Cheers Gillian