Crossing the Channel...

Then we went to England, to see the Cheapside Hoard, and on the way, we wanted to visit St Paul's cathedral in London - did you know they want £16 per person to go into the church?  In my mind, that's outrageous.  In Italy, every single church is free to enter.  Admittedly the Sistine Chapel costs to enter, but that's part of the larger Museum complex and isn't generally open to the public, but the biggest church in the world, St Peters Basilica, is free.  Also, I think £16 is a bucketload of money - about $30/head at today's rates... to go into a church.  

We opted not to go in, but I did take a free picture.  That was plenty!

I might just add at this time that I also went into the Marble Arch branch of Marks and Spencer, and went nuts buying their excellent t-shirts.  I love M&S.  Are you listening?  Offers of sponsorship (or free bras, or free t-shirts), gratefully received...

On the Saturday, we went to Brighton for the 100th birthday of somebody who would have been my grandmother-in-law, if things had turned out differently in the 1980's - but I won't post any of those pictures because they're all family and friends of the birthday girl - just take my word for it that lots of fun was had by all - including much admiration of the birthday card from Mr Golightly's friend Betty, who was in residence in Windsor at the time... 

But because we spent so much time driving round the countryside with Gretchen the Whacked-out SatNav on the day after the party, we had zero time to wander round the countryside or the town - except for the frenzied panicked driving up and down the streets of Windsor looking for the hotel's parking lot - and so there's no photos.  None.  Not even the free ones.

Happy (early) Birthday to you...

Well, after no posting for 2 weeks (was it really that long?, I'm now posting like a mad woman.  Of course, being tucked up in bed at 11.00am will do that for you, it's a good way to ward off the boredom, although I just bought a copy of this:





which has some very beautiful lace knitting patterns in it, just the thing for somebody with a short attention span...


Oh, you want to know why I'm in bed?  Well, the cough which has been lurking in my chest for the past week is trying to get a foothold in my lungs & I'm determined not to let it... so at the insistance of MWH, I am staying in bed & keeping warm.   I will be up later to go & make some more stuff, I've got those orders from MWMIL to make, and although I made one small box pouch yesterday (without taking any photos, shame on me), I want to get the others made & off my list.  


The other thing I made yesterday was a small version of that nice linen & floral print flat pouch with the hand appliqued flower on it, and I have packaged them up nicely to go off to Gill in Brighton... was much happier with the applique results on the smaller pouch, but of course I forgot to take a close up of it... but the pair look really nice together:

I did a little French knot in the middle of the flower, and some stitching round the orange blobs in the middle... they looked so nice I was tempted to go up the hill to Cottage Quiltworks and show them (because I got the fabric from them) , but I'm sure they would have looked at me like I was a crazy woman...


One of my colleagues is going to Brighton for a conference in August, and she has very kindly offered to hand-carry the parcel for me - nice!   I I love Brighton, it's one of my favourite places on the planet ...

What's not to love?


Ciao!