Holiday time

Haven't posted here in a bit, but for a very good reason - we've had two weeks on holiday, one in Newquay and one in Sorrento, with a quick dive back for clean clothes in the middle. 

Newquay was great, we had pretty good weather all week and ate very well. Only downside was the world's smallest room. That and the 7 hour drive to get there (Google reckons it's 4, but Google doesn't have to actually DO it). 


View of beach at Padstow. There would have been more pictures in Newquay, but the camera lens got jammed open and it wasn't until a few hard slaps that I got it working again. 

We had two parties to go to in the middle, a 50th birthday for sunday lunch and a wedding party in the evening.

The following week we were in sunny Italy, which hit 35 degrees C on one of the days. Sorrento had a lovely bit of old town to wander about, crammed full of good restaurants and shops. Had an interesting wander around Pompeii and made a trip to a thermal spa in Ischia, plus did a trip to Capri - despite the flowery brochure-speak, full of designer shops mostly - can't figure WHO would want a fur coat in the summer, nor a 9000 euro handbag. Only major downside of Sorrento - hardly any ATMs (and the ones I found, rarely functional) in a place where they seem to favour cash. You also take your life in your hands crossing the roads, because mopeds stop for nobody, zebra crossings not withstanding...


View over Marina Grande, Sorrento

Despite all that, I did get time to do a few things: 


CSM socks in Colinette Jitterbug - these were a quick knit for a relative's birthday. She was very pleased with them.


Mille Fiori bracelet. These beads were in amongst our toys for years, I've no idea where they came from but they are a very specific design from Venice (1920s-30s?) They've been loose for ages, so I finally decided I'd make them into something useful. Each bead is different. Apparently the original bracelet had small red seed beads between the larger ones.

Thomas the cat was like a cat with two tails last night when we picked him up on the way back from the airport. We've never boarded him for 15 days before. Shocking queues to get through security at Birmingham airport; one wonders who schedules 4-5 holiday flights to arrive within 30 minutes of each other?!. Thomas came home without collar or meow, but seems to be getting the hang of the vocal chords again. 

Currently I'm trying to make inroads into the stash with a few hats and baby blankets. The summer heatwave seems to have finally broken - indeed, I got drenched trying to load the car up yesterday - so perhaps production will step back up a bit now.