Things that made me smile this week…..

…. seeing this little baby swallow in the nest inside the old kitchen of our house renovation project. Also, fingers and toes crossed, we have a builder to start the work soon - by then the swallow will have fledged so it will not be disturbed.

……. Beanie and me conquering a different fell - Brownthwaite near Casterton. A lovely walk in the early evening, when it was a little cooler.

…… this mass of yellow flowers lining the stream.

I'm not sure what they are, originally I thought they were marsh marigolds, but looking through my wild flower book I think they may be 'Monkeyflower' Mimnlus guttatus - anyone know?

….. visiting Woolfest at Cockermouth. I had a lovely day out mooching around all the stands and getting lots of inspiration - I was very self controlled and only bought a few little bits…...

……. this card by Riddlescraft really made me chuckle! I did buy an assortment of cards to send to various crafty friends!

…….. patchwork fields,

……. watching the sun go down across the valley.

Have a good weekend.

A little sewing

After all the excitement of the Great British Sewing Bee series on the BBC, I decided that I would make a few tops to wear this summer - so this is the first one. I have some more material lined up, but for this one and to test the pattern I used some fine cotton that was passed onto me a few years back.

The pattern I decided to try was one that I bought as a PDF download, so the whole pattern thing was quite an adventure. I saw a link to the pattern here and had a look at the patterns on their Etsy shop, and decided to give it a go. The payment went through and the download appeared in my in box - yeah!  I printed off the instructions first and had a good read through.

Then printed off the pattern, this consisted of 40 A4 sheets of paper (!!) which I had to trim and stick together with tape matching the markings on the sheets. Sounds complicated, but really it just took concentration and time.

I decided that rather than cut my size from the printer paper I would use dressmakers tracing paper and trace the pieces I needed leaving the pattern whole to use another time. So now the pattern is carefully folded away.

I then got carried away and bit and cut the fabric and started making it up - forgetting to take photos along the way. I was also using my tailors dummy for the first time, a gift from M and C last Christmas.

The instructions were clear and easy to follow, with good diagrams. The sizing was good too, as the top fits me well. I may add some decoration around the neck line and around the bottom when I make another. Although this was a trial I like it and will wear it, and now I know the fit is ok I will be making others. 

So, here is my Roza Blouse.

Five walks in Mallorca

Oh my, it has been well over a month since we came back from our holiday to Mallorca and I haven't got around to writing up my travel log! I did sort out the photos and upload them a while ago, so just for my record a quick resume about some of the walks we had. The photos give a flavour if you don't feel up to reading about it!!
Mallorca is a beautiful island, and this was our first visit. We stayed in Alcudia which was a great base, we had rented a house which was very close to the beach (50m away) and also looked out over a lake to the mountains beyond.  The whole island is quite small, so we were able to get about quite easily. We wanted to be fairly active during our stay so had planned to do lots of walking, mainly in the Tramuntana Range - a National Heritage Site - and extremely beautiful. M and C also wanted to do some sport climbing, and having mainly climbed indoors at home booked themselves onto a course so they could climb with ropes

We were armed with our walking guide book - and saw many other walkers clutching their copy - a very popular book it seems. It was well laid out and easy to follow the routes and the timings for the walks were quite accurate too.
 Just to ease us in, our first walk was short but had the reward of taking us to a beach.  We set off fairly late in the day as we had been to a lovely Alcudia market in the morning and taken our buys back home, had lunch, and then set off. The walk started just outside Port de Pollenca, and took us through the Boquer Valley….

….down to the sea. A lovely walk along gravel and stony paths, and an area much frequented by bird watchers - we saw many with their binoculars!

we sat a while on the stony beach just taking in the view and listening to the waves...

… then wandered back again.

Our next walk was in the north-east of the Island on the Llevant Peninsula. Again we set off quite late in the day but this time we wanted to have our walk then visit Arta and have an evening meal out in the town. 

Again the walk was along well laid out paths and well signed.

and for most of the walk we could see the coast line ahead of us ….

….. and as we climbed up a little, we had some lovely views looking back down

at the the patterns on the terraces 

and also the view out to sea - the Island of Menorca is in the distance, but difficult to pick out on the photo.

A little further on are the ruins of the Campament dels Soldarts which was built in the 1940's prisoners had to work on the road construction of the Cami dels Presos.  The road would allow large artillery to be transported up the mountain to provide defences looking over the coast. In the end they were never installed and the road unfinished.

We then returned via a circular route and spent the evening in Arta eating paella!

Another walk, this time back on the Tramuntana Range setting off from the road half way down the steep winding road to Port de Valldemossa. The 'lost path', so called after land slides and rock falls had buried parts of the route which hugs the cliff walk. The path is now open again - but is still difficult to walk as landslides still seem to cover some areas after the winter storms.

The road down to Port de Valldemossa is quite a journey in itself! A very steep, single track road with huge hairpin bends - also used by cyclists who are both speeding down hill and cycling back up!!  The walk starts along a wide track going past several lovely villas and vineyards - all hugging the coast.

This Villa was part of the estate of Archduke Ludwig Salvator and today is owned by Michael Douglas - or so the little red guide book says!

Once past the villa's the road turns more into a track and we walked through shady pine woods, always with glimpses of the sea, it was really beautiful. Then we came to a clearing where we could see our destination - the Sa Foradada peninsula.

The peninsula is famous for its rock arch, which is just not visible from this view.

A little bit further along the walk we were stopped in our track, as there had been a landslide the previous winter and the earth was still quite unstable.

 J attempted to cross the steep slope, but decided that it would not be a good idea, so we walked back a little along the path, sat and had our picnic lunch looking out to sea. On the way back we took a detour, (as suggested in the guide book) and walked down to Cala S'Estaca. It is a little settlement, around ten to twelve houses which literally hug the hillside, and higgledy-piggledy steps that take you down through the houses to the boat houses. It was such a pleasant surprise to stumble across.

A real get away from it all summer houses, miles from anywhere.

The little harbour so beautiful with its boat houses and views out to sea - but quite hidden very sheltered.

We walked back up to the path and retraced our steps to the start of the walk and continued down the steep road to Port de Valdemossa.

Just a few pictures of the girls on their climbing days, they only took a few as they were busy concentrating!

This walk was around the Lluc Monastery. The Monastery itself is well worth a visit, we only had a quick walk around the courtyards - another visit perhaps…

This was a circular walk and probably one of the longer ones we did. We started with a climb along the road out of Lluc which had glimpses back to the Monastery, before we followed paths through shadowy oak forest,

then after a few more km we were out into the open again and a great view of the Puig Tomir,

a few km more and we were at the Lluc 'rock gardens' an area of limestone pavement, with quite distinctive rock formations, although we couldn't find the famous one that looks like a camel.

and eventually back to the Monastery. 

A good walk, quite varied, lots to see - but I was looking forward to an ice cream at the end!

This walk was quite short. We set of to the south end of the Island, and spent a few hours in Palma and then went on along the coast to the south west, passing Andratx to Sant Elm. We walked out of the town and headed to the Torre Cala Basset, again walking through pine trees and scrubby rocky areas. 

This is looking back to Sant Elm. The walk took us in the other direction along the coast and at times, through the pines, there were glimpses of Dragon Island - Illa Dragonera, so called as the island looks like a sleeping dragon. Soon we could see the Torre, now a ruin, the watch tower is on a crag and from here you get wonderful views up and down the coast and out to the Dragon

J and C climbed up inside the tower, I chickened out :-( it looked a bit precarious.

Well, thats a quick account of five of our walks. If you are still reading, thank you for sticking with it - it was so difficult to pick only a few photos which give the feel for the walks. We really loved being out there and are planning other walks that we may try some time as we would like to go back to Mallorca - but out of the main holiday season!