Bath Christmas Market

You know that the festive season is fast approaching when the Christmas Market in Bath springs up.

Sadly I didn't have as much time as I would have loved to explore it this year.

I was in Malta on my holiday for most of the days that it was running.

I did manage to pop in to Bath one evening to have a quick look.  Unfortunately I only had about 45 minutes before the stall holders started to pack up so I wasn't able to really get much shopping done.

Maybe next year :)

This will probably be the last blog post of the year.  We're off to Yorkshire at the weekend to spend Christmas with James' family so it's just left to say Merry Christmas to you all, and I wish you a happy, healthy and peaceful 2013.

See you next year :)

Strolling by the Thames

Not to much to say, just some pictures of a walk I took by the side of the Thames when in London over easter

Castle Combe

We've had such a mild winter this year, and with some lovely blue sky days at the beginning of the month it really feels as though spring is coming in fast.  A couple of weekends ago, on one such glorious sunny day, I went walking round and about Castle Combe.

Such a picturesque village, and some of you might recognise it from the big screen.  Quite a few movies have been filmed using Castle Combe as location, most recently Warhorse.

My walk took me through the village and out in to the countryside were I found a field full of donkeys :)

There were lots of majestic looking trees to wonder at

but it wasn't just big that was beautiful on this day.  Look at the fabulous vibrant green of this moss lit up by the sun.

Any good walk works up an appetite, so some scrummy fish fingers sandwiches and a pint at this lovely pub and I was ready to head back to Castle Combe

Hey no one asked me for permission to use my likeness on the side of the church!! :)

Check out the blue sky .... not bad for March!!

This young lady had a pretty captivating stare ..... but eventually I did tear myself away and made it back home.

Here's hoping for lots of fine weather and fine walking to come this year

Museums and Parks

This is another catch up post, this time a few pictures from my day trip to London back at the beginning of February.  The pictures have uploaded in a bit of a funny order and I'm feeling far too lazy to mess around sorting them out so this is going to be a bit higgeldy piggeldy I'm afraid.

A shot of the pedestrian tunnel which leads to such fabulous places as the Natural History and Victoria and Albert museums.

Some textiles from the British Museum ...... all wrapping from mummified beings.  The first one with the writing apparently shows the name Diogenes, and tells us that this person made his living mending textiles, which I loved.

Some fabulous buildings from the streets near The Royal Albert Hall

I loved that this puffed out pigeon had found such a picturesque place to perch, seemed to be made for him!!

The Princess Diana Memorial

There were lots of gulls walking on the frozen water of The Serpentine.

A rather tame squirrel, eating his lunch

The Royal Albert Hall

This one of early sunlight and shadows was taken while I was hanging around on the street waiting for the Natural History Museum to open.

I really loved some of the opulent religious artifacts in the silver collection at The Victoria and Albert Museum.

 

I had a really lovely day all in all.  I'm hoping to be able to make another visit to the capital early next month.... my sister and her family need to borrow my car for a weekend and they live a 30 min train ride from London so while I'm there it would be silly not to :)

Winter at the beach

I love the beach any time of year.   So back a few weeks ago when I really felt in need of some sea air, I took myself and one of my friends off to Brean beach for a lovely walk along the sand.

As you can see it was a pretty bleak day, but we wrapped up warm against the sea breeze and had a wonderful time anyway.

The rocks in the picture above were totally covered in all this lovely seaweed.

My friend's dog, Gypsy, had a whale of a time getting soggy in the little pools of water that had collected around the rocks.  She kept trying to dig holes in these sandy puddles but couldn't quite understand why the holes were filling back in as fast as she was digging :)

This was quite a few weeks ago now and a craving for the beach is starting to build again, I have a week off work coming up next month but I'm not sure I can hold out until then ..... we'll see.