My 20’s

Posted on November 1, 2025November 1, 2025 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged 20's, camping, Cycling, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2109, Fine Art, holidays, Memories, Murals2 Comments

Is there an age or year of your life you would re-live?

Random photo of a jumper I knitted in my 20’s!

I did my fine art course.

I met my boyfriend.

I cycled everywhere.

I made good friends that I still know.

I created lots of art, including murals.

Basically, despite bad things happening in the world I was very lucky to have a great time. Plus there was punk rock, TV shows like ‘the young ones’. I also bought a bicycle and cycled many miles around the north West of England. My boyfriend and I went cycle camping up to the lake district and cycled round Devon and North Wales on holiday. It’s surprising how far you can go on trains and bikes.

I have so many memories that I still recall. Life was simpler then, I am glad I have them. Plus I knitted the jumper (I never made one before). I remember adding patterns that I completely made up including the red arrows on the sleeve, and space invaders on the bottom of the jumper!

Life I had that I’ll never go back to. I wish I could!

Glass ornaments

Posted on January 18, 2025January 18, 2025 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Glass, glass blowing, holidays, isle of wight, Lens, Memories, paper weights, SunlightLeave a comment

I collect glass paperweights, I have them in a windowledge but out of direct sunlight because if they cause a lens effect they can create a fire! Some people have had this happen and I don’t intend to experience the same.

I started collecting them in the 1980’s when I was given two in exchange for a painting. I must have 20 or 30 dotted around the house. They are very dusty, I don’t move them much because they are quite heavy.

If you ever get to see glass blowing it’s worth it. I found it fascinating when we visited a workshop on the isle of Wight one year.

Esther Chilton Water prompt…

Posted on May 16, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Atlantic, holidays, Lake, Memories, north sea, Ocean, Rain, River, Tears, Water, WindermereLeave a comment

I just wrote this for Esther’s weekly prompt. This week is Water:

Water today means too much rain. It’s been falling all day. Sometimes it’s a river flowing in the lake district. My hubby tried to tickle trout while we were on holiday one year. He was unsuccessful. Water is lake Windermere, before it got polluted with toxic green algae. Home of Arctic Char fish that got trapped there in the end of the last ice age. Water means the Atlantic and North Sea coasts where we visited on many holidays. I need to visit them again. Water is my tears of regret and happiness over all these memories.

Have I been camping?

Posted on April 29, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged camping, Cornwall, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1923, flysheet, holidays, Interesting, Memory, Sewing, tent, WalesLeave a comment

Have you ever been camping?

Several times, but something always seemed to go wrong!

We went on the train to Wales, we were going to cycle around and camp every day. But we’d only took the fly sheet of the tent not the whole thing. We asked someone if we could prop our flysheet up against his tent, he said yes, then my hubby decided to be generous and bought the man several whiskys in the camp bar, so when we woke up in the morning most of the money had been spent and the forecast was for rain. After a brief discussion (argument) we caught the train home stuck in a guards van with a very loud Welsh rugby team singing rude songs!

Another time we took a frame tent in our car, we put the tent up, only to realise the tent was inside out and the curtains were on the outside. That time my hubby reversed the car over my saucepans! Result, Argument!

Another camping holiday, we cycled 40 miles in sunshine one spring, the weather turned and we had a few nights of snow. We had to sleep in all our clothes. It was minus 11 °C one night. We cycled home and got stuck in snow cycling up a steep hill, we had to take a detour adding 20 miles onto the ride. Result shattered!

Then there was the cycle trip to Cornwall, we were on a clifftop above St Ives. My hubby put his foot through the zip in the middle of the night. Luckily I’d got a sewing kit, so I sat with a torch in my mouth and sewed the front of the tent up, luckily that was our last night there.

We did have a few other more successful trips but we decided to go on caravan holidays instead, and I could tell some tales about them too!

Holidays, Esther Chilton prompt.

Posted on April 10, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Cinema, Clitheroe, cycling holiday, Esther Chilton prompt, holidays, Memories, minus centigrade, posh, SnowLeave a comment

Holidays, more memories of adventures long gone by. Camping in a tent at Easter thirty years ago.

We’d cycled up to Clitheroe in Lancashire and used our cycle trailer to carry our camping gear.

The holiday started out sunny, but the wind picked up and by the time we had the tent up the snow was blowing sideways at it. I even wrote C 4 R on the snow on the side of the tent.

We went off for a cycle into town and stopped off at a tiny cinema. It was very posh, there were photos of the Queen in the ladies loo! I remember we got a bit of warmth while watching the cat from outer space.

We had dinner at the local pub and cycled back to the tent afterwards. Luckily it was downhill but we were slipping around on the falling snow. We ended up putting on extra clothes, three jumpers and an extra pair of trousers each. We found out in the morning it had been minus 11°C.

The rest of the week was almost as cold and we cycled back in deep snow!

My old sandals

Posted on February 19, 2024 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged beaches, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1853, holidays, Life, Memory, Mountains, paths, Poem, Poetry, Thoughts, WalkingLeave a comment

Tell us about your favorite pair of shoes, and where they’ve taken you.

Not flip flos

Not beach sandals

Proper walking sandals

Have taken me up and down

Hills and paths

Through fords

Into the sea

On hot days and pebble beaches

Foreshore, piers

Along garden paths

Looking for minnows

In shallows

Sandals that supported me

Sandals that transported me

Sandals I tore off

When my feet got stuck in mud

Sandals that wore out

Heels worn down

Sandals full of grit and memory

That guided my feet..

To you

Settle to Carlisle line

Posted on October 22, 2023October 22, 2023 Posted in Memories, Sketching, UncategorizedTagged 1994, Art, Cycling, Drawing, holidays, Life, ribblehead viaduct, Sketching, YorkshireLeave a comment

Another image drawn on holiday, this one is from 1994 whan we were on holiday near Settle. We cycled around the area and I did this sketch in biro when we stopped to have lunch and look at the view I think. But this was 29 years ago so I may have misremembered. By looking at the notes it looks like I revisited in the October of the same year.

Devon

Posted on May 2, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged bays, caravan, Cornwall, Cycling, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-1924, Devon, Friend, holidays, touring, Visits6 Comments

What is your favorite holiday? Why is it your favorite?

Of all the places I’ve stayed on holiday, Devon is my favourite.

We used to visit a friend from college who had moved back there. He lived on the outskirts of a city and was happy to put us up as houseguests of him and his family.

We had many pleasant times there. We tied our bicycles on the roof of the car and cycled around the countryside on the bikes. The Devon hills almost made me give up, they were so undulating and steep. Cycling up and down the hills and banks, out to beautiful secluded beaches and bays. Devon banks (hedges and walls) made the roads sheltered and narrow. You had to take care not to run into cars coming along in the other direction.

We visited several times over the years. Exploring far and wide. Sometimes we stayed in caravans and watched massive thunderstorms and lightning hitting the Cornish Coast across the bay.

We used the city as a jumping off point. Visiting abbeys and steam trains. We bought Mead made with honey, and I spent time exploring caves in the south west. (the furthest south in England I think). I have memories of sunshine and sunburn. Falling off my bike coming down a steep hill too quickly. Sunny, happy memories.

Rhyl

Posted on September 16, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Drawing, holidays, North Wales, Rhyl, Sea, Seaside, Sketching, wind turbinesLeave a comment

Rhyl is in the North of Wales and is an old favourite of Midlanders in England and people from the North West who want a seaside holiday.

There are holiday flats, caravans, and hotels. Lots of work is being done on the coastal defences. The sea view includes a windfarm of about 200 wind turbines. They are far enough out to be not too visible. You can see them in my drawing but not so much on the photo…

Sea painting

Posted on September 9, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Cornwall, Devon, harbour, holidays, Painting, Sea, Sketch, Sketching, WatercolourLeave a comment

Watercolour sketch, I think it was in Cornwall or Devon, one day we’d gone down to a harbour and I used to take watercolours and sketch pads with me on our visits. Sometimes I left them at our holiday let’s as a gift to say thank you for a lovely time.

The geology of Devon and Cornwall includes dark craggy rocks which is why I recognise the area.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: holidays