DICKENS HEATH, Stratford on Avon Canal

We set off at 0715 in brilliant sunshine and headed down the Worcester and Birmingham Canal. There were masses of moored boats, including two doubled up on the water point! Through the chicane at Selley Oak and then a left turn onto the Stratford on Avon Canal at Kings Norton. The plan was to go just past Hockley Heath and moor up past the first lift bridge, but the weather was lovely and we saw a bit of piling and stopped for the rest of the day at 1115.

During the afternoon we heard the dulcet tones of one of Graham’s boats.

We had seen him set off, with Mike on another boat, yesterday morning on our way back from a pumpout (£9.00 at Sherborne Wharf). They had been doing the Birmingham ring and were on the last leg. About 10 minutes later Mike turned up with the second boat. We noticed that Graham had all the girls on his boat!

It is lovely to be out again. There are still bluebells about and the lilac and hawthorn bushes are all in bloom. The space above the water is covered in masses and masses of midges. We even saw some swallows and heard a cuckoo, but it turned out that the cuckoo was at Wentworth and on the telly watching the golf.

While I was out one day several weeks ago, two men came to the boat and asked

David if I could make a card for them. David, having great faith in my abilities, said that of course I could! They wanted a pothole, they said, with a man standing by it saying “Not a Category 1 as far as I’m concerned".

I can’t draw for a toffee, so it was straight onto Google and there I found this giraffe in a hole. I know, it’s been Photoshopped, but hey! I then Googled “road workers” and came up with these four Playmobile men. The rest was easy. I printed off the pothole picture three times and decoupaged it with sticky pads. I cut out the men and made a speech bubble and printed in the words. I matted the photograph and the man’s name and fixed them onto a white card blank, adding three black dots to the right hand bottom corner.

Inside I printed out an insert sentiment and added a picture of the tub of instant road repair kit.

It was a hit with the two guys who ordered the card. Just hope Mike enjoyed the joke too.

Gas Street Moorings, Birmingham

Do you think David would let me put pictures of all my cards over the side of the boat? No need to answer. I'm lucky to get the banners in the middle windows.

This boat is selling jewellery and I thought I had got a photo of the web address, but I don't seem to be able to
see it now. Sorry.

I did notice that they had a nice BW
Trading Licence sign in their window which I don't seem to have. Must look into it.





There were two programmes on the TV this week with canals in their content. The first one was by Chris Tarrant on the "Brindley Lock". It was quite an interesting (if repetitive) programme about how Brindley came up with the idea of making the locks narrow and shallow so that they would not cost so much to make. And somehow, he is supposed to have invented the "Brindley Lock" which is 7'6" wide??? And to give an example they kept on showing the Hatton Flight.

The second programme was a detective mystery. I didn't watch it (too gory) but I was listening. The murderer supposedly stole a boat from Birmingham and took it down to London. When they went on the boat it was HUGE! But I suppose you can actually get to Birmingham in a wide beam if only to Typhoo Basin.

The point is. If there are inaccuracies in just these 2 programmes. Can we believe anything we see on the TV?

Rant over. The sun is shining and we should be off on Sunday. Can't wait. Though it will probably be raining again by then.



Here is a pretty waterways card.

Started with a white card blank and used a panel of blue card matted onto silver which had been cut with scalloped edged scissors. A thin red ribbon was tied around the bottom of the panel and tied in a knot. Next I die cut the photograph and then matted it with Nestabilities die cuts before fixing it to the card. Nice and easy, nice and colourful.

Gas Street Moorings, Birmingham

Sorry for the delay - the Internet has been a bit flaky every time I tried to upload any photographs.
Entertainment on the towpath - Though I managed to miss all the performances!


Some pics of Istanbul. The Blue Mosque, which was fascinating. We managed to get in 10 minutes before it opened, so almost hand to all to ourselves. Istanbul is celebrating the City of Culture this year, and they were also holding a tulip festival. There were flowers everywhere.

Pashminas stacked up in the Grand Bazaar. 66 covered streets full of goodies. What's not to love?

And another stall, this one of glass lamp shades. Luckily the ceiling on the boat is too low for hanging lamps.

Our journey back consisted of a 21 hour train ride on the Bosporus Express (average express speed of 25mph and stopping at every station) from Istanbul to Bucharest. Then 6 in a couchette to Budapest overnight. After a few hours in Budapest we took another overnight train to Munich. After booking tickets to Paris we had a tour of Munich and a schnitzel before leaving Munich for Stuttgart, changing trains there we got into Paris at 11pm. We spent the night in a hotel near the station and at 5am we were waiting for the first train to Calais.

And finally, after 6 trains and about 50 hours of travelling over 4 days, one of the best sights in the world. The white cliffs of Dover (and we still had 2 more trains to go).

I was asked to make an "In Memorandum" card last weekend. It is not something I have come across before, so I was a bit stumped.

The brief was for lilies and a photograph which was coming later.

So I started with a square easel card using half the front of a square card as the mountain fold. I Cuttlebugged a smaller square of yellow card and scalloped the edges with fancy scissors.

Using circle and scalloped Nestabilities I made a white frame and a yellow frame, fixing the smaller, yellow one on top of the white one making a frame for the photograph.

Consequently, the photograph did not arrive, so I used the white centre from the frame and Cuttlebugged it and used it as the backing of the frame. (The edge was hidden by the smaller, yellow frame.)

I wrapped some white organza ribbon around the yellow panel and then fixed it to the front flap of the card. Then I tied another piece of ribbon around the bunch of Arum lilies and stuck it over the frame. (I was going to put them on the edge of the frame if I had had the photograph).

To finish off I printed out "Kirsty "and cut it out with a mat using Nestabilities and stuck it to the top right hand corner with sticky fixers. The"In Memorandum" and the date was also printed out and matted with yellow card, scalloped the edges with scissors and fixed it to the front half of the base of the card with sticky fixers.

Gas Street Moorings, Birmingham

The suitcases arrived today! Way hay! Two computers to play with now and lots of dirty washing!

Little Fat Person on the end of the Cyprus pan-handle. The Lebanon is 60 odd miles behind.

Kyrenia Harbour with St Helerion Castle in the clouds behind.

Kyrenia's Venetian Castle at night. .

The central building in one of the Caravan Hotels. An oriental version of the Halifax Piece Hall. Lots of little crafty, souvenir shops and cafes.

Vouni. A pre-hellenic city and the most magical place on earth. You can just see the mountains in Turkey on the horizon.

On the whole the holiday was a great success. We visited all the old haunts and not many had changed out of recognition. Famagusta was a lot cleaner and bigger(?) and our favourite cake shop, Petek, was still going strong, though the Cyprus House restaurant looked like it was on its last legs. There were still empty beaches though lots and lots and lots of villas have been built, blotting the landscape.

Here are four of the cards that I bought from Maureen Hutchinson who took me on the walk to find orchids.

And finally, one of mine, a little plastic doll in a gold frame on a turquoise circle, then matted up onto orange and brown deckle edged squares. I cut some small lengths of turquoise white dotted gross grain ribbon and stuck them behind the square before fixing the whole panel to an orange card blank.

To finish off I tied a knot in some more turquoise ribbon and fixed it to the bottom left hand corner.

Gas Street Moorings, Birmingham

OK. Back at home - eventually (4 days travelling). Replacement computer set up (suitcases still in Istanbul, along with camera download lead etc, etc). David is never going to leave the boat again.

More later

Kyrenia, Cyprus

We have been in Cyprus a week now and it has been lovely. The flight out from Birmingham to Istambul was packed and an hour late leaving. We managed to catch the connecting plane by the skin of our teeth, unfortunately our cases didn't. They arrived 2 days later! The 1st picture is the view from our bedroom window. You'll be glad to hear that the water is too cold for swimming.
We have made several trips out, visiting old haunts and being pleasently pleased that nothing much has changed in the last 16 or so years since we were living here. There are an awful lot more villas dotted all over the place, but on the whole it is still as we remembered it.

Yesterday I went on a guided walk to see orchids and this one one that we found. Can't remember the name. I was a bit disappointed that I've missed the anenomies though.
















While we were on the walk someone spotted this, a baby chameleon.















And this is a view from the bottom of one of
the crusader casstles. St Hilerion, perched on the top of a mountain above Kyrenia. This is as far as we got this time. The walk to the top is very long and very steep. So we passed. Well we've been here before, many times.










So, in the floral mood. I actually BOUGHT some cards from the lady who took us on the walk yesterday. David can't understand it, but they were so pretty and I do love the wild anenomies.

This is one of mine though. The flowers are stuck onto some thick, white, handmade paper which has been torn and feathered. This is then stuck down onto a pink, hammered, panel and matted onto a silver one before fixing it to the pink card blank.

The spellchecker is not working, it keeps losing the pictures and giving me instructions in Turkish - so sorry, you'll have to put up with the bad spellings today.

Gas Street Moorings, Birmingham

"I'm a drake, and you've made a mistake!"

So what has happened to the weather? Sleet, cold wind. Must be Spring.

Don't care about the weather though - off to Cyprus tomorrow. Two weeks by the pool; miles of empty, sandy beaches; fields of wild anemones and cyclamen, orange blossom, cigarette pies, hummus, fresh fish and chips, proper kebabs; Crusader castles and SUNSHINE. Can't wait.




Being a cheapskate, for Caroline's birthday present this year, I made her a greetings card organiser and filled it with 12 cards. I ran out of inspiration when decorating the card organiser, so no photos. This is one of the cards.

Starting with a white card base, I used my newest Cuttlebug folder and embossed some pink card. I then matted a long strip, which I scalloped with scissors, onto some blue pearlescent card. Then I used my Nestabilities circles to make a pink centre and a white and blue scalloped matt. The flower bouquet came from the £1 shop (2 for £1) - I said I was a cheapskate. The finishing touch was the three pink gems on the bottom right hand side.