Where Have I Been?

Many thanks for all the lovely comments on my last post about Iona.  I have to admit that I scheduled the post for while we were away so I apologise if I havn't answered your comments directly but I do value them all.

So, where have we been?  If you follow my DH's blog you will know that we have been on a cruise around the Baltic countries.  We visited Bruges in Belgium and Copenhagen in Denmark on the way and then went on to Helsinki in Finland, St Petersburg, Tallinn in Estonia, which was a delight, Stockholm and Oslo.   I took over 500 photos and really don't know where to start but I'll bore you with a few.  Maybe we'll start with some interesting textures and patterns.

Text on an old tombstone in Bruges. (I took several photos of this type of text.  It makes a lovely abstract image and I may work on it in Photoshop).

Very unusual sculpture alongside a Bruges canal.

Interesting marks on the quayside.

A lightgrid on the pathway in Copenhagen.

Interesting lines on a tall ship in Copenhagen.

One of the many crumbly walls in beautiful Tallinn.

This fabulous noticeboard was in Stockholm.  Imagine this in stitch!

Unusual orangey sediment in the water out at sea.  Maybe fish eggs?  Who knows.

This is just part of some beautiful gates in Oslo.  Definite design and stitch potential.  More of Oslo later in a separate post.

While we were away I celebrated a rather special birthday with an '0' in it.  My Mum wanted to treat us to a night at the ballet in St Petersburg and the whole experience was wonderful.  When I was small I dreamt of being a ballet dancer and would have loved to have gone to a professional performance.  In St Petersburg we saw a performance of Swan Lake by Tschaikovsy and we were transported to a magical place.  Sadly no photography was allowed but I can show you the programme:

The stage came out in an arc so that the audience were ranged round it so everyone had a great view.  The sets were beautifully painted and the dancers were superb.  While I suspect this was primarily a performance for tourists no effort was spared in the excellence of the dancing or the music supplied by the mostly young musicians.  A memory for life!

To start my birthday day off my DH had ordered breakfast in our cabin,

It was a lovely thought but he enjoyed more of it than me as I couldn't eat most of the fruit and meats provided because of my dietary issues.  It felt very decadent to be drinking Bucks Fizz for breakfast and the pastry was delicious!  The rest of the day was spent quietly at sea and the waiters sang Happy Birthday to me at dinner.  Bless!

While we were away we missed the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games but I've caught up since we got back.  Wasn't it amazing?!  I was awestruck when all those chimneys came out of the ground.  Such a powerful image.  I don't always follow the Olympics but DH and I both came back from the cruise with chest infections and as I've also torn a muscle with coughing I'm not up to much, so there's been plenty of time to watch the action.  What role models for today's young people!  Our athletes and sportsmen and women are doing the country proud and how wonderful that Andy Murray won a Gold! 

I'll show you more soon.