Back to Eden

There seems to be a conspiracy to keep me away from blogging just lately.  First Blogger won't post my photos, then our internet connection repeatedly keeps dropping out (should be sorted tomorrow......or else!) and on Saturday sadly our dear friend Grace, who is 99, was suddenly taken very seriously ill so we have spent a lot of time at the hospital.  Happily today she has surprised everybody by turning a great corner and is bouncing back yet again.  The medics are astounded that she is pulling through.  Fingers crossed that she continues to make progress.  She is laughing and joking with the nurses today when only yesterday we were summoned at 8 in the morning as they thought she was not going to survive a crisis.  She is one remarkable lady!

Anyway, back to Eden.  Needless to say I always have my eyes open for pattern and texture when we are out and about and Eden was no exception.

This beautiful skeleton leaf caught my eye.

I think this is a leaf of a banana tree. (remind me to come back to the banana)

 "Follow the yellow brick road".

These wavy lines were a non-slip surface.

This was the shadow thrown onto the quarry sides by the roof panels.

On the subject of bananas we saw this catchy little sign

I'm easily amused ;-)  They had a display area where children and any adults who fancied it, could press buttons and get music to play and I had a lovely time dancing around to a little number entitled "Bananas in Pajamas" .........you had to be there!  Actually I Googled it for you and found a clip on Youtube but I thought I'd spare you. ;-)

I had a really lovely day meeting up with my dear friend Carolyn who many of you know already.  We swapped some gifts and as usual Carolyn was sooooo generous and I have come home with some beautiful goodies to play with.

These goodies include Carolyn's eco-dyed fabrics, lots of beautiful threads, some of her yummy hand made beads, commercial beads and a beautiful heart shaped beads in my favourite colour, turquoise.  I have already used some of the threads in some artwork that I did on holiday.  

A bonus gift was these lovely fingerless mittens that Carolyn had made for both of us.  Fingerless to leave DH's fingers free to use his camera and mine to leave fingers free for picking up treasures on the beach.  Carolyn knows us too well!

We had great fun opening up Carolyn's bundle for the Erosion Bundle Project and there were some gorgeous treasures to be found.

Can you believe that these Sycamore seeds actually germinated inside the bundle?

Carolyn tells you more about the contents of the bundle on her blog but she achieved some wonderful colour bleeds through the various layers. 

I shall look forward to seeing what is eventually made from all the different pieces of the bundle.

We rounded off our day by visiting a couple of art galleries in St Ives.  Porthminster Gallery just below our flat had an exciting and varied exhibition of paintings and ceramics by several artists including Matthew Lanyon, Tony Scrivener, Margaret Lovell, Sarah Perry and Jenny Hirst.  My DH particularly liked a painting by Jenny Hirst called 'Estuary'.  I very cheekily took a photograph of the windows which I hope they will forgive me for showing here (I figure you could stand in front of it and look at it from the street so a photo should be ok).

I was fascinated by the Mathew Lanyon paintings which had so much texture in them and so much to look at.  Many of his paintings were inspired by flights in a glider (he was a glider pilot) and reflect aerial views and impressions.

Jenny Hirst's painting 'Estuary' is in the centre of the photo above.

My DH made us lunch of cheese on crumpets (pyklets to some) and generally spoiled us so we had a great day.  Sadly it was over all too soon and we have to wait another year for our next get together.

Well, I'd better save the rest for another day or I'll have nothing to bore you with.  Next time I'll share my holiday workbook.  It's not a wonderful work of art but at least I did something and I had fun!

Many thanks to all of you, especially the no-reply commenters who I sometimes forget to mention, for all your lovely and supportive comments.  I do appreciate every one or them and the fact that people take the time in a very busy life to say a few words.  This is a great community!

North York Moors Railway

Just in case there are any steam enthusiasts out there I thought I'd show you a little more of the North York Moors Railway. As you can see many of the trips between Pickering and Grosmont are hauled with the locomotive travelling in reverse.

This is one of several old advertising hoardings on Pickering Station. The numbers are the prices before decimalisation in the UK so this dates before 1970. 6D is 2.5 pence (sorry can't convert that to dollars but it's about 5cents I think).

If you want to get off here at Goathland Station you need to be in one of the first four carriages as the platform is short. The photograph above is looking back down the track in the direction of Pickering. There is something fascinating about railway water towers (the red topped building in the photograph). I think maybe it's the patterns on the water tank and the different textures of the metal and the brick. Maybe even it's the solid square shape.

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The village of Goathland is where the TV show "Heartbeat" is filmed. It is also, of course, the famous "Hogsmeade station" in the Harry Potter movies where the pupils arrive aboard the Hogwarts Express.

I rather like this photograph which was taken from the train with the shadow of the train and smoke in view.

As you can see we were lucky with a lovely sunny day. (more carriage shadows in the foreground).

This is the end of the line, Grosmont Station where you can tour the engine sheds and view the Sir Nigel Gresley engine. Grosmont is a small village but is busy when the trains are running and has a good pub with home cooked food and also the Jazz Cafe and Gallery. If you're into walking there are lots of walks from this village onto the Moors.

Just a flavour of the colours along the lineside and a lovely drystone wall.

On our particular return journey to Pickering, we were treated to some excitement when our train pulled up and the crew tackled a trackside blaze. One of the perils of running steam trains is the sparks which can set light to dry vegetation. This fire took 4 men about 20 minutes to quell with buckets of water and beaters. The passengers all heroically stayed put on the train and watched and took pictures! (I don't think they'd have let us get off anyway). All I could think of was "Who's looking after the engine? I hope it's got good brakes!" Not helped by our friend saying "Wouldn't it be a laugh if the train started rolling back while they're fighting the fire?!" Haha! Very funny!!! :))