A year ago today

On this day one year ago, the U.K. went into the first lockdown.  It was also the day that we got back from Australia.   You can read about it here: Coming home to a different country.

And if you are interested, you can do some armchair travelling reading about the rest of our trip.

Travelling during a worldwide crisis

Puffing Billy

Phillip Island

Thursday and Friday

 Crossing the border

Two Days in Sydney

In the back of beyond

During this last 12 months I have often looked at my photos from this trip.  They have cheered me up whenever I have been disappointed about the lack of being able to travel.  But foreign travel is a privilege, not a right.  

Thanks for joining me today
Bernice

Traverse

Last time I told you about the mentoring days with Christine Chester and at last I'm getting round to tell you about my new, possibly risky, venture.

I have been part of setting up a new textile group with Cath, Deb, Dia and Jan who I met on ExTex.

Cath wrote eloquently about who and why we are Traverse: "Traverse is a newly-formed group of five textile artists, based in the Midlands, who came together after studying Experimental Textiles for nine months with Kim Thittichai at Inkberrow Design Centre; we intend to start exhibiting our work next year.

The name ‘Traverse’ grew out of a sense of looking or moving sideways, to find different perspectives as we approach a theme for our work – we may not all travel in the same direction to get there, or use the same vehicle. Indeed, although our work is loosely described as mixed media, we each have our favourites, including working with paper, metal, hand-dyed fabric, felt, 3D and fashion, using heat, print, paint, and stitch. However, a large part of our ethos is to celebrate our diversity, share our various strengths and to grow together.

The title of our first exhibition is ‘Destinations’ and preliminary work so far is already revealing different perspectives on that theme - some based on maps, views of the Earth from Space and imaginary landscapes. The Latin origins of the word, destinare, ‘make firm, establish’, led to it meaning ‘being destined for a place’ and we hope that this, our first exhibition, will begin to establish our place in the world of textile art."

She has an amazing way with words.  I hope my work will match up to the dream.  The working title of Destinations covers maps, journeys, places and travel.  This is a very wide topic and as Cath said we are all finding different ways of looking at the theme.

Before I went to see Christine Chester I had done a mind map - or whatever they are called these days - of all the things that interest me to work on.

One of the sheets of marks that I produced produced some interesting sections.

On the left hand side there appeared to be hunched up silhouettes.  I don't usually put people into my art but since refugees are on my mind map I thought I would look at isolating this image.  I cleaned the image up and have had it made into 3 different sized Thermofax screens.

We had our first Traverse weekend together and I tried out some flour paste resist.  This technique produces random lines on the fabric that have a map like quality.

I have used the Thermofax screens on the fabric.

I printed on other fabrics as well so I am interested to see where this takes me.  I've also started making marks in a sketchbook with no end project in view.

I'll keep you up to date with how things are going next month.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

On the road again!

I have just got back from my annual visit to Florida. I visit my daughter-in-law's parents at this time of the year to attend a women's getaway and to have some R&R. This year I also spent a few days in Ohio visiting my friend Mary.

I like to travel to Orlando from my local airport, Birmingham, via Dublin where it is possible to go through Homeland Security and then arrive in Orlando as a domestic passenger. Interestingly in Dublin airport I couldn't buy a bacon sandwich but I could order a portion of bacon and two slices of toast. So I asked them not to toast the toast and voila I made myself a bacon sandwich.

On my first day I spent some time resting and taking photos of Kenny & Betsy's garden for a project later in the year. This is the mango tree in flower. Then I went shopping.  Michaels and JoAnn's of course.

During the afternoon Betsy & I went to get our nails done.

On Thursday I went to a hairdresser recommended by several friends. Here you can see the before and after. I was expecting it to be more radical.  Plus to be honest the after photo doesn't do it justice.

On Friday I made my way to Cocoa Beach where the getaway was based at the Hilton Hotel.  I had time before it started to walk along the beach. It was a very hot day and I foolishly did not take any water with me.  I thought I might be able to get a better photo of the rocket being launched from Cape Canaveral if I got closer to the pier.  Wrong! Plus it turned out to be 2.5 miles - each way! I was exhausted by the time I got back to the hotel.

And the photos - well I'll leave you to be the judge!  They certainly wouldn't win any prizes.

The getaway called Rejuvenate took place with a guest speaker on Friday evening and Saturday morning and ended with a fashion show after lunch.

I stayed an extra night at the hotel and went for a much more sensible walk through the park next to the hotel and back along the beach.

In the evening I went with friends to a Japanese restaurant where the chef cooks your dinner in front of you.  The chef was quite an actor!

The next morning I got up early - well early-ish!  It was about 6.50am to watch the sunrise.

The pelicans came to share the view.

After I checked out I went to the Waffle House to get breakfast.  However everyone else in Cocoa Beach had the same idea so there were no available tables and quite a queue.  I decided to drive back towards Palm Bay and hopefully find somewhere for breakfast.

And I did - at one of my favourite places.  Squid Lips in Eau Gallie.

And here are my pancakes.

After this I drove to church and then went to Kenny & Betsy's for a quiet afternoon.  Lovely.

Next time I'll tell you all about my second week which includes more shopping, eating and a visit to the zoo.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

From the land down under

Welcome to day 8 of my blogging challenge and the third post about my trip to Australia.  I was planning there would only be 3 but there's so much to share with you that there will definitely be another travelogue post about the Blue Mountains. 

On the Sunday after we returned to Sydney from Tasmania, we walked down to King's Cross where my all time favourite fountain sits in the middle of a small square.  Apparently it was the first ever dandelion fountain.  It's was built as a war memorial to commemorate the Battle of El Alamein.  It's different every time you see it depending on the light.

I took this photo the previous week on my phone.

Andy suggested we went for a walk.  We drove to Maroubra and took a bus to Coogee.  The five us walked back to Maroubra and had a late lunch.  Obviously the baby didn't walk - he was carried!

We spent Monday morning with the family and then whilst Andy worked, Roger & I walked into the city centre via the Botanical Gardens.

We were watching a dolphin play in the harbour when these two massive cruise liners left Sydney.

We walked around to Circular Quay and up into the CDB and eventually found what I was looking for.  Angel Place and these bird cages.

We met up with Andy & Naomi later to go to the Street Food Market that was being held in Hyde Park.

Roger & I got up very early on Tuesday to go to the fishmarket.  We got there at 8am but sadly the auction was over which was what Roger had wanted to see.  We walked round the retail fish shops and I took lots of photos of the amazing arrangements of the fish.

We walked a long way back into the city and I was very taken with this on a building site fencing.

We walked through the new park that has been built at Headland Point which gave us this view of the bridge.  I'm going to share the photos of the park in a separate blog post because there was the most amazing pieces of sandstone.

It looked like the weather was going to deteriorate so we got on the ferry to Parramatta where we had lunch.  And it didn't rain.  I rather liked these tools as a scultpure on a roof.

When we got back to Circular Quay we met up with Beth who I have known on Facebook for a while.  I love her photographs and it was great to meet up with an online friend.

On Wednesday after breakfast with Andy & Naomi at a cafe gloriously called The Rusty Rabbit, Roger & I went to the Museum of Sydney.

We took a ferry to Watson's Bay.  You may have noticed the mention of ferries quite often in our travels in Sydney.   They are such a great way to travel.  It's like going on a mini harbour cruise.

We walked round the headland to the lighthouse and back for a seafood lunch.

A different view of the Opera House from the ferry.

We went to the Pylon Lookout on the Harbour Bridge which gave us some different views of the bridge.

And of Circular Quay.

This has been a long post so I will stop now.  We spent the next three days in the Blue Mountains which I will tell you about another day.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice