Newcastle

We spent Wednesday in the city centre, took the metro in, the local station was close to our hotel. Quick, clean and oh so cheap and a restful journey back to hotel.

Neither of us have been here before, so we had no expectations, just a couple land marks. Looking up at all the old buildings  most using red bricks, it was a delight amongst the new buildings.

I adore old shopping arcades, this one is stunning, from floor tiles, carved wood to the glass roof, not too huge, there was a second level, but no shops up there.

We found a lovely bistro to have coffee and cake, time to enjoy all the beauty.

As with everywhere else, Christmas has arrived, the market was tiny, I'm sure there must of been a bigger one, but we were not interested in finding it.

The tree inside the huge shopping centre, I liked it, very different, I'm not keen on these huge shopping centre's, it was very warm and very bright inside, I find these spaces very tiring. 

The main reason for going north was to visit hubby's older brother and sister, both settled here years ago. Neither drive far, both partners are not well, I loved watching hubby chat away to them. We promised we would come north again next year. Hubby's  sister gave me loads of books to read, a new author for me, best gift ever.

We are not big on shopping  the city is full of big brand names we walked past most of the shops, we did go into Fenwicks, after having a lovely look at their windows. It was raining when we arrived, but dried up quickly, we found a nice pub for lunch, just away from the main streets, and was back to our room by mid afternoon tired but happy. We missed far too much, but in 1 day you can't see everything, a lovely reason to go back for more days next year.

The drive home was good until we got to A34, the heavens opened for almost 2 hours, at one point the road came almost to a halt as the rain was so heavy, this part of the journey took much longer, most drivers were sensible, but as always a few were reckless. Most of the drive was on good roads and plenty of places to stop, we remembered to pay the final toll for the Tyne tunnel, which is done online.

As with Liverpool we found the locals to be lovely and very helpful, purchasing our metro tickets, two young men were very helpful, a lady on the platform gave us information where to go when we got off the tram. In the city centre we were guided to various places, twice people stopped to ask if we need help.

Unexpected.

We have a few Olives on our tree, there were loads forming, but in the long dry summer the tree dropped most. I don't mind as we leave them for the birds, they never ripen properly in our cooler part of the year. This tree is about the trunk and the leaves, both are beautiful all through the year. I do have a soft winter cover ready if it gets too cold this winter. 

My Violets along the back section have filled out well, I wanted these under the shrubs growing in the back of the garden, I loves these tiny flowers, I have them elsewhere in the garden. The shrubs are still small, when they start growing I only want them to the height of the spike in the low fence. This is looking towards the house.

The winter Jasmin is beautiful this time of year, along with the berries on the other plant (who's name I have forgotten), brighten this back fence. I have other summer plants here, each year this gets thicker, it softens our neighbours huge bar shed behind. It's the only place in the garden where we have plants growing on the fence.

Salvia Hotlips and roses this late in November, they add colour to this side bed, we still see bees around this section of the garden. I am not cutting these back until spring, it gives bugs a place to over winter. My bunting is getting tatty, I will cut it down soon, I already have everything to make new next year. 

This is the unexpected section, Fuchsias in bloom, the bottom two photo's are in the small raised bed beside our back door. The plants by our back door have never stopped blooming, but in the warm spell they produced loads more buds. The tall plant, I moved from a pot to our raised bed at the back, it sits infront of the greenhouse, I'm pleased to see new growth, it means I did not damage the roots. 

Some Begonias are still blooming, the ones in both my chimney pots have stopped, and the one in the smaller photo, in my big black tub by greenhouse door is now closing down. But the plant in my raised bed to full of flowers, as is the Nemesia hanging on in there, with their tiny blooms.

There are bulbs starting to shoot all around the garden, far to early, once the colder weather arrives, they will disappear until spring, when it's their time to shine. 

The only task being done in the garden is hubby is collecting all the leaves, they are shredded as they are sucked up, so they go instantly into my mulch dustbins, our Magnolia tree is not dropping it's leaves yet, it won't be long before they will need to be collected and shredded, they are too big to use the leaf sucker. I don't plan to do anything this week, when I do get outside I won't be doing too much, just a tidy, I still have the autumn raspberries to cut back, just ensuring we are winter ready. I have a few garden fleeces ready if the winter is very cold, I've not needed them in the past couple of years. 

The fence panels are broken to bits, three close to the house, we will have to try and get them sorted, I think our neighbour might just let us get them done, as we can see into her garden and house, not that we want to look. Two panels are breaking by the back of our greenhouse it looks as if the tops as breaking off, we have decided we are not going to pay to replace them, we will get some chicken wire and put between posts, it's by her summer house, so not easy to get at and we can't see as it at the bottom of our garden. The wind always blows across our garden into next door, so the bits breaking off never end up in our garden.

Happiness is....

I am working on a new section, this is another favourite design of mine from the Spanish sampler, the colourful band above is from the same design. There are only two shapes here, all the colourful flowers are the same and the green sections are again the same, there is a smaller infill of the pale green, I have not yet decided if I like the shade of green I started to use, if I'm thinking about it then I probably don't like it.

The pink blooms against the blue walls in our bathroom is such a wonderful contrast, for just a few weeks this spot is delightful, the plant still looks good without the blooms. 

The other plant loving the bathroom is my spider plant, with it's babies , again a perfect spot for this plant, the green variegated leaves again looks good with the blue. I do love these plants when they get huge. 

My Amaryllis has doubled in size and I have everything crossed I have another bud forming. I removed the plastic sleeve after a week, allowing the plant to acclimatize to our room conditions. I have high hopes for beautiful white flowers at Christmas.  They always grow well in this spot.

George is 3 this week, and we won't get to see him on his birthday, so we gave him his card and present, mummy encouraged him to open it. George loves the film Up and loves Doug the friendly dog, we got him the soft toy, he was extremely happy with it. 

It was good to spend Saturday afternoon with daughter, George and Molly, Will was having a sleepover at Grandma and Grandpa's house. I collected Will from school Friday afternoon, so we had some time together. 

We walked to the village on Saturday morning,  it was dry and cold, I have started wearing my gloves and scarf, I don't mind it cold as its easy to add layers,  the temperature has dropped, I do hate being cold and wet. Grace sits on my lap most evenings, so she keeps me warm, often I am too hot with her, but I do enjoy her being so close.

I'm using my phone to access the Internet and it won't allow me to comment on any post, not sure if it's Blogger or Google, but it's a pain. Hopefully I will be able to use my desktop again soon and leave comments.

I have to finish SIL sock, I'm past the heel, so straight simple knitting, it the final bit if his Christmas present. 

Normal life...almost

I loved this book, I have read another of this authors books and loved it. Imagine a farmer builds 3 luxury homes on part of his land, near his farmhouse and creates a small village (more like a hamlet), years later everyone living there disappears on the same night, nine people, the police could not solve it, so 3 years on one man is hired to find out what happened. I had loads of wrong guesses, some close to the plot, it all came together, no super hero stuff, which I don't like. Book 80 read this year.  

I have finished the sunflowers, I do like the colours a bit different. I have done another design, the colour choices are mine, technically it's not finished, 

but I'm stuck......

I have made a mistake, I am one stitch out and did not notice until I started the small designs, normally I would unpick everything and put it right, but, I just don't feel like it, I've changed one small part of the design to make it work, but I can't stitch the small in-between pattern, and I will see if it starts to irritate me, I can always unpick, but it's over half the design.  

I managed some time in the garage sorting plants, my conifer is now in this lovely metal pot, it blew into our front garden a while ago, no one claimed it. The striped pot which had the conifer in now has the mother plant of my Chinese money plant, the biggest baby is in my face pot and I have 5 smaller plants. I have popped the face pot back in on my desk, all the others are in the greenhouse, if they thrive I will give them away.

I really enjoyed sorting my plants, it did not take long and I made sure I worked at the right height, after I sat and relaxed and rested. After my second treatment on my back, I'm still sore but I'm moving better, with better posture. I have loads of things I would like to do, but they will have to wait.

It's been another quiet week, nothing much happening, its been dry for a couple of days, but much colder. I did have a lovely conversation with an old boss, we bumped into him, it was good to catch up, I really enjoyed work for him.

Today we are spending some time with George and Molly, we will pop over and visit, mummy has been waiting for her garage to provide a curtesy car for over a week, she was promised one within 24 hours of her car going into the garage, they had it last Saturday. She is struggling these past few days as hubby had to work away from home, so she can't have the use of his car.  

We have a busy week coming up, so we are both resting and keeping up with everything.