Tag Archives: travel

Feeling lighter and more motivated now – hope it lasts!

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This is the 4th spread of my Junk Journal, I have turned this image into a 2 part slideshow so that you can see both sides of the smaller ‘apple flap’ in the centre (that’s how we spell it in the UK) of the page and also read what is written on both pages.

I’ve been having a bit of a rest since we got home from our visit up north. I still need to sort out the base for the new greenhouse and then construct the greenhouse, but the weather has been a bit colder again since we got home, and I don’t want to spend too much time outside when it’s cold. T keeps asking me when the greenhouse might be up and usable, but to be honest I’ve no idea. I suspect it will take a while to sort out the base as I’ve got to make sure it’s level. I think the weather will warm up soon and when it does I will get back to it, so the job should be finished by the time I go to the south west of France at the end of August.

In the meantime I have been sorting out and booking my travel arrangements and accommodation to get to the art retreat. I am going up to London and staying one night in a hotel on Friday 28. Next morning I will get the EuroStar to Paris Gare du Nord, arriving at about 1pm. Then travel across the city to Paris Montparnasse to get my next train at 4pm from there to Angouleme in SW France. My brother (Mike) who lives in Paris is going to come and meet me from the Eurostar and make sure I get to Paris Montparnasse in time for my train to Angouleme. I will stay Saturday night in Angouleme and have a wander around that town for most of the on Sunday. A taxi has been booked to collect me from that accommodation to get me to the location of the Art Retreat in time for check in at 5pm.

Then 4 days of enjoying the Art Retreat in a lovely location with a fabulous artist, David Shillinglaw and the other participants. We get 4 days of tuition, core materials, 5 nights accommodation, breakfast, lunch and evening meals. I think it’s going to be a lot of fun.

I was intending to take T with me, but it all got a bit complicated and it was causing both of us stress, so I’ve decided to go alone. It will be an adventure for me, especially as I don’t speak any French, but I am really looking forward to it. Once I get to the Art Retreat I will be amongst English speakers – David (the artist) is English, Jen and Nick who own and run the venue where the Retreat is are also English and if the other participants are not English they will at least speak English.

On Friday 4th September the retreat finishes in the morning and I will get another taxi collect me at about 10am to take me back to Angouleme station in time for the 11:30 am train back to Paris. Once I get to Paris Montparnasse station my bother will come and pick me up again and take me back to his home in Paris where I will spend a couple of days with him and his lovely wife. Murial is French and they have lived in Paris for many years, but I’ve never visited them before, so it will be lovely to spend time with them. Finally on Tuesday 8 September I will get the Eurostar back to London and from there make my way back to the Isle of Wight and home to see my three boys (T and the 2 cats).

Well the weather has now warmed up (hooray!) but now it’s far too hot to be working outside with no shade. So I am trying to put up a temporary awning to protect me from the blazing sun while I work.

It’s the next day now. I have rigged up a tarpaulin to provide me with some shade while I work.

Several days later and I can report that I am making progress with my project but it’s slow. We are still a long way off getting the new greenhouse put up, but at least we have a small temporary greenhouse where T is growing the usual greenhouse crops. So the pressure is off me to complete the project immediately. The weather was very hot for a few days but it’s now cooling down again, I expect at some point there will be rain and that will definitely slow down the job even more, but all I can do is work at my own speed and as I’ve just had my 71st birthday that means I’m very slow. Hopefully it will be OK once I’ve finished it.

That’s all my news for now.
Take good care of yourselves and I hope to see you again soon.
Big love from me
AJ

We had a little holiday!

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This is the third spread in my now finished Junk Journal, made from scraps of paper and ephemera all stitched and stuck together to form a book. The black paper in the bottom left hand corner forms a pocket that has two hand made tags that I’ve doodled on and two more quotes on the backs. I’ll share images of those further down the page. If you click on the images you can see them bigger.

We had a little holiday from 1-5 May for a trip up north to visit with T’s family to celebrate his nephew, Paddy’s, Surprise 50th Birthday party. It must have been a surprise for Paddy as his actual birthday was in January so he would hardly have been expecting a party in May. The lovely event was organised by Paddy’s wife Nicola and there were lots of people there and we had a great time.

We left home on Friday morning, got the car ferry to Southampton and then I drove us up to Coaley in Gloucester to Mike (T’s younger brother) and Emma’s house. The drive took about 5 hours, twice as long as it should have done because my SatNav was avoiding the Motorways. I did realise fairly soon after we set off that this was happening but I didn’t want to stop and change it. Besides the English countryside is much more beautiful than boring motorways and horrible service stations.

We had a couple of stops along the way and arrived in Coaley just as Emma was getting home from work. Mike had been working from home that day so was already there. Emma made us a lovely vegetable curry for tea and after a catch up chat we went to bed as we had to leave early the next morning.

Emma drove us and the dog, Maggie, up to Cleethorpes in North Lincolnshire where she had booked accommodation for 6 of us in a large house. This drive, which was mainly on motorways, also took more than 5 hours with a couple of comfort stops. When we got to Cleethorpes we met up with T’s sister Jenny and her husband Paul and we just had time for a quick lunch before check in time at the house. The house was very nice we all had good rooms and there was plenty of space.

We had to leave as soon as we dropped our bags off at the house because we had to be at the party by 3:30pm as Paddy was due to come at 4pm. He had arranged to meet up with a friend from the army he hadn’t seen for a few years, I don’t think he was expecting to be welcomed by so many people.

T’s parents, Bill and Edna (both now deceased), had lived in West Yorkshire when they got married and they had 2 children – T born in 1952 and Pam born a few years later. Bill and Edna separated when the children were quite young and for a while Edna brought them up on her own. She eventually met another man called John and when T was 16 they (Edna, John, T and Pam) moved from Yorkshire in the north of England to the Isle of Wight in the South. Some time later Edna and John had two more children Jenny and Mike (so they are half siblings to T and Pam).

Pam and her daughter Emily arrived at the party at about the same time we did. Pam was overwhelmed with emotion when she saw T as she did not know we were going. T and Pam speak regularly on the phone but the party had never been mentioned. Pam knew about the party but she didn’t know if we had been invited or if we had if T would be well enough to attend anyway.

Paddy and Nicola arrived on time at about 4pm, by which time he was beginning to get suspicious that ‘something’ was going on, but he still wasn’t expecting it to be a huge reunion of old colleagues, friends, distant and close family – people of all ages! It was a fantastic party with lots of food and drink and we all had a great time. It was so good that we decided to have another and smaller, close family catch up the next day at Paddy and Nic’s house.

Jenny and Paul had to leave early on Sunday as Paul was due to start a 12 hour night shift at 6pm and they had a 2 hour drive to get home first.

But here is a picture of the rest of us except for Nicola (who didn’t want to be in the photos) and the younger members of the family who were probably fed up with us all invading their home by then.

L-R Paddy, me, Mike, Tony, Kate, Emma, Emily and Pam.

Tony, Jenny and Paul at the Party on Saturday

Tony and Pam

On Bank Holiday Monday May 4th Emma drove us back to Coaley another drive of over 5 hours with a few stops on the way. T and I stayed with them one more night and had to get up early the next day to drive to Southampton. I had booked the 12 noon ferry to the Isle of Wight. This time I did set the SatNav so it didn’t avoid motorways. We made good time and arrived in Southampton just after 11am and in plenty of time for the ferry and we got home at about 2pm.

I apologise for the long post about this but, to be honest, it’s so nice to be able to report that we actually got away, met up with family and had a great time. Rather than the usual updates on T’s poor health and associated problems.

Anyway here are the two tags from the pocket of my Junk Journal:

That’s all my news for now, hope you are keeping well.
See you soon
Big Love AJ xxxxx

PS I used to send my blog posts out by email to my subscribers but I’ve changed the settings now so it’s only posted on my blog. I don’t want to annoy anyone with unsolicited emails filling their inboxes. Hope that’s OK with you all?

We had a Little Adventure :-)

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There is an exhibition of art by the Street Artist Banksy in London at the moment and we went to check it out.

I was going to go on my own just for a quick day trip, but then I asked T if he would like to come too. He said he’d like to come but wouldn’t be able to manage it in one day so it turned into a mini trip. Because T can only walk short distances we had to take his wheel chair which in some respects made things easier, but in others much harder. We spent far more money than we normally would have done, but as this was the first time we had any adventure away from home for years, we felt that we deserved a bit of spoiling.

We left home late morning on day 1, got to London by mid afternoon, checked into a hotel in South Kensington that was near to where the exhibition was and went out for an evening meal at lovely Indian restaurant.

On day two we had a very expensive breakfast in a lovely ‘cafe’ (it was much more ‘upmarket’ than the cafe’s we have where we live)! The bill for the breakfast came as a bit of a shock to us, but the service was very attentive and the whole experience was very nice. Then at 12 noon we were booked in to see the exhibition. The people running the exhibition were all very lovely to us and made sure we got to see everything and T was well looked after.

Smiley Reaper, spray paint on cardboard
Get our why you Can!
One for the flag waving ‘Patriots’!
An iconic image
Tony Walton, Geriatric, Disabled, Non-digital, Anarchist – Free Palestine!


The Banksy exhibition was good, you never know really what to expect of a Banksy exhibition because he never authorises, approves or curates exhibitions like this so it’s all done without his input. A few years ago we went to a similar Banksy exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam which I have to say was probably better than the one currently in London, but if you like Banksy it’s still worth going to the one in London.

At the same venue there was also a photographic exhibition by the Danish photographer Søren Solkær, he is more commonly known for his photography of musicians and as a fashion photographer. But for 10 years he worked on a personal project – to photograph iconic street art and to try and track down the artists and take photos of them with their works. Of course many street artists do not wish to be identified because often they create art outside of the law, but Søren’s exhibition is truly stunning and it well worth a visit. Below are a few shots from his show.

French artist Invader in front of some of his pixelated mosaic work
Borondo in front of his work Narcissus
Blek le Rat
Brazilian-born street artist known as Pixote in front of some of his work

That evening we went for an even more expensive and delicious Italian meal at Rocco’s. Well worth the cost.

The next morning we were up early and making our way home. Unfortunately it took a lot longer than it should have done because our train was delayed by ‘a couple of horses on the tracks’ at some point that meant we missed connections. We got home exhausted at about tea time on day 3 but having had a very enjoyable time.

That’s all for now.
Hope all’s good with you
Big love AJ xxxx