Hadrian's Wall

I have been picking out pictures, and I think I still have too many here. The first day I took well over a hundred! It did go down from there, but I was still taking dozens every day.

So, hold on to your hats.

As you can see, the weather was miraculously lovely! We all carried rain pants we never used. I had an umbrella which almost got used as a parasol, but even that turned out to be unnecessary, as after the first day the temperature was in the mid-teens, mostly high overcast.

We stopped at a couple of Roman forts. This must be Housesteads, the granary. 

A long way down into Sycamore Gap. This was the day that nearly did us in, with all the up and down!

Vindolanda, ruins and museum exhibits. Amazing!

I do have a couple more things to show, but let's stop here for now!

Second bit: Liverpool

Once upon a time, I went to school with a girl named Alison. When I moved away, we kept writing letters for years. We lost each other, found each other... but thanks to the ubiquitous Facebook and such, we now keep in touch without even trying.

So I wrote to her and said I'd be in England, she said I should come and stay, and so I find myself near Liverpool.

We took the ferry 'cross the Mersey.

The waterfront is a jumble of old and new. Grand old buildings, 70s monstrosities, a quite nice-looking new museum and more.

This is the Royal Albert Dock. It is now shops, restaurants and museums, but once was the busy place of shipping and trade and the navy and all kinds of excitement.

This is apparently called Liverpool Mountain. Very large. I didn't have the time to go into the Tate here, but one day I'll go back!

The Beatles are from Liverpool, of course. Here they are depicted in jelly beans. 

This is not entirely the original Cavern Club, but the history is so complicated with demolitions and rebuildings, you can read about it here. The street around the club is full of other music venues and souvenir shops.

We had lunch in a big shopping complex, the Liverpool One. Once again, I have to go back, as we didn't see a lot of it and I didn't quite get the whole "redevelopment" idea -- 42 acres of the city were redesigned and rebuilt in the past 20 years or so.

This is the view from our terrace restaurant. The roof provides shade but also blocked the view of the city, which was a bit of a disappointment.

The skies there were constantly filled with con trails from planes in and out of Manchester Airport!

After lunch we headed to what the locals call Paddy's Wigwam, a name that manages to insult Irishmen and North American First Nations all at once. It is the Catholic cathedral of Liverpool, and I think a piece of 1960s architecture that actually worked. It is a bit tent-shaped, and not your standard British church.

There are glass panels around the perimeter, and circling the top of the church. The light inside is wonderful. Quite stunning! These pictures are not as wonderful as the real thing.

After our visit to the church we headed back to get the ferry. We saw the Three Graces, three large and lovely buildings on the waterfront. I believe that this one is the Cunard Building. I have an unreasonable affection for the Cunard Line, having taken one of their ships from Montreal (maybe) to Liverpool in 1965. 

This is the Royal Liver Building, named for an insurance company. It is quite imposing.

This is not Buckingham Palace, but the Port of Liverpool building. Very ornate and imposing, too!

Somewhere along the way I came across this singularly ugly post box. Hmph, no style!

We took the ferry back across the Mersey to my friend's home, where she had this marvellous clematis in her yard. She had told her husband to tidy up a bit in anticipation of my arrival, and he had really gone to town: in the garden, the outside of the house, the inside of the house... a whirlwind, I imagine. In any case, the garden was lovely!

My first night here we had dinner in a very nice pub, the Red Fox. My mouth is watering just rereading the menus... This was the beginning of my downfall, eating-wise. After a pretty nice main course, Alison and I shared the full cheese plate for afters, with a wee glass of whisky to boot.

The next night we were at the Anchor, also very, very nice. Aaah.

We finished that last evening off with a drive to Chester, to walk around the old walls. It was getting dark... another place I have to go back to!

The next morning I was dropped at the train station to begin my next adventure. 

First stop: Cambridge

Early on in May, I flew to London, got a coach to Cambridge, met some friends, and went to the punting place. All at once, so some of us had our luggage still with us. I said I would sit with the bags, knit my lovely shawl and enjoy the riverside while the others went for a ride.

I then found that I had left my knitting bag on the bus! Two skeins of very nice yarn, and the start of a shawl, plus another skein of nice wool, made up into an almost completed hat! And the cute little bag. And two sets of needles. Not happy.

Well, we had to put that behind us for the moment. 

My friend and I trooped off to find our accommodation: a boat on the river! It was great fun, with rowers going by all weekend, and Stourbridge Common across the way to look at. 

Not only trees, but also cows. They kept us on our toes as every time we looked over, they had moved.

We had portholes! It was not until the second evening that we figured out that those odd circular cushion-things were in fact to plug the portholes at night.

On the Saturday (oh, keeping track of the days got to be quite challenging, but I do know that this was Saturday) we made a quick trip to John Lewis to buy some replacement yarn, then met up with friends for lunch and on to knitting!

We walked past my old bridge... I walked over this daily back in 2005-6! And yes, it was that gloomy and grey a lot of the time.

Knitting in the pub!

And that was it for Cambridge! A lightning visit and on Sunday we went to the new Cambridge North station to start our second leg. I was getting picked up in a car and driven to Liverpool, and my friend Patricia was to take a train to Manchester.

We got to the station and found that everything was stopped for the moment, trains are cancelled -- here, just take this bus to Ely! We literally had a minute to decide, and although I was pretty sure my Liverpool friend could ease the way to Manchester, I hadn't asked before, the bus was leaving, no time to think... and off she went.

I sat around for some time waiting for my lift, and Patricia did eventually make it to Manchester.

I'm back

Oh, so many millions of photos to edit! I had days in Cambridge, days in Liverpool, days walking Hadrian's Wall, days in Glasgow!

On my last day in Glasgow, I went on a few quests. I found a yarn shop, and I found an Edward VIII postbox on Hyndland Road.

Easy to choose a picture: its eyes weren't closed, it didn't have a mouthful of anything and if it was crooked or ill-lit, I could just fix this one picture.

I hope to get through the rest soonish.

Please note: we had perfect weather in England, and here I am at home listening to the rain on the roof!

Pre-trip knitting roundup

I've been thinking for some time that this is the yarn for my trip. I have 900 meters of meadow-coloured mohair/silk lace-weight yarn. I seem to have had it since 2010. (In that post I say I have 26 shawls favourited on Ravelry... now I have 171!)

Of course I have to get the hang of the pattern and be sure all will work out, so I have started the Dinner in the Eiffel Tower shawl. But the appeal of a lace shawl as holiday knitting is that it will take forever to knit this up, so I am not worried that my early start will mean I run out of knitting!

I also needed film festival knitting, so I started a little hat. Now I just go around and around knitting plain, so this can be done while yakking or in the pub.

I still have quite a bit of the yarn, which I believe is this, so I will just make as long a hat as I can!

If you want to follow me on my trip in the next couple of weeks, I'll be posting on Instagram.

Look what I found

Yesterday, I was walking along College Street and passed a book store, just as they were taking in the bin of one-dollar books. Who could resist the Mastermind Quiz Book?

It is from the 1970s and covers everything anyone could ever know. I can tell you the shape of a DNA molecule and the name of Hitler's wife, but I certainly can't get half of General Knowledge 13.

Railways, astronomy, JRR Tolkein, chemistry, literature, ancient mythology... everything. We even had the MothMan over last night and found him a quiz on British moths, which he handled very well.

Of course I am finding room for this is in my bag to take to Britain.

Film Festival time again

Oh, so much to do, blogging gets shunted aside...

I am now nearing the end of the Hot Docs film festival. I will list the movies I've seen here, but not try to say too much about them.

1. Nipawistamasowin: We will stand up. Very interesting, sad in so many ways. 
2. The Rest. Ai Weiwei continues his look at the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean and Europe.
3. Kifaru. Continuing with sad, this movie was about the last male Northern White Rhino and the men who looked after him. 
4. Backstage Action. A look at extras in movies. It's not as glamorous as you might think! This screened with two shorts. 
5. The Day Don Died. (short) Go, click through the photos till you get to the trailer. So, so good, and despite the title, it was a break from the sad!
6. Uncaged: A stand-in story. (short) Once upon a time, a guy got a job being Nicolas Cage's stand-in. Brilliant!
7. Willie. Big hype for this one, Willie O'Ree was the first black player in the NHL and played pro hockey for many years. He came to the screening and the kids loved him. 
8. Midnight Traveler. A filmmaker and his family flee Afghanistan for Europe. They film the whole journey with their cell phones. 
9. Searching Eva. Wow. I won tickets to this and probably wouldn't have chosen it, but it was thought-provoking and interesting, about expression and identity and selfies and family. 
10. Bellingcat: Truth in a post-truth world. Citizen journalism. Google Earth and Facebook can tell you a lot more than you think. Amazing.
11. Picture Character. How does one get a new emoji added to the keyboard? Are emoji language?!
12. Supreme Law. A thing made by the National Film Board about the Canadian constitution and how Pierre Trudeau brought it home to Canada. Told in several snippets, with interactive sidebars and further reading. I think this might actually be best enjoyed on the small screen with personal control. Very interesting!
13. Propaganda: The art of selling lies. Perhaps my favourite! Cave paintings, Nazi rallies, Trump tweets, Baroque art. They are all trying to get you to change your mind. 
14. Havana, from on high. People live on rooftops, in elevator cars and attics, with a great view of the city, sometimes with not much more. Sometimes with pigeons, or art, or their memories of the glories of the Revolution. 

I hope to see one more movie tomorrow night, which I might just add to this list. 

I also hope to do a quick knitting round-up before I go off on my English walking-holiday adventure, which I've been thinking about for a year! One wonders what life will be like after the trip... How will I spend my time if I don't have to think about the pros and cons of walking poles? Stay tuned!