Coniston with friends, Wips

No not obsessed about scones, clotted cream and strawberries. See there is choux pastries too with cherries and cream. LOL Yesterday’s tea celebrations for our anniversary of becoming a couple over 20 years ago.
This needs blanket stitching -it will be on the back of a Christmas themed mat I made before so the mat can be used throughout the year.
I am going to have a go at Button Angel’s “Angel in the Garden” bag as a needleturned project. (Feeling brave or foolhardy as I’ve only done needleturning once before?) You can see the pieces with the freezer paper still attached in their approximate positions.
This 18ct cross stitch is still on the go..every now and then. I love the picture but I do like instant results and this is a bit time consuming.
One day it will look like this. No one hold their breath though. Right?

I am finally caught up with the washing from those trips now -no thanks to more thunder storms.

Other achievements are clearing out “the black hole” the mini cellar bit of the house, which was shoulder high in “stuff”. I am convinced Stuff breeds somehow because no matter how little stuff you have stored, wherever it is in the house, suddenly there is more there than you thought possible.

Anyway a final total of 2 bags to charity and 3 to the bin and the black hole was conquered. 🙂 Trumpet fanfare and Neil Armstrong’s voice “one small step for man one giant leap for Jellybeanangel kind.” 🙂
Welcome to Coniston. Foxglove (Digitalis) with rain drops and bracken.
Sunsets, sunrises lamp light and our home for a few days.
I woke around 5am for a thunder storm. It was quite exciting as it was my 1st time in a tent in a thunder storm.
Misty morning view of Brantwood where John Ruskin lived.
Tree on the banks of Coniston on a slope.
Coniston Old Hall. There has been a hall on this site since the C13th owned by the Le Fleming family but the current building dates from the C16th. Want a closer look?
Clockwise from the South.
Huge chimneys called “westerlies” I think, to stop the draught of the brisk west wind from blowing back down the chimney and coating the room in soot and smoke. This is where the camp site owners live.
Ramp up to what was probably the main hall part of the house.
There is a little camp shop by the signs.
Windows are capped by an arch of stones to help with the weight distribution.
The other wing is in ruins but it allows us to see one of the fireplaces.
There is a track through these fields to Coniston vllage at the bottom of Coniston Old Man (mountain). It’s just a 10 minute walk.
One of the hall’s barns.
The barn to the South west of the hall. Lovely local stone work. Let’s walk to Coniston village.
I loved this little boat house.
Outskirts of the village.
Sheep in a field by the track.
I wonder how old this tree is? When I was little I would imagine all the Enid Blyton sort of creatures having their homes in roots like this.
There were a lot of Foxgloves allowed to grow freely in the field margins.
Inside the tourist information was this display including “BluebirdDonald Campbell’s jet boat in which he was killed in 1967 travelling at over 300mph. The boat was lifted from 185ft down in Coniston Water in 2001 and has been restored. It is hoped that she will have a final run exceeding 100mph in 2011 before being retired to a building next to the Ruskin Museum. Campbell’s grave in the churchyard can be seen here.
An old boat now used as a flower bed outside the tourist information building.
The stream under the bridge burbled merrily.
This building has a live web cam on it. We phoned friends and family and waved at the camera. Good fun. 🙂 Just refresh every few seconds to see the action almost live.
The Victorian steam yachtGondala“, There will be more on her in another post.
We walked down the west bank of the lake too to Torver Common.
A toad allowed us to take his photo before we took it to a quieter damp place by a nearby stream.
So many lake views on our walks. The place is real soul food. You can just sit and watch the patterns on the water and the way the constantly changing clouds are reflected.
The lake at dusk.

Next time I will share some pics from the trip back here with my daughter and some of her friends. I was the adult in charge. Oer!

Thanks to Deb- Angel and Pukeko, I now have a signature:


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