Days 8-10: Cooking in Barton-under-Needwood and a Visit to Bletchley Park

      After a 2-hour train ride from Euston Station, we arrived to find our bubbly friend Stephney waiting for us at the train station.  After dumping our bags, Stephney took us for a walk around the neighborhood so that we wouldn't disturb Tim, beloved cook for us lucky beaders, while he fixed our dinner.  


     We walked over to Barton Marina, which is situated on the Trent & Mersey canal and has a nice promenade, shopping, cinema, and restaurant.  We also walked through the adjoining park that contains 2 lakes made from quarries that are no longer used. 

Stephney and I are viewing some of the narrowboats parked in the marina.

Thursday was a busy day as we pitched in to help Stephney and Tim get ready for the book club luncheon that they were  hosting that day.  There was a lot of cooking and table setting going on!

 Here is Stephney striding past just some of the food that we prepared for the luncheon under Tim's direction.


Thanks to playing cook's helper, I learned how to make an English dish called Coronation Chicken.  A dish prepared for the banquet celebrating the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, it consists of cold chicken in a curry powder and cream and mayonnaise sauce.  Raisins and almonds can be added to the dish.  It is quite scrummy, as they say on the Best Brtitish Baking show.  After the morning's hard work, we had a lovely time getting to know Steph and Tim's neighbors while stuffing ourselves with tasty food.

Friday, Tim and Stephney were kind enough to take us to Bletchley Park- yes, the Bletchley Park famous as the place where the Engima code was broken. You may have seen The Imitation Game, the latest movie with Benedict Cumberbatch about the effort.  Originally a mansion located in the countryside of Buckinghamshire, the grounds became the center of Britain's effort to break Nazi codes and ciphers.  Once the program outgrew the mansion, huts were built to accommodate the needed workers and equipment.

The original mansion.

A section of the reproduction of the Turing Bombe, the machine built by the team to help break the Nazi code

More of the Turing Bombe

A working Enigma machine

One of the original offices in the mansion

A few rooms of the mansion were used as sets for the filming of The Imitation Game.  Don snapped a photo of the 3 of us sitting at one of the tables on the bar set.

From left: Stephney, yours truly, and Tim

The prop Turing Bombe that was constructed for the film

One of the real offices in one of the huts built near the mansion

It was a fascinating visit to a place that we read about but never thought we  would get to see.  After a dinner of luncheon leftovers, we were off to bed so that we could rise early to catch our train for the 5.5-hour trip to Edinburgh, Scotland.

The view out our window on the journey

As much as we were sad to leave all of our friends in England, we were excited about the chance to explore the amazing Edinburgh. 

Days 6-8: Whirlwind Visit to London

     We flew from Hamburg to London Monday morning  (August 25) for a quick stop to visit friends.  We had a lovely tea with our friends Shoba, Reg, and Priya; then it was on to see Suzanne and Norman.  Tuesday, Suzanne dragged us out of bed before the crack of dawn to attend a big flea market at the Kempton Park Racecourse.

Some of the outdoor vendors at the racecourse; notice that it still isn't quite light.

A view of some of the indoor vendors-it was crowded even at such an ungodly hour.

It was a lot of fun to look at all of the items, but I only bought one thing: a souvenir from Rome, Italy.  I love the micro mosaic jewelry and had hoped to buy a piece when we were in Rome.  Sadly, the closest I could find was a gorgeous micro mosaic plaque for 300 euros.  Imagine my delight when I saw this sweet little vintage pin from Rome:

My big purchase from the flea market


On our second day in London, Suzanne and I visited our mutual friend Stephanie Tomalin, who was kind enough to show us the new studio housing her antique and vintage bead collection.

Here is Stephanie holding one of the item in her collection, it's a little blurry because Stephanie is a bundle of energy.

Stephanie was kind enough to pull out some Balkan beadwork for us to see.

More Balkan bead crochet

Just another beautiful piece

This is a lovely example of the French beaded funeral wreaths.

detail of the center of the wreath


While Suzanne and I were up to our ears in beautiful beadwork, Don stayed "home" to visit the nearby London Wetland Center.

Main building of the Wetland Center

The 106-acre habitats were created by much work on the part of Sir Walter Scott out of 4 reservoirs that were made redundant in the late 1980s.

  Some of the wildlife that has taken up residence.

 Here are some of the houses in a prestigious development that provided about 2/3 of the funding needed for the wetlands center.

Houses that provided a majority of the funding

On Wednesday morning, thankful that the planned transit strike had been postponed, we arrived at Euston Station to take the train up to Barton-under-Needwood to visit our friends Stephney and Tim.

Happy Halloween

For you amusement, I am sharing my latest pair of earrings, which I just finished in time to wear trick-or-treating. 

Hamburg, Day 5: Luminous Tweed class, sightseeing, and Chinese food

I meant to write this post sooner but fell into the black hole known as Ancestry.com when they offered a free 2-week trial.  I have torn myself away long enough to write the next post in our travel adventure.

Sunday, I spent the day at Beaders Best teaching my Luminous Tweed class to a fun group of enthusiastic beaders.

Sunday's Luminous Tweed class at Beaders Best

 

My intrepid beaders included Yvonne from England,  a cheerful lady who made great progress on her bracelet; Cornelia and Andreina from Switzerland, who led us in an interesting discussion of the differences between German and Swiss German;  Anita, the speedy beader who finished everything but  gluing her clasp to the finished bracelet, Susanne, who was brave enough to try Right Angle Weave as her second bead class ever; and my talented translator Marianne.

 

What a nice surprise to find Zoya Gutina was sharing the room with me on Sunday!  Here she is teaching her Saturday class (for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of meeting her).

 

After class was over, I went back to the shopping floor for a last look around.  I forgot to post this sooner, but here is an example of how busy the Preciosa Ornela booth was all weekend.

 

Preciosa booth.  Photo by Freddie Ott.

 

Kerrie Slade and part of the Preciosa team.  Photo by Freddie Ott.

 

The best part was that I got back to the show floor in time for the fashion show of the finalist jewelry.  It was a lot of fun to see the volunteer models walk the runway and a loop through the show floor.

 

Some of the models wearing winning entries.  Photo by Freddie Ott. 

 

The best necklace of the weekend had to be Dreams of Japan by Nadya Gerber.

 

Front view of Dreams of Japan

 

Back view of Dreams of Japan.

 

While I was having fun teaching, Don explored more of Hamburg.  First stop was the Elbephilharmonie, the new symphony hall built on an existing warehouse that is reported to be 10 times over the budget and years behind in opening time.  The latest estimate is a final cost of 789 million euros and an opening date of January 11, 2017-10 years after construction began.  For the ins and outs of this project, take a look at Elbephilharmonie.

 

The big, swoopy building is the Elbephilharmonie building.

 

Then it was a stop at the Speicherstadmuseum, a space devoted to the story of the workings of the warehouses.

 

The coffee section of the Speicherstadmuseum.

 

Then some wandering around the water front.

 

 

 

After that, Don visited the Altonaer Museum to see barges, old fish cutters, models, period rooms, and lots of carved figureheads.  This museum has a number of dedicated supporters because  when this museum was about to close in 2010 due to lack of funds, a local action group occupied the rooms and organized sit-ins

 

 

 

 

A neat dress made out of work gloves; I have no idea why.

 

The impressive fountain outside the Altonaer Museum.

 

Don met me back at Beaders Best just as the show was closing and took me over to see the protected nature area that he had discovered on Saturday.  After that, not wanting to face the hotel restaurant again, we walked around to find the rumored Chinese restaurant.  Even though most of the shops in the little commercial area were closed, we did find the Chinese restaurant and had a nice dinner (complete with a fortune cookie made in the U.S.)

 

Then it was back to the hotel to pack because we were off to London early the next morning, but that's a story for the next post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hamburg, Day 4: Florencia Snake Class and the Botanic Garden

August 22 was my Florencia snake bracelet class, so I worked (if you can call teaching great students work) while Don continued exploring Hamburg.  Here I am helping Rita Lettau, my intrepid student who tackled a snake bracelet with no English.  Luckily, I had Marianne, a fabulous translator, to help with communication (plus notice Rita's phone with a German to English translation program on the table-we were covered!)

Photo by Freddie Ott.

The other advanced crocheters in the class were Joanne Ivey, who owns a bead shop called Cranberry in Australia, and Akiko Nomura from Japan.

My roommate for the  class space was Fran Griffith so it was a fun day all around.

Fran Griffith (photo by Freddie Ott)

 

 

Rita finished a snake soon after Beaders Best. 

 

Rita's photo of her finished snake

 

 

Akiko also finished hers and Joanne assures me she is not far behind.

 

Akiko's photo of her snake

 

I also took a few photos of some of the contest beadwork Friday night so here is a peak at some of the amazing beadwork.

 

 

 

I know the name of this artist who made the amazing necklace below, Kris Empting Obenland, because I was lucky enough to finally meet her in the real world. 

 

 

"Self Portrait" by Kris Empting-Obenland

 

 

 

This stunning necklace by Joanne Zammitis called "Atlantis" and yes, those are real sea urchins. 

 

Meanwhile, Don started his day by exploring a protected nature area that was about a 15-minute walk from the hotel.

 

 

 

He even found some mushrooms.

 

After that, he explored Planten un Blomen, the large green space in the city of Hamburg.  It has a lot to offer: plants (of course), lakes and ponds, fountains, a Japanese garden, miniature golf and more.

 

 

 

 

 

A vanilla ice cream cone that was so good it needed to be memoralized in a photo.

 

 

 

After the garden, Don joined me at the hotel and we had dinner there with many of our new and old beading friends.