... and a year went by ....

I can't quite believe that all those posts I composed in my mind didn't make it onto here.
So, here's a quick summary of a busy 12 months:

This time last year I was heading off to Skipnorth. this year's Skipnorth is now 10 days behind us.
It was another memorable visit to points north with great company.

This time I did remember to take a rather grainy photograph of the patterning in the centre of the ballroom floor at the hostel in Haworth. This may have uses in designing knitwear.

But, back to last year and some of the things that happened and places that were visited.

In March 2016, we put our family home in north London on the market, thus ending a lifetime connection to Finchley.
It sold in early August, once my brother had moved to France.
This completed the realisation of my mother's estate.
My father had designed the house in the early '60s, and we built it from Easter '64, moving in at Christmas '66.

April 2016 saw Ian and I visiting Japan for the first time. Japan deserves several blogposts, so here's a glimpse of the cherry blossom in Sendai. We were travelling in Japan for four weeks, and nearly a year on I haven't fully taken it all in.

In late August we had another lengthy trip, this time to Canada.
Firstly we flew to Toronto and spent a fortnight driving around busily visiting many friends in Ontario.

Here's where I was living when I left St Catharines in May '77. It was a compact apartment built over my landlady's garage, cold and draughty in winter, too hot in summer. It is not much changed visually since I lived there.

After that we had a couple days in Montreal before embarking on the Marco Polo to cruise back to Britain. We spent two weeks gradually making our way up the St Lawrence Seaway and visiting places in the province of Quebec and the Maritime provinces.

In October we had a day trip by plane from Lydd to Le Touquet in order to visit the war grave of one of Ian's great uncles at the Etaples cemetery. This was together with Ian's brother and his family.
We combined flowers and foliage from our gardens to form a small bouquet.


December saw us visiting Devon for a few days, staying at a Landmark Trust property in Lympstone.

Then we closed the year by flying out to Limoges to see Tony and his rural property.
This was just a short visit of four days, conveniently in and out of East Midlands airport.

Re-visiting Cyprus - random images

Street in Kalavasos

Over Easter Ian and I had a week in Cyprus, staying in the village of Kalavasos in the south. 

I had spent the summer of 1977, and a month in the summer of 1978 on the island, followed by a quick visit in the early 80's. In 1977 I took part in the Brock University Archaeological practicum in Larnaca. This was a six week course learning principles of excavating in part of the site of Kition at Larnaca, and visiting other archaeological sites in the southern part of the island. After this was finished in July, I joined the excavating team at Kalavasos-Tenta. 

Kalavasos coffee shop

Back to the present day. At the beginning of April flights started from East Midlands to Paphos, and we took advantage of this.
It is just a 20 minute bus ride from the bottom of our road to the airport.

Once in Cyprus, we picked up a hire car, and during the week drove a little more than 1000 km.

Our home for the week in Kalavasos

This was our home, a restored village house in Kalavasos. We had the top apartment, with spectacular views across the village.

Sunloungers by the door, but only one outdoor chair for the two of us!

I had previously visited in the summer when the island is predominantly scorched and brown.
It was so nice to see all the cultivated and wild flowers.

A green side to Cyprus that was new to me - mimosas

On the last morning we explored the village roads and footpaths tracing the line of the mineral railway that had carried copper ore to the coast until the 70's. It had rained heavily during the night, and everything was so fresh and bright.

Wildflowers near the deserted police station

All over the place were large dill like plants with tall flower spikes.
But if you took the time you could find much smaller delights.

Delicate blush on poppy petals

Colours of June ... just in time

Hydrangea petiolaris before we went away.

This has rambled away above head height, and could do with some serious pruning.
Mallows and geraniums that had flowered horizontally while we were away.
My images are all back to front, as I haven't been at all clever with ordering them.

We were busy throughout June.

Firstly preparing for, and then going to Ontario for a fortnight.

This was how the front of the house looked on Sunday morning when we returned from Canada.

The ivy could do with being tackled soon, but it is so hard to make it look good.

The clematis needs tying up, but that means bringing out a step-ladder.

Before we left there were new things to see in the garden.

Here is a rather too tall yellow Sisirynchium that got lost along the way, then moved itself from the back of the border to the front over the years. This is the first good display from it.

As you may know we have rather a lot of geraniums in our garden. A spot check one day at the beginning of the month revealed 15 different colours, most easily displayed in water in this dish.

Berry flowers, I'm still not sure what variety this new bush is. Ian informs me that it is a tayberry or hildaberry. Both were planted the winter before last and are now establishing themselves.

Another gratuitous view down the garden.

At the end of July we will have quite a bit taken off the ashes at the far right, as dead bits had been falling off into neighbouring gardens.

We will have the cedar on the left checked over too.

The last time both these were cut back was 10 years ago.
Again at the beginning of the month the mulberry showing off the flowers/fruits.
I need to add another posting showing some of the colours we saw while travelling in Ontario from mid June. But first I'll link this in to Sue's monthly colour page.