A trip to St Ives

A Travelzoo offer took us to St Ives this week where I was anxious to see the current exhibition at the Tate before it closes at the end of the month.

 

I wasn't disappointed, it was an excellent and very comprehensive show. These are the postcards that I bought in the gallery shop. (I had wanted Laura Knight's fabulous pool image but they either hadn't made a postcard of it or else everyone had got there before me.)

We went straight to the Tate from the hotel as soon as we had checked in our bags. We were staying at the Tregenna Castle which sits high above the town. I was very pleased that the Travelzoo b&b offer included tickets to the exhibition as well as to Barbara Hepworth's garden.

We walked through the hotel grounds to get to the sea,

first looking round the walled garden

then following a small stream downhill until we reached the road.

The following morning we woke up in the clouds!

The hotel was shrouded in a sea mist.

Rather different from the day before!

This creeping sea mist is called a 'haar' in North Yorkshire. I think it's a wonderfully descriptive word, a soft, long exhalation, rather like a rolling mist. I don't know if there is a Cornish word to describe this sort of weather. 

Happily the sun eventually shone through.

Surfers were enjoying the waves.

At last, a blue sky for Skywatch Friday!

Guddling and dandling.

We went to Bournemouth at the weekend and this was how we packed the car.

With a double layer of plants wedged into the back, ready for Wee One's front garden. They had seeded themselves freely about my plot, white foxgloves, bronze fennel and forget-me-nots, all surplus to my requirements. The primroses in particular have spread everywhere, popping up in beds, borders and across the lawn.

In Bournemouth we had a busy time. While Himself was inside the house sanding and undercoating Wee One and I set to work in the garden. On Sunday evening it rained. A leak from the old, cast-iron house guttering washed away the soil from my carefully planted white lupins, grown from last year's seed. How annoying! The rain had guddled away my planting. It was too wet on Monday to work outside and repair the damage. Far more fun to be had guddling about inside with my grandson!

He and I are both great guddlers. I think it's a wonderfully descriptive word, a Scottish term for fiddling about in water, catching fish with your hands in shallow streams by gently moving your fingers. (Not easy!) My grandson's enthusiastic guddling is so far confined to his bath and his drinking beaker, first a drink and then, watch out, in with his fingers!

Along with guddling I did a lot of dandling. Wee One's partner views her vocabulary and mine with amusement and some disbelief. "Is that really a word?" Yes, we insist, it really is. My mother was Scottish, and her mother of Irish decent. We don't always know the derivation of the words that we use, but we do know what we mean by them. To dandle is to jig a child gently up and down, in my case to the accompaniment of some rather tuneless singing. An appreciative audience at last.
I had a lovely time!

Up North

We spent Easter in the Dales, travelling north on a promisingly spring-like day.

The back garth  looked lovely with clumps of snowdrops and moss. (Later in the year the nettles will take over and give me grief.)

I spent a day in the garden clearing away last year's debris and had a satisfying bonfire with everything that I'd collected.

Just a nice trickle of water in the beck.

On Good Friday we woke to cold and wet. Oh, dear! In the morning we drove to Northallerton to collect our daughter from the London train. Just time to pop into Betty's beforehand to buy something nice. Their window displays are always very attractive - only the prices stop me from buying a great deal!

Traditional simnel cake

and a variety of Easter biscuits.

What did I buy?

Their delicious Yorkshire curd tart!

Daughter and I had some blustery walks on the moor, well wrapped up against the elements,  wind, rain and sleet. But there was more to come - I looked out of the window and saw this!

Good job I'd got my gardening done.

Our car in the garth.

No sign of snowdrops now.

The little waterfall could hardly be seen against the whiteness of the snow.

It's lambing time in the dale, meaning hard work for the farmers, even in good weather, but this cold and wet makes it miserable as well as dangerous for the livestock.

It was quickly melting away by the following day and we put on our waterproofs and walked out of the village up to the shooting lodge.

Prints in the snow showed us what had walked by.

Pheasants and rabbits.

It was rather wet in places!

Warm air meeting cold created a rather misty outlook. Springtime in the Yorkshire Dales to share with Skywatch Friday!

The waterfall looked impressive with all the snow melt.

And we could hear the noise of the beck without opening our windows!