Another Lovely Walk

 It seems Sunday morning is  becoming our  walk time since yesterday we did a walk for the second Sunday morning in a row. Perhaps that's not quite often enough to establish it as a habit and certainly I can't see us venturing out if and when the weather turns, but yesterday it was fine and so we looked at the walk books and decided on Plean Country Park. 

It was a pleasant enough woodland walk, but it taught me that I prefer walks where I can see water. And also reminded us that walk book descriptions are not 100% to be relied upon. However we didn't get really lost, despite some very vague instructions at one point,  we met lots of friendly dogs, mostly with friendly owners and I took some nice photographs. 

A little bit of autumn colour in the trees/leaves

yay! a tree tunnel

and the would be arty DK shot! 

Taking of habits I went back to Knit Group last week and really enjoyed myself, I would have gone back to Pilates on Saturday but it was cancelled for lack of numbers ( hope that's not going to become a thing) and this morning I also went to the U3A crime fiction book group which again I enjoyed.So that all looks promising for establishing an autumn/winter routine which I feel is important. 

Tomorrow - more, and possibly the last of,  Florence.

A Lovely Start to October

 We've had a good few days, I thought I'd write them up before I did any more of Florence. 

First off we have a 'good grief, how long has that been hanging about unfinished?' craft project, which is now finished.

a day and night stuffed hare. I machined round this when I was having my sewing lessons a couple of years ago but then they stopped, at which point all it really needed was stuffing. However I have absolutely no faith in my ability to stuff anything, so it had languished in a drawer. Until about four days ago when I told myself to just get on with it, on the grounds that my stuffing expertise was not going to magically improve while the thing lay there untouched. So I got it out, stuffed it and then sewed up the gap. It does actually stand (?sit) on its own and I'm really pleased with it because 

1) it's a finished project

2) not only did I finish a project but I used up a lot of stuffing 

3) it's really nice

Next up - Happy Mail

It is a Christmas Bunting Knitting Kit from Debbie Abrahams. If you're not a long term reader you might like to check out my previous posts concerning my conversion to knitted Christmas Bunting which are here and  here . I was sort of vaguely aware that there were bunting kits other than the one I had already done,  and as I had enjoyed knitting the first one, and as I really liked this one, and as I got an e-mail offering me 10% off which came to just over the postage cost, I succumbed. 

And before anyone rolls their eyes heavenwards, can I just say I have already made a start!

Sunday was a lovely day and we decided to try another walk from one of our local walk books. Happily this one did not take us through a dank and dark canal tunnel partly excavated by the body snatchers Burke and Hare, but much more pleasantly around Loch Airthrey, which lies at the heart of the University of Stirling campus. The weather was glorious, as were the views. 

As when we went to Gartmorn Dam, there was a heron

Yesterday we went to lunch with some friends which was lovely and I got to look at someone else's wool stash which was fun. It wasn't really an occasion for photos. I'd hoped, since we were going into Perthshire aka Big Tree Country, for swathes of autumn colours on the trees, but it was still maybe a mite too early and possibly we weren't quite far enough north. Another couple of weeks maybe. 

Today we went to Dunfermline, mainly to catch The Lost Words exhibition; words by Robert Macfarlane and images by Jackie Morris. I'm a fan of Morris, Macfarlane not so much. That said, I will admit, albeit through gritted teeth, that I found his words on this occasion to be mainly very well done; hugely evocative and, unlike his books, he hadn't put himself at the centre of them. Sadly, and oddly I thought,  taking pictures at the exhibition was  expressly forbidden, which I found doubly irritating as there were no cards or postcards of the artwork to be had in the shop where there were various other things related to the exhibition for sale. So here's a picture of the really nice cafe in the Dunfermline Library and Gallery where we had a light lunch after visiting the exhibition.

Dunfermline has a very splendid abbey, not that we went in, and a very steep set of streets with lovely views towards the hills.

There was also a very nice craft shop, mainly sewing, but with some wool as well. I didn't buy anything, as they didn't have the specific thing I went in search of, but I'm sure I'll be back - to both the shop and to the town as there was lots more to it that seemed worth exploring than we had time for today. 

Florence - Buildings and Views

 I can't really call this one Florence - Architecture, much as I'd love to, but I just don't know enough about architecture for that not to feel pretentious. So this is a collection of photos of famous and perhaps not so famous buildings in Florence and some views over the city which were taken from various different places. I did my best to keep the omnipresent building cranes out of my photos but it was a difficult thing to do and occasionally I failed. 

above and below, photos taken from windows of the Uffizi - you can see the rain on the hills in the top one

this is the terrace cafe at the Uffizi looking towards Il Duomo

and this from the same place looking over to the much nearer Palazzo Vecchio

This is the front of Santa Croce from the ground ...

...and this is Santa Croce from part way up the Palazzo Vecchio. You can see how far back it goes, it's absolutely huge and presumably it would have cost too much, even in Florence, to face the sides and back with marble as well as the front!

This is a very small part of Il Duomo, it's impossible to get all of it in at ground level. It's amazing. Years ago someone told me I wouldn't like it because it was garish, but you know, I did like it. As I said to someone else, I wouldn't build one like it in my back garden but taken for what it is it's rather lovely. And totally breathtaking. 

This is the bell tower of Il Duomo. You can pay to climb it. We didn't. 

Part of the charm of Florence, like Paris, is just being there and slowing down and looking at stiff that might not be famous but somehow says something about the city. We did a fair bit of sitting and people watching and building spotting; this one was in the square in front of the Cathedral. I loved it.You can also see how crowded the area around the cathedral is, even in the wet! It rained quite hard that day. 

Today's  was definitely a photo heavy post!

Florence - Art

 or some of it anyway. 

The main pull of Florence for me was the art so it will be no surprise to anyone that we spent our first day in the Uffizi. The OH was inclined to the view that it wouldn't take us that long as it was 'only two floors' Ha! 

It was only two floors but they were both huge. Also the lift wasn't functioning so that was a lot of stairs to climb. The top of the Uffizi is a l-o-n-g way up. In fact it's so far up that at the top there is a notice advising you not to look down. 

It's very regimented. They call the Alhambra 'the factory' in Granada, but honestly that's  a lot more relaxed than this was. I forget how many times our tickets were checked but it was at least four,and we had our bags scanned as well. There is also a one way system so you can't just check out the bits you're interested in and then leave, or skip bits. We did rush past the sculpture. We know nothing about sculpture. And to be fair there are lots of seats so whenever we felt the need for a sit down and a breath catch, there was somewhere to sit. Full marks on that score. And of course the places was rammed with tourists. 

I feel to fully appreciate the paintings in Florence you really need at least an MA in Early Italian Religious Painting. Otherwise it's just a lot of Annunciations and Visits of the Magi and lives of saints that, if you';re not Catholic, you've probably never heard of. There are, I discovered, only so many annunciations and Visits of the Magi that I can cope with and the Uffizi reached that limit quite early on. 

However, a few highlights

This one does come from a series of a life of a saint of whom I had never heard and depicts his miraculous repair of a broken kitchen sieve. (I kid you not). Personally I cannot detect a kitchen sieve, broken or otherwise, in this picture, unless it's the rhomboid(?) on the floor near the right hand corner, bu anyway it tickled me. 

I was gobsmacked by the skill of whoever painted this picture of an open book 

Then there were the Botticellis , of course 

That birth of Venus photo is rubbish but as always with famous pictures there were crowds round it - and the Primavera of course - which is why it's sideways on. I'm not bothered because I bought a post card. For once a gallery shop actually stocked a postcard of a picture that I wanted. 

And there were just loads more; a beautiful Leonardo, some lovely Rafaels although not many, a few amazing portraits,  mainly by Flemish artists! 

The Leonardo

and if you looked at that angel and said Gosh, how Burne Jones is that? - well snap! 

The problem with galleries like this ( apart from the tourists) is overload. Ideally you would live next to one, and visit every day for  a year and just look at a very limited number of paintings each day, and then you could appreciate each of them more fully.  Counsel of perfection I know. So I shall just be grateful that I got the chance to go at all. 

Wool stats and finished projects for September

 A more satisfying result than the last couple of months, that's for sure. In was only 100g which was the Yarn Unique artists club skein and I have not ordered September's even though it is Matisse so I'm giving myself a pat on the back for that. Out was 464; net decrease for the month 364, net decrease for the year now 5840. So that's something. 

Unsurprisingly, I finished yet another  pair of socks - a very old skein from The Knitting Goddess and these were for the OH. A bit subdued for him but he seemed pleased with them regardless, and they went on holiday to Florence. 

The 'big finish' was this stole for which I used the Giddy yarns 2023 Advent which was A  Midsummer Night's Dream themed. I find stoles easier to wear than other shawl shapes which was why I chose this pattern, the Adventuresome wrap by Ambah O Brian which someone had given me as a gift a while back. It too made a debut in Florence. Once I got going it was easier to knit than it probably looks. 

No predictions whatsoever about how October's numbers will go, I don't have a clue! 

Florence - Food

I thought just to mix things up  a bit I'd do Florence by theme rather than day by day, and I'm starting with the food because we arrived late afternoon and went out for a stroll and a meal so the first photos I have are of our first evening meal. 

We had pre-booked tickets for the Uffizi on our first full day so we went out to time our walk to there, so that we could turn up on time, and then once we'd found that we had a quick look around the Piazza della Signoria,  and then wandered off down several of the side streets trying to decide where to eat. It's always a bit of  gamble isn't it? Too close to a tourist hot spot and you're sure you're getting ripped off; too far away and can you make yourself understood/find anything on the menu that you recognise? 

Anyway we found a little place that looked nice, and the menu had several things on it that we did recognise,  and it had pannacotta on the dessert menu so we went in. And we had a lovely meal. We started with bruschetta, which was fabulous

and followed that up with lasagne for me and wild boar pappardelle for the OH ( don't have photos of either of those and then for dessert I had the pannacotta and the OH had tiramisu. Sadly the pannacotta was a bit gelatine heavy and so I wished I'd gone with  the tiramisu myself but you live and learn. 

And here's the OH looking wildly enthusiastic about being in Italy. 

The next day we had 'lunch' in the cafe at the Uffizzi!

No photos of  the evening  meal which we had in our hotel; I had ravioli which was very nice and the OH had a cheeseburger. 

I don't think we had any lunch the next day as we had booked a restaurant for the evening which had been recommended by a friend. It was, as I often say, Not Cheap and we wanted to do full justice to it. so we 'saved ourselves' as the old phrase has it. 

It may not have been cheap but the food was beautiful and the views from our table overlooking the Arno were amazing. There was great bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, the OH started off with a risotto with lemon, mint and zucchini, and then we both had the same main and dessert. The main was lamb with little cubes of potato, leek. onion, and plums and the dessert was a chocolate and hazelnut concoction that was totally delicious. 

The views from our table 

to the left ( Ponte Vecchio) 

straight over the river

and to the right

I didn't actually take any photos of the food but I did take one of the table and it does show the  OH's risotto

A special evening.

And the following night, given that we had to be up early the next day for breakfast and then the airport transfer, we ate at the hotel again and this time I follower the OH's lead and we both had cheeseburgers.

I don't know why the OH is always telling people that I don't like foreign food. I think what he means is that I don't like curry and although that is foreign, and although I don't like it, this leaves a long list of foreign cuisines that I'm happy with; Italian, Spanish, Swedish,  Czech, Austrian, Mexican, North African and Chinese.  As well as plenty that I have yet to try. Also, if you've been paying attention, you'll note I had one more Italian meal on this trip than he did! 

Something a bit more cheerful today.....

but not Florence yet because that's going to take me more days than we were actually there I suspect, and I can't face even starting it yet as that means making decisions about photographs which I can't  cope with just now.  I'll start tomorrow. Probably. 

Meanwhile on Sunday we went back to the Abbey at Cambuskenneth to climb the bell tower. Historic Environment Scotland, who own it, allow it to be opened on one day a year and the local civic archaeologist, Murray Cook, conducts tours. Numbers are strictly limited and there are only six tours so, despite the fact that we would only just be back the night before, we had booked to do it while we had the chance. 

We were on the one o' clock tour which was lucky because it had been foggy earlier,  but by the  time we got there to do ours the sun had come out and it was a beautiful September day. 

I think I've mentioned recently that spiral staircases are no longer my thing, and that I am also no longer able to cope with heights like I could when I was younger. But I was keen to see the ancient log boat which has been dumped  stored on the first floor so I told myself it wouldn't be that bad and gritted my teeth for the ascent. 

In the event most of the log boat was hidden under  a sheet, but I did at least see the pointy front bit and there were some miscellaneous bits of stonework too, of which this was the nicest

Possibly somethign commissioned by James IV. Possibly not. Anyway after that it was time to climb onto the roof. Which I did, although I will admit to feeling very trembly once I was out there. You do get some smashing views though. 

I was proud of myself for doing the climb and walking out onto the parapet and walking around a little way but I did come down a while before almost  everyone else. 

Once back on - I wanted to say 'dry land' there, such is the power of predictive thought! - I just meant the ground, we wandered over to the ruins of the abbot's house and looked over the ford - the river was very low and you can see why it was historically such an important location, as it's the only place to ford the Forth for miles.