Greenwich

Hello everyone. I hope you are having an enjoyable week - it's not quite so sunny here as it was but the daffodils and hyacinths are open in the garden, so who could fail to be cheered? 

I'm joining in with Planet Penny's Happy Friday once more and I think my happiest moment this week had to be my trip to Greenwich. E had her final seminar following her trip to Auschwitz last week, so off we trekked to Canary Wharf. 

There may have been a bit of 'use up the stash block knitting' on the train!

........ and perhaps a wee bit more when we arrived early and had to kill some time in a cafe!

When I'd dropped her off, I had 4 hours in which to amuse myself, so hopped onto the Docklands Light Railway and popped over to Greenwich.

My first stop was to see The Cutty Sark. Forgive me if you already know the history of the ship. For those who don't, she is a British Tea Clipper built in 1869. She spent a while on the tea trade before turning to the wool trade from Australia and then was used as a cadet training ship. She is now in permanent dry dock in Greenwich.

The ship was named after Cutty-sark, the nickname of the witch Nannie Dee in Robert Burn's poem 'Tam o' Shanter'. In the poem, she wears a linen sark (chemise) which she had from when she was a child - hence, it was too short or 'cutty'. A man, Tam, a little worse for wear after a night's drinking on market day, comes across some witches dancing. At first he watches quietly, but then gets carried away and calls out 'Weel done, cutty-sark!'. The witches give chase and Tam spurs his horse, Meg, towards the River Doon, as the witches can't cross a running stream. They come so close to catching him that they pull poor Meg's tail off - seen clutched by the figurehead.

She really is a beautiful ship and visitors can go on board. I didn't this time, deciding instead to visit again with the girls during the holidays.

I rather enjoyed the juxtaposition of the old and the new:

Nearby is Greenwich Market with some interesting stalls and adjacent shops.

I particularly liked the old bottles and tins on this one, but they were a tad pricey!

Looking at this photo - is that a 'No Photography' sign I see? How embarrassing, I honestly didn't notice it at the time!

Greenwich is a beautiful place - R and I have visited in the past, pre-children, to see the observatory, but it will definitely be worth doing a family return visit. All too soon, my 4 hours were up and it was time to collect E. She came out of her seminar rather hungry, so enjoyed a sort of pick and mix veggie sushi picnic on the train ride home.

Other happies this week include:

A bunch of cheery daffs on a rainy day:

Mother's Day treasures from my darling daughters - a much needed new manicure set and a set of tins which I intend to use for a 'patchwork out and about' kit:

Quilting L's graduation present - I just need to sew in a few threads and, rather annoyingly, sort out a few creases on the back. I used spray adhesive this time, rather than basting/pins but still had problems. Any hints from more experienced quilters as to how to avoid creases will be very gratefully received!

Finally, On Tuesday I attended a local 'Primitive Stitching' workshop. This is me grabbing a quiet five minutes to work on my March hare:

Now I just have to embroider the leaves and flowers before backing it and blanket stitching around the edge:

Apologies for the rather dark photos - it has been a rather gloomy week so far. 

Anyway, that's all for this week's happies. Wishing you all a fun and, I hope, sunny weekend. 

Toodle Pip for now. x