frayed at the edge

A stroll round town

This is the fourth time that we have gone to Pollensa on holiday, but we never tire of walking round the old town, especially when there are sights like these to see

 

A beautiful house we passed on the way up the many, many steps to the Church of Calvari

 

It was worth the walk to see the old church and ......

 

..... the stunning view

 

there are lots of wonderful quirky streets like this one

 

I don't think these steps comply with building regulations!

 

The church in the main square is undergoing extensive renovations - but then it is rather old, having been built by the Knights Templar.

 

 

 

This escutcheon on the church door shows the Templars' Cross

 

 

 

OK, it's not scenery, but to finish I thought you might like this stall at the Sunday market!
 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 
 
 

It will come as no surprise ..........

.......... to regular readers, if I start the tales of our holidays with some food!!  Before we left, I mentioned that no doubt cake would be eaten, and  on our first morning, these little beauties were consumed with great relish!!

 

 

Mindful of the amount of calories in cakes, we shared this one!!

 

 

When Stuart came out to join us for the second week ........ the cake eating continued

 

 

But we didn't eat cake every day ........ one morning we had icecream

 

this was mine

 

 

Stuart was delighted with his

 

 

I think this picture shows how good the icecream was!!!

 

It wasn't just us who were tucking into treats - Malcolm enjoyed giving these chickens in the orchard next to the villa some tasty things to eat

 

 

But don't worry - we did walk off a lot of those calories ....... tomorrow I'll show you some of the sights of Pollensa.

 

 

 

Back home ........

........ but only just!!!!!  Yes, that ash was causing chaos again today, with a lot of Spanish airports closed .... but thankfully not Palma.  However our flight was delayed for quite a while and had to fly much lower than usual and take a different route round the worst of the ash.  Never mind, we're back home now and sitting relaxing with a glass of wine (as if we didn't drink enough on holida!)  No pictures tonight, as I'm just too tired to put them on the laptop (we had a very early start!)

Thanks for still visiting while I was away and leaving comments - glad you liked Mr May!!

I'm singing a John Denver song!!

Yes, Our bags are packed, and we're almost ready to go (hooray).  We are setting off later this morning for Morpeth, to go out for lunch with Jennifer, then later in the day, we head to Newcastle Airport to check into an airport hotel.  Our flight is very early tomorrow morning, so we would rather spend the night in the hotel than have to drive down way before the crack of dawn!!  I have set up some posts to appear while we are away - I haven't done this before (maybe I should have had a trial run!), but all being well, there will be Tuesday Tutorials and Shadow Shot Sundays.  Please still leave comments, as I love to get them and I will read them all when I get home.

 

So for the next two weeks, you can think of us here .....

 

 

perhaps indulging in some of these ......

 

 

and definitely some of this .....

 

Cheers!!

 

Singapore sensations!

This will be the last full post of photos from our holiday - although I am sure some photos will creep in to other posts in the future - especially shadow shots when we have to many grey days during the winter!

After our wonderful stay in Sydney, we moved on to Singapore.  I've just had a brief look at the photos, and there are so many wonderful ones, it is hard to choose some...... so I've picked some lovely ones from the Botanic Gardens

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had fun taking the last photo - making sure only Malcolm's head could be seen!!  I hope you have enjoyed the photos of these beautiful plants - I have enjoyed looking through them again!

 

 

 

 

As Simon and Garfunkel said .....

...... Gee, but it's good to be back home (or something like that!!)  It's lovely to be sitting in my nice comfortable armchair, with my laptop on my lap (!), and my feet up on my footstool - bliss.  We had an absolutely wonderful holiday, but it's always good to get home.

It's also great to have a reasonably fast Internet connection again - while it was good having the connection in our apartment in Singapore so that we could e-mail family, it was so slow to put photos in the blog that I was going off and doing other things, coming back every so often to check on the progress!!

While having a last potter round the shops yesterday, we came across this lovely lady ....

..... she was very cute, but also very LARGE .......

 ..... she is actually 20 metres tall!!

 

We went for a cuppa, but I decided to have a change from iced lemon tea, and had a hot chocolate - Malcolm ordered a 'regular' for me- which turned out to be rather large .....

 

It was a long day to spend before we finally got on the plane, but we then enjoyed our last experience of First Class .....

..... jammies, toilet bag, a little appetizer and of course a little glass of champagne .... and after a good night's sleep, what better way to end the flight than this delicious breakfast

On the way home, we called in to see Malcolm's sister Jennifer, who made us chilli con carne - it was so good to have a home-cooked meal!  Tonight we had a bowl of home-made vegetable soup - the start of the healthy eating regime (musn't say 'diet!) after all the wonderful meals we had on holiday (I don't want to think about how many times we ate chips - we very, very rarely eat chips at home!!!!)

 

I wonder what I'll be doing tomorrow - laundry perhaps?

ps - don't forget to leave a comment to be included in the draw for my 200th post giveaway!!

 

 

 

 

Yes, our bags are packed .....

....... and we're just about ready to head for home - although we have to hang about quite a bit tomorrow, as our flight is quite late.  We have had a super time revisiting our favourite places in Singapore, and we have been overawed by the newest shopping malls  - they are bigger, better, more luxurious ......

However for my last photo from Singapore, I have chosen this one, of a funny little water feature I came across this morning - jets of water that shoot out of one hole, then vanish down another - as you can imagine, it took a few goes to capture the water spouts, as they move at some speed .....

 

 

In a few days time, I will reach my 200th post (I'm amazed that some of you have been reading this from the beginning and are STILL reading it!!)  So of course this means there has to be a giveaway.  I have something from Australia and something from Singapore to give away (and when we finally get home and unpack, I might even find some other little things!)  So ..... starting from this post, leave a comment (or if you don't do comments, e-mail me - click on 'about' on the right hand sidebar and you should find an e-mail link)) and on the day I do the 200th post, I'll get my random number generator (ok, you know I mean Malcolm) to pick the winning numbers.  I'm quite happy to post the prizes abroad, so no matter where you live, do enter!!

So to finish, an interesting little thing about crossing the road here - when the green man is about to go to red, another sign lights up, telling you how many seconds you have left to cross the road ..... and they are testing a new system, where elderly people can swipe their travel passes on a reader on the traffic lights, and they will get extra time to cross - wonderful!!

I hope you have enjoyed our travels - we certainly have (except perhaps standing on top of that mountain ......)

Love, Anne

 

 

Tropical beauties

This morning we went to the Botanic Gardens - it was very hot and very sticky, but we soon forgot that as we walked round admiring the beautiful tropical plants.  Then we went into the Orchid Gardens ..... I took so many photos, it is hard to pick one to show you .....

 

I would love to show you more photos, but as I mentioned before , this connection is so slow, it might be quicker to print the photos and post them!!

 

 

Singapore Sling

Today we headed to the wonderful Raffles Hotel .....

...... and I did what all good tourists do .....

 ..... I had a Singapore sling .... cheers!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nick of time!

As you may have seen on the news, Sydney was covered by a cloud of red dust yesterday!!  While we were very glad to have flown out the day before ...... on the other hand, I would have had some wonderful photos  ......  however, pop over to Just like Martha to see Lee's photos!! 

Singapore is hot and sticky - but as always ... fantastic!!  It's four years since we were last here, and we have been amazed at the changes.  Previously, we had stayed in an apartment in the Ascott, (where I also had two stays of six weeks, when there was political unrest in Indonesia).  When Malcolm tried to book an apartment there for this trip, he was unable to do so - and now we know why .....

There should have been a 30-storey building obscuring the view of the Hyatt - the entire thing has been demolished!! I felt quite sad that it is all gone, as I have many happy memories of staying there ..... A lot of the older malls have been demolished, or have been stripped back to a bare concrete shell, ready for redevelopment - Singapore is definitely not a city to rest on its laurels!!  One of the newst malls is ION - this is just a small part of it ....

 

However, some of the wonderful old buildings on Orchard Road have defied the march of progress ....

The city is in the grip of Grand Prix fever - last night we were going to go along to see Lewis Hamilton, but decided against it - and having seen photos of the crowds at  the event in today's paper, we're glad we didn't go!!  One of the hotels has a novel way of displaying a racing car ...

Yes .... it's made entirely from bread!!!

We went to the cinema this evening, to see The Time Traveller's Wife - yes, I cried at the end!!  Then we went to my MOST favourite place to eat in Singapore - Crossroads Cafe, at the Marriott Hotel.  It is the most wonderful place to sit and people watch, while eating superb food ... we had lobster thermidor ..... yum, yum and a bit more yum!!!

Well, it's getting to the end of a long day, so it's time to say goodnight!!

ps - have just discovered that yesterday's post has gone awol - I had a bit of a problem with the Internet connection, so I hope this one reaches you!!!!