Sham Shui Pol

December 31st 2018

Well today is New Years Eve and we look forward to leaving the old year and starting a New Year.

For many 2018 has been a year of many changes and adventures, so good and some not so good.

Paul and I started our 2018 not so good but God saw us through and we rose above the health issues that Paul struggled with into a sunny summer. We enjoyed beautiful times at our trailer, family time when our kids celebrated with us early our 50th with a family photo shot, those are the precious memories we will always treasure. Time with family means so a lot when everyone is so scattered around the world. We had a beautiful time with family in the UK finishing with a cone and go celebration tea with family and friends that we could see separately and what a lovely celebration it was, God has so blessed us with beautiful friends and family. And to Paul and I it isn't material things that are important at this stage of our life but time spent with friends and family.

Today I am going to share with you Sham Shui Po, which is over on. Kowloon . Leigh Ann and her friend Cilla took me there to see the sights, smells of Sham Shui Po. It is a place where the locals shop and as I say the sight and sounds are quite different to what us westerners are used to. I think we were in the he minority among the shoppers. The vegetable and fruit so we see in our shops at home but many strange veg that I haven't a clue what they were. And the meat hung to the open air not something we are used to but interesting never the less.

A closer look we see things that I think are pigs trotters not quite sure of the other meats displayed.

Then there was the sewing machine shops and fabric shops also beading stores. I have never seen so many beads, Suzanne you would enjoy that.

Can you see the washing hanging out the windows, I wonder what happens if you dropped something as you peg it out on the line!!

Christmas 2018

December 25th 2018

On Christmas Eve the boys opened one parcel with their Christmas PJ in this has been a tradition in their family that they do every year.

After Christmas Leigh Ann and Duncan asked us if we would take part having our photo's taken by a professional photographer that want to have a shoot showing people over the age of 70, I think it was for his portfolio.  I think they came out quite good.

Also one of us both as you can see they have his water mark on for his company.

I will end here as I seem to have problems when I load too many photos.By the way Paul was sitting on a stool and I as standing so that is why he seems shorter.

We went to Stanley the other day on our own for lunch and browse at the shops, but the pictures I took are on my big camera and need to be down loaded onto the computer.

My next blog is of a place called Sham Shui Po.

Bye for now.

Happy Winter Solstice.

December 21st 2018.

Happy Winter Solstice our shortest day and tomorrow the days will begin to lengthen a little each day.
Also today was Pauls birthday so we celebrated by going out for supper and a birthday cake made by Leigh Ann, and of course candles for Papa Paul and the boys to blow out.

Here is a picture with Papa Paul with all his grandsons taken back in August when we had a photo shoot.

Today it was 27C and we headed out to the chug chug ferry and went over to Peng Chau for a picnic lunch on the beach and a time to swim and paddle in the water.
Peng Chau is one of the many island around Hong Kong. The kids live on Lantau Island in a place called Discovery Bay, around the other side of Lantau is the Hong Kong International Airport. We have never been to Peng Chau so it was adventure for us. We had to climb a lot of steps to reach the beach not so bad going but coming back I think Pauls knee had enough as he finds going down harder on his knee.
Here are a few pictures of the Grandsons at the beach.

In the back ground you can see Discovery Bay where we came over from on the ferry.

I thought I would also share with you a gal that I follow on line with her thread sketching and thread painting. I love her unique style of the everyday things of life that we take for granted and makes them into a scene that she thread sketches and paints. With her kind permission I am sharing some of her pieces that I enjoy.

If you want to check her site out on FB you can find her at Amanda Hartland Textile Art.

I am sure everyone is getting geared up for Christmas, I know we have 3 very excited little boys here

and we hope to go to a candle light carol sing on the beach on Christmas Eve.

Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas as we remember,

Jesus is the reason for the season.

Hong Kong trip.

December 17th 2018

Hong Kong We Have Arrived!

After a few days of getting over jet lag we were out and about Discovery Bay.
Today we walked to the Plaza to go to post office and collect a few groceries. And went over the ferry to Central where we went to collect our seniors octopus card so we can ride the ferry and buses at half price.
Because in Discovery Bay the mountains are the backdrop so where ever you go it is either up hill or down hill, so we walk downhill and catch the bus up when we are loaded with groceries.
Here is the photo of looking back up the road to where our son and his family have moved.

We walked down through the trees to the beach and along the beach walk into plaza.

The plaza has always been a great meeting place of friends, where one can grab a coffee and sit at the tables and visit. Today they are beginning to get the pointsetta and the Christmas Decorations out.

We went on the ferry into central to get our seniors octopus passes for half price fares on the buses and ferry. We were lucky to see a junk from the window of the ferry before we docked. Also a view of downtown Hong Kong.

As you can see it has been a lovely day, temperature about 21C, yesterday the rain came down the mountain, so when we came out from church everywhere was wet but it soon dried up.

Until next time

Ally.

Cornwall Tin Mine

Few More Pictures from Cornwall.


While in the UK this pass summer we were able to visit Cornwall for 5 days. We took an apartment that we found on the Air B&B site online and was very pleased with it. It was situated at a small seaside town called Looe, which is very Central to lots of places in the South Coast and North coast of Cornwall.
One of the places on the North coast of Cornwall, we wanted to visit was St Agnes it is renowned for the beautiful rugged coastline with beautiful breaking rollers, certainly a great subject for this thread painter. But one of the items I did want to take photo's of was the many derelict tin mines making them a good subject to thread paint.
So here are a few I took of them.

As you can see from the photo's we had excellent weather, in the whole 3 weeks there we had only 1/2 hour of rain, which is amazing for England, we were so bleassed.

I do have many more photo's of quaint places of England to share with you and took some beautiful rugged coastline of Tintagel, but they are all on my desktop computer at home and right now we are away on our travels.

As many of you know our son and daughter in law and g.sons live in Hong Kong and after such a bad winter for Paul health wise we decided to make this trip while everything health wise is stable. So Hong Kong for Christmas and Australia in the New Year. So we would love to share our travels with you. Hope you will join us from your armchair and enjoy the vistas. As many of you know that our Hong Kong family lived on a boat and had to vacate it, very upsetting for them as they loved their life and community life at the marina, so it has been quite an adjustment for them, losing their friends as they all scatter to different parts of Hong Kong, Thailand and beyond. Saying goodbye is never easy but we hope for them positive thoughts to new beginnings. So we say goodbye to Karma.

UK trip

Visiting a Textile Artist.

For a few years now I have been following the work of Alison Holt, a well known and very talented Textile Artist, specializing and teaching of Thread Paintings. Her work is superb and it is on my bucket list to take one of her courses one day. She travels to Australia and New Zealand as well as the UK to teach her techniques of thread painting. I was first introduced to her by my Australian friend Barbara Blackwell. So it was on my list to visit the gallery she places her work at. When I knew that I would be near where she lives and the gallery where she sales and shows her work, I contacted to find more details of location of gallery and its opening times, and she invited me to her studio. What a wonderful experience to see her work up close and personal and to actually meet her in person.
My brother and wife as well as Paul were with me and they said that my whole being showed the excitement I felt.
This myself with Alison.

 

In the background you see the beautiful work on Alison.

Here are two of her pieces of the English countryside, I think my favorite is the bluebell woods.

Our 50th Wedding Anniversary

December 10th 2018

Before our trip to the UK our children surprised us by setting up a photo shot with family photos, and a beautiful family supper with us all together at lovely restaurant. It was a beautiful day with the sun shinning and lively and warm, a great for taking photos.
So thought I would share with you all. Our actually our 50th anniversary was celebrated in England at my brothers house with a come visit tea for friends and family that we weren't able actually to visit at their homes.
We had a lovely week in a apartment in Cornwall and the weather was so great and only rain for a few minutes the whole time we were in England, which for England is surprising.

I don't know if you remembered a picture of a farm gate that I took a picture of, when we were on a country walk. So I did a thread painting of it for the Christmas in Paris show but it was one that didn't sale , so I have decided to keep it for ourselves reminders of our UK trip.

Hoping in the next day or so to get back in here to post a few more pics of our UK trip.

Our UK Trip. Summer August 2018.

 Here are a few pictures I have selected from our visit to Hestercombe Gardens. At one time my brother was Head Gardener and was involved in the Restoration of the Victorian Gardens that are quite a poplar garden to visit in the West Country. They are just on the outskirts of Taunton.

The hot weather this year that they experience in the English countryside did have a bearing on the show of flowers.

The first picture is of the formal gardens outside the house. The second picture is a farm gate taken  in landscape gardens which is a lovely walk around the pond with different little places of interest to see on your walk. A lovely little rustic bridge over the stream that falls away from one of the big ponds, which had a swan and ducks swimming on.

The lonely swan on the lake lost its partner a few years ago and they have introduce various swans but it didn't accept the ones put there, so the lonely swan is joined by a few ducks.

The lake cascades in a waterfall and joins the smaller pond.



I'll leave you with a few more photos of the formal gardens with its rills and fountains.

Everywhere looks so green but a bit disappointing with the flower colour. But we did manage to find some colour of flowers and hope some can be used for my thread painting at a later date.

In my next blog I will show you some views from our Cornish holiday.

Feel free to comment, it is always nice to hear what people think or questions they may have.

My brother David gives garden talks on Hestercombe with a presentation of the garden in different stages of growth. If you are on Facebook you could check out my page Ally Bryant or David Usher where he has some small clips of the beautiful gardens of the South West of England. He at present is planning speaking engagements for Canada in 2020.

I would be remiss not to apologies for the absent of blogs early in the spring, and this summer has been a busy time for us. Hoping to get back into the groove.

WHEN IS SPRING COMING!

April 7th 2018

It is a long time since I last wrote in my blog. It seems since November that life has been full of Dr. appointments, hospital visits and my husband had two operations, which ended up with him having complications. It has been ongoing since after Christmas but glad to say that he has recovered and is back to his old self. With all this stress going on I had an attack of  something I struggle with , but glad to say I am feeling better too.
It seems that we have had a long cold snowy winter this year and we are all looking forward to some warmth and sunshine.

Needless to say I have not used my sewing studio as I had hope this winter. But have managed to do a few things and working on some pouches for the upcoming Holmedale Art Crawl in which I and a invited guest of mine are displaying our work. So it is all steam ahead for that.

Here are a few things that I have been working on. I had bought some fabric when I was last in Australia with Kangaroo's on and have bought some African fabric made in and supporting African natives. The fabric is bright and happy fabric that will make excellent pouches for I pad, makeup bags, sewing notions etc.

And here is what I made with them. I etched with thread the kangaroos to give the bag a quilted look.

Here is a postcard I did last week for a postcard challenge anything that was diamonds and I chose a kite shaped like a diamond. It was a fun piece to do didn't take long and it was the first time I had been back in my sewing studio since I was sick, I just couldn't get enthused about sewing but this did the trick.

I had been in a swap quite a while ago on a Embroidery site on Connecting threads so decided to put the blocks from the swap into a throw rug with lots of snowmen on and thought I would do it for a Christmas gift so at lest I have made a start in that direction.

Here it is ready to be free motion quilted, I am going to do a simple pattern on it .

I am going to finish off by showing you the next project I hope to work on. I wonder what it is going to be, so watch these pages and you'll find out. Being a thread painter and using lots of thread I have acquired a lot of thread clippings and they are so colourful I can't bear to throw them out so just you watch what I do!!!!

Hoping by the next time I post a blog that the bulbs in the garden that are up about 4" above the ground will be up and flowering.

As usual I would like to leave you with a food for thought, and want to share with you something while Paul was going through a rough time that came to me and gave me peace and it is these words.

Psalm 46: 10     Be Still and Know that I Am God.