Friday, July 25, 2008

More holiday snaps

However, on a more upbeat note, here's a balloon floating near our Cotswold cottage. There's no way you'd get me up in one of those, but it looked very pretty and they must have had a great view.

Mr Life and my brother are steam train enthusiasts. Here's my brother admiring an engine in the Lake District which is about to pull this train with us aboard it.

Here are Daughter 1 and her husband, on this train. What nice smiles.


From above the door to the ticket office, some little faces looked down on us - swallows or perhaps swifts?

On our way to the Cotswolds we visited Liverpool to see an exhibition of paintings from the age of steam. We also passed some morris dancers. "They look a bit like steam enthusiasts," said Mr Life, "but slimmer."


A further, Cotswold, train, which we also went on. Don't say I'm not good to you, Mr Life. (But he's good to me too.)


This is Snowshill, a Cotswold house belonging to a rather eccentric architect, who collected - everything you can think of. Pictures, antique furniture, oriental artefacts, bicycles, weaving looms, various other mechanical whatsits, clocks, china - everything in vast amounts. The dusting! He accumulated so much stuff that he bought this house for his collection but actually lived in an adjacent cottage (also with a lot of objects in it but no electricity or heating or anything soppy like that).
He married at 60 (what was the woman thinking of?) and when he died, she moved away and lived in a hotel in beautiful Broadway. I wonder why.







12 comments:

  1. Tee-hee, morris dancers and steam enthusiasts, anoraks all!

    Those are swallows, bless their little hearts! Swifts have no white to speak of and in fact you rarely see the babies as they tuck them away in inaccessible places, on account of having no nest materials to speak of, because they never come near the ground or anything solid at all, and are supposed to just catch odd wisps of this or that from out the air to furnish their abodes. Occasionally a young swift falls from its bleak and spartan cradle and then that's curtains for it I'm afraid, but that's really the only time you'll see one.

    Did I just call someone else an anorak?

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  2. I just loved seeing the photos of your holiday. You havee some beautiful shots. It all looks very picturesque. What a cute shot of the birds:-) Your daughter has such beautiful hair, and you are right, what nice smiles.

    I do hope that your SIL gets better. So hard to deal with.

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  3. I am enjoying the photos of your holiday they are realy great wish I was there I like the old House I would love to look inside it.
    Hugs Mary.

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  4. Beautiful vacation pics Isabelle! And personally, I think Mr. Snowshill (haha) had the right idea -- I could use a separate house for all my junk. Maybe I should just get rid of it!

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  5. For the money obviously !

    Great holiday photos! Morris dancers - heheh!

    I think the wee swallows are perhaps the 3 wise birds - you know, " hear no evil; see no evil; speak no evil!" ( yeah, I know one didn't put his wings over his ears; but that's what it reminded me of anyway! )

    Happy holidays.

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  6. I went up in a hot air balloon a few years ago and it was stunning! I loved it. It is amazingly silent up there, and such fun to watch everyone - they all wave!
    Great photos, Isabelle!

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  7. I love the Morris dancers! Also the little birds.
    Your daughter & SIL look a nice couple there.
    The 'collector' had me intrigued... what happened to all the 'stuff' when the widow departed for a hotel life?

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  8. Meggie, the stuff remained behind and now belongs to the National Trust so that we can all go and look at it and shudder and vow to go home and have a clearout!

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  9. The photos were wonderful! I loved them. Thank you for sharing! I am thinking of your son in law. Hoping things get better.

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  10. So boys don't grow out of their love of trains then?

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  11. what lovely photos, we saw bits of lake district in the rain one summer's day years ago! and lol, a boy and his trains...never fails ;) funny about the house of collectibles and the collector next door....now gone!

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  12. The more I read your blog, the more I would like to come over and visit. Your holiday sounds absolutely delightful; the photos are charming, especially the swallows - gorgeous! Ken and I are also steam train enthusiasts, and that's another reason we would enjoy a trip to your part of the world. Now just to win the lottery...

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