Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Wales and Liverpool


This is a very long list, so settle down with a cuppa :).

After we left Cornwall we headed up North as we had to be in Liverpool by Friday night.  About that further down.

So most of the time after we left Cornwall involved a of driving.  This is Gloucester where we spent the night.  


The hotel were we stayed.  Henry VIII is supposed to have stayed here.


Because my DH had never been to England before we decided to go into Wales for the day.  Another Church where I had to take a photo of the graveyard.  For some reason I'm attracted to them.  Maybe it's because they remind me of books by some if my favourite authors. Elizabeth Gaskell, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens etc.



We were driving through Wales and we came across this lovely village in South Wales.  It's called Caerleon and what is fascinating is that there's a lot of Roman Ruins there including a Fortress and Roman Baths.


We were really lucky as the Baths were open which was wonderful.  They are a bit different from the Roman Baths is Bath.  They Have water inside of them.  The water  in these ones are created by lighting and there are holograms of Romans bathing which was interesting to see.  Plus there were a lot of Roman artefacts there.


We found this quite fascinating.  If you look closely you can see the sole of a Roman sandal that is on a brick tile.  There is also two other footprints on another tile, but the photo is a bit blurry.  They are the footprints of a cat and a dog.  They think that a cat walked onto the tile while it was still wet.  A dog chased the cat and his paw print was placed there and then the Roman chased both of them.


Roman mosaics.

We had lunch in Caeleon and there were some amazing wood carvings outside.


Beautiful Welsh Mountains in December.


While travelling through the a Mountains we came across this site.   We had to sit and wait for half an hour while they transferred the wooden logs from one truck to another.


I decided to get out if the car to take some  photos as it was quite pretty and also stretch my legs.

Suddenly there was a huge bang above me to that frightened the life out of me.  It turned out to be one of these.  Then there was another and another.  You really don't hear them coming until  they are on top of you.  I now know where the expression about wearing brown cords comes from lol.  They came around a couple of times.


The next day late in the afternoon we arrived in Liverpool.  A lot of people go to Liverpool for The Beatle experience.  This was the closest I got to anything connected to The Beatles.  The photo was hanging in the hallway in the hotel they we stayed in.  It was outside our room.


The Mersey River.


My DH and 3 Sons are HUGE Liverpool fans.  It has always his dream to go to Anfield the Home of Liverpool FC.  He has been an International Member of the Club for many years.


We had booked in to do The Liverpool Experience on the Saturday morning.  As soon as he saw this come into view he told me that "there was Heaven" and The Gates To Heaven.


This is the Memorial to the 96 people who sadly died in 1989 when there were to many people in the stands and they were crushed to death when people started to panic.  What I found quite touching while standing on the footpath opposite was a taxi that drove past it.  The driver bowed his head and crossed himself.


While waiting for our tour to start we decided to go into the Merchandise shop.  Bad move.  With 4 Liverpool  fans and Christmas it turned out to be a very expensive place to be.  Think we could have bought a new player for the season :).  This is just a very small section of the shop.


My husband wanted this photo of his hand touching this Sign.  All of the players walk underneath it and touch it when they go out to play a game.


Some of the Silverware that they have won.  These are the UEFA Cups - Champions of Europe.  Liverpool have won 5 of them and can keep them.  They are quite big.  You can only keep them when you win the UEFA Cup 5 times.


While we were there on Saturday I decided to try and see if it was possible to get 2 tickets to see Liverpool play Arsenal the following day.  It was a long shot and we got lucky as they say because we got 2 tickets.  Only problem was that they were 10 rows apart, in the same section though.  But it wasn't a problem, as we were THERE.  Tell you I learnt a lot of new words that day sitting with the guys lol.  Especially from the young guy sitting next to me.  My goodness.  He certainly wasn't Stirlings fan.  This was before all of the stories that he was leaving.


Before going to the game on Sunday we went for a quick tour of Liverpool.  Didn't see a lot as we were worried about finding a spot to park our car.  






Don't you love my hat.  Because it was quite cold and I kept getting earaches my husband bought this wonderful Harris Tweed with Imitation Mink hat while we were in Bath.  Did the trick and I didn't get them again.



Don't you love this photo of Steven Gerard.  He's one of my Sons favourite players.  He looks like he's getting a bit peeved at somebody.



We were in Liverpool for 2 full days and spent all of the time at Anfield.  What an experience.  It's something my husband will never forget.


Thought that I'd show you something that I have wanted to work on for a very long time.  I call it my dream sampler.  There is no chart for it and I'm working it all out from a photo that I have had for a long long time.  It's my interpretation of a sampler that is in The V&A.

Thank you for stopping by.  I know that I have been a terrible Blogger lately, but I don't seem to have the time to sit down and write as I did before my DH retired.  Next time we are in Scotland.

7 comments:

Patti-Rocky Mtn Stitcher said...

Beautiful! We have family in Rufford outside of Liverpool. Making me homesick! Isn't it just lovely.

Kaisievic said...

Fabulous post, thanks for taking me on your trip with you.

Robin Sutton said...

Sandra, thank you for the time travel! It's all very interesting and pretty. Now, that stitching is looking fabulous and I can't wait to see what you are going to come up with! So very pretty.
Robin

Margaret said...

So funny how Liverpool is important in your family for the football whereas in mine it's important for the Beatles. lol! So much fun to see what you got up to on your trip. Love that hat. Love the stitching too!

Julie - My Primitive Heart said...

You have certainly travelled to some fabulous places!! Thank you so much for sharing as it feels a tiny bit like I got to go along!! You do such beautiful stitching too!!
Warm Blessings to you~
Julie

siva said...

Hi, Thanks for sharing this amazing post with us. Gifts in Coimbatore I enjoyed the entire article and keep rocking!

Unknown said...

Hi
Hope I don't sound too pedantic but Caerleon is in SOUTH Wales (not north), it is very close to Newport. - just don't want to put people off visiting if they think it is further away than it is. - Proud Welsh Lady