Saturday, September 29, 2012

Days One through Five and ugly fabric project

In the near future I am going to embark on a trip that I have wanted to do for many years, South Africa here I come.

Day one: 
I depart from home for a flight to New York.  Here my room mate, from Montreal, Quebec and myself will meet for the first time.  We are hoping to have sufficient time to take in a bit of late afternoon sightseeing.

Day two:
Depart from New York to Johannesburg, a long flight, so hope to be able to get a bit of sleep.

Day three:
Arrive in Johannesburg and at our hotel, we meet all of the people on the tour during a welcome dinner.

Day four:
Starts with a tour of Johannesburg, a visit to the Apartheid Museum.  In the afternoon we visit the township of Soweto.

Day five:
We fly to Victoria Falls and transfer to our Lodge.  Dinner tonight is described as a special African experience.  Always open to trying new foods, I am looking forward to this meal.  I have taken precautions, Dukoral is now in my system.  LOL

Thursday night was the first meeting of the Fall season for the quilting guild I belong to.  It was great to see everyone.  At our June meeting, our host asked everyone to bring a fat quarter of their ugliest fabric.  All of the fabric was then placed in a bag and each one of us had to pull out a piece and make something from it for our September meeting.  This is a piece of the fabric I pulled out.
And this is what I made from the fat quarter, a reversible apron, a draw resulted in it going to B.
Patricia

Sunday, September 16, 2012

Alaska...missed the boat...finally caught up with it.

After many delays, missed connections, lost baggage and many other misfortunes, we finally arrived in Juneau, Alaska to board our ship, the ms Volendam,  two days after it set sail from Vancouver.  Better late than never, so they say.
The main reason for my sister, brother in law and myself going on this cruise was to take this person, my 95 year old Mother, on the vacation that she said earlier this year, that she would like to take.  I am so glad that we finally made it to the ship and she was able to fulfill her dream.  Her positive attitude and pleasant personaliity certainly made our trip one we will remember for a long time.  One to remember, not only for the many problems at the beginning, that we can now laugh at, but that we were able to have what might be our last vacation together.  
My new camera has a feature that can take panoramic photo's, which I know I am going to use a lot in the future, that is rain spots on the lens, not snow.

Marjorie Glacier, the most spectacular one we saw while cruising the Glacier Bay National Park.
A close up of the Glacier showing all the different colours of ice. The photo does not do justice to the colour of the blue ice, it was a lot brighter that it shows. If the sun had been shining we would have seen even brighter colours.  Some ice was black where the Glacier had been rubbing against the rocky mountains as it moved on its way down to the water.
Even though we had a bad start to the week, we did have a great time, fantastic scenery, yummy food and the gin and tonic's went down very well.
Oh, by the way, I did find three quilt shops, in which I did spend some time drooling over the fabric and patterns, some of which just happen to come home with me.  But, that's another post.  
Patricia