Much to tell

Well we had a fabulous holiday in Madeira. The weather was perfect and we did a couple of spectacular levada walks, and saw the wilder west side of the island.
I would happily return to do more walking and exploring. It was wonderful to see bay trees as full grown forest trees, not crimped and tortured topiary.

The Tall Ships were also in Funchal for its 500th anniversary celebrations and they looked wonderful in such an exotic setting. At night we went down to see them, and got on board the Mexican vessel, which was full of shining brass and sailors immaculate in white uniforms dancing to Mariachi music. This photo was taken on their deck at sunset.

I liked the food too, especially their homemade sweet potato bread, which was like a cross between tattie scones and Irish soda bread. And lots of great fish grilled outdoors, their own prehistoric looking swordfish, which is not the usual swordfish, but a black monster from 3,000ft shaped like a sword blade that they catch on baited lines. I also loved the grilled sardines, and great slabs of tuna with garlic.

I took tons of photographs, which I'm working through, and will post some over the winter, to cheer myself up if nothing else.

Today I took part in a "sustainable blah (my home town)" meeting, which is looking to insulate homes for the coming winter and our house was lucky enough to be selected as part of the project. So our loft should be triple lagged by Christmas, which will hopefully save us a bit on our fuel bill.

And I'm editing the photos for the school calendar, that I took before I went away. It was such a fun day, with the kids all dressing up to pretend it was summer and school sports day, or Shrove Tuesday, or Burns' Night, etc, etc. Some of the shots have had me bursting out laughing as I've worked through them.

I swear sunshine is the best possible tonic. No wonder we're all full of doom and gloom, given the summer we've had. I suggest a week in the sun for everyone on the NHS!

Lastly Mary Lorson, whose music I love, has a great new album out with a group called Piano Creeps. This is a sample track called Hey Love. You can pre order it from Kora Records.


The Piano Creeps - "Hey Love" from Cascade Video/Don Bazley on Vimeo.