Kimmeridge & Tyneham Walk

On the weekend I went for a walk with Mum. It's my favourite walk locally and starts off at Kimmeridge and you walk to the deserted village of Tyneham and then back to Kimmeridge. It's a 7 mile walk if you don't go wrong (like we did this time!) so I'm guessing we walked about 8 miles. You can only do the walk when the ranges are open as they lie within the Lulworth Army ranges. You have to stick to the paths that have the yellow markers as the rest of the land is dangerous to walkers due to unexploded shells. The views are spectacular and I love walking in this area. The day was very hot and windy and I had forgotten to put on sunscreen. I had put my hair up into a ponytail as the wind was blowing my hair all over the place and ended up getting sun burnt on my neck! Ouch!

This photo shows the view from the top path down to Warbarrow Bay.

This little cove appears as you head down the hill towards Warbarrow Bay. You can see how steep the path way is down and we made the mistake of walking back up on the route back as we took a wrong turning. I blame the cows in the field we had to go through as they freaked me out because they were giving me the evil eye!!! I can't believe we went the wrong way in this field as I've done the route twice before. We totally missed the yellow markers and just followed the farmers track and ended up walking trough the area which is out of bounds! Ooops.

This is a photo showing the view down to Kimmeridge Bay.

Here's a photo of Tyneham Village. We had a well needed early picnic lunch under a tree and it was lovely and hot. We didn't explore the village this time but I've been to Tyneham several times. For more info about this deserted village visit this website.

Fetching

I decided a few weeks ago, after seeing them on lots of blogs, that I just *had* to have a go at knitting the Fetching pattern from Knitty. It was a quick knit for me and I got them done over a weekend. I think if I were to knit them again I wouldn't do the picot cast off. I think I would prefer and ordinary cast off with a nice straight edge. This was also my first time doing cables! The pattern is knitted using Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran. I've never tried Debbie Bliss yarns before and this yarn was so lovely and soft. I'm sure they'll keep me nice and warm in the winter.

Meet Jess

My brother recently had a new addition in the family.... Jess, an adorable black labrador puppy. She is SO cute! She loves chewing everything so you have to be very careful what you're wearing. I made the mistake of visiting the other day whilst wearing a new shrug style cardi with tassle closures. I bent down to stroke Jess and next thing I knew, she was eating my tassles!!! She also enjoys chewing my walking boots too. I'd love to get a dog, but unfortunately, I live in a "no pets" block of flats :-( Jess will be able to go out for short walks in about a week's time and when she's older hopefully she'll come on some longer walks with me.

Basket Weave Rib Socks

I've started some new socks. I decided to knit the Basket Weave Rib socks from the Sensational Knitted Socks book. This will be the first sock pattern I've tried from this book. The yarn is from Sunshine Yarns in the colourway Reef.

More Supplies.....

Last week I decided that I wanted to knit Fetching but didn't have the Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran yarn the pattern needed or the right size DPNs. So I placed an order with Get Knitted and somehow some sock yarn jumped into the shopping basket. Here's a picture of what I got.

2 skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock Yarn - Colour: Lakeview

1 skein of Fleece Artist Merino Sock Yarn - Colour: Blue Lagoon

A set of 4mm Clover Bamboo DPNs

1 ball of Debbie Bliss Cashmerino Aran - Colour: 013 (claret?)

1 pack of Clover split Ring Markers

I've already knitted the Fetching gloves but haven't yet taken a photo to post on the blog. Must get around to that this weekend!

New Sock Stash Photo

I thought I'd add a picture of my current Sock Yarn stash. It felt like I had a lot of yarn when I was getting all the yarn out of the storage box and setting it up for the photo, but now when I look at the photo it doesn't look much! I think I need to buy some more yarn :-) I'd love to try out some different sock yarn like Socks That Rock and Fleece Artist Merino. Some of the Opal Sock yarn I've had a while now so really should get around to knitting some Opal socks.

Brownsea Island

On my week off work last week we decided to visit Brownsea Island in Poole Harbour. Having lived locally all my life this was my very first visit to the Island. The island is famous as a haven for Red Squirrels. I was hoping we would see lots of red squirrels but apparently they are very shy!! We only saw one!! I think they are a lot smaller than the Grey Squirrels which I normally see in Bournemouth gardens. We travelled over to Brownsea Island using the Brownsea Island Ferries which took about 15/20 minutes from Poole Harbour. It started to rain on the crossing but as soon as we got to the island the sun was out and lovely and warm.

Below is a photo of one of the yellow boats in Poole Harbour. I took this photo from our boat as we left the docks.

This is a photo of one of the boats docking at Brownsea Island.


There is a private castle on the island which I think is currently rented by John Lewis (the department store) as a holiday retreat for their employees! The guy on our boat said the accommodation there is 5 stars but at 2 star prices! I think it would be a lovely place to stay for a short break.




There are red squirrels, Sika deer and peacocks on the island. Having only seen a fleeting glimpse of a red squirrel I was pleased that there were so many peacocks to see. We saw lots of evidence that the red squirrels were about because there were lots of eaten pine cones. When we sat down for lunch, the rustling of our crisp packets seemed to be a signal to the peacocks to come and beg for food. The pea hens had little baby chicks that were very cute. Unfortunately most of my peacock photos came out blurred as they were moving about too fast to focus (or I'm just crap at taking photos :-)




As we walked around the island there were lovely views of the sea and lovely woodland areas including this area which was covered in purple heather.



I took this photo standing on Pottery Pier looking back at the island. The small beach is made up of old pieces of pottery which came from a pottery that was on the island years ago.


Before we got on the boat to go home we decided to pop into the tea rooms and have a drink and maybe a slice of cake. Crikey I sound old! Anyway, we decided against eating there as the place was disgustingly dirty! We were stood in the queue and noticed that the cutlery hadn't been washed very well and still had clumps of food on them. MAJOR YUK!!!! So we decided not to bother! This was the only disappointing thing about our visit to Brownsea Island.

On the trip back which should only have taken 15/20 mins. The skipper of the boat told us we couldn't land back at Poole Harbour and so was taking us on detour. He took us out of the harbour towards Bournemouth, passed the millionaire's houses and passed the chain ferry. I used to travel on the chain ferry every day for work so it was nice to see it from a different perspective.

He then took us back into the harbour and we headed back to Brownsea Island! He then took us past Green Island and Furzey Island all the while telling us fascinating facts. The skipper was a great character and interspersed the commentary with lots of jokes. The trip back took over an hour but was great fun.

Butterfly Lace Socks Finished

Whilst off work I didn't get as much knitting done as I normally do, but I did manage to get the Butterfly Lace Socks finished. I knitted them using Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn and the colour is Pink Blossom.

Sock Club Yarn

I had a week off work and visited a few places (will post photos sometime this week) and whilst I was off my sock club yarn arrived from Posh Yarns. It's called Hedgerow. I don't think it's a colourway I would have bought necessarily, but now that I've seen it in real life I like the muted colours. I'm wondering how it's going to knit up with all those colours.