Celebrating canals & the people that travel them

May day bank holiday weekend was the Canalway cavalcade at Little Venice in London - a celebration of all things waterways.  It was a beautiful sunny day and all the narrow boats were decorated with bunting in lots of different designs, all looking their very best.

There were lots of stalls selling various things, and the area was very good for people watching - some very interesting looking souls.

This stall had lots of homemade soaps and balms - I bought some yummy honey based lip gloss.  The bamboo creations were lovely and made me wish yet again that I had a big home with a big backyard to put them all in.

The sights and colours were beautiful - here are a few shots to give you a sense of the atmosphere.

There were lots of dogs out and about enjoying the day, but the one that we fell in love with was the one below enjoying his ice-cream - we spoke to his parents and the previous year they had adopted him after he was mistreated.  I love it when you see animals living the life they deserve.

For lunch we went into a lovely middle eastern restaurant just by the canal.  They made delicious cocktails and mocktails (guess who had the alcohol) which were beautifully decorated.  The food was scrummy and as you can see the decorations were very in theme.

Here's a selection of the very pretty narrow boats that were moored up for the festival - I love the decorations and the extra bits people add onto them.  There was even one that had the flags of the Aussie Rules teams as their bunting so of course I had to stop and talk to the couple.  They are British but every winter here they head to Australia where they have a motor home and they spend at least three months traveling around.  As you can see the Carlton flag is flying proud even if our team are propping up the bottom of the ladder.

Little Venice is a really lovely area to walk around even when there isn't an event on - love this statue of a family.

  

If you look really closely you'll see semi naked men in a hot tub just beyond this lovely boat.

Some more sights from the festival including a slightly inebriated folk band, people dressed in 60's fashion, and a man with a chameleon on his shoulder.

At Paddington station we found another Shaun decorated with London sights - Ken got up close and personal. Shaun's tail has Nelson's Column with the obligatory pigeons.

This is a life size statue of Isambard Kingdom Brunel who was a very famous engineer - he's responsible for Paddington station so that's why he sits there.

We then went for a walk around Paddington basin - there were some beautiful narrow boats moored there and we found another Shaun dressed as Paddington bear.

I love that they even included the luggage tag - unfortunately we couldn't lift up his hat to see if there were any marmalade sandwiches under there.

That's it for now - hope you enjoyed this visit to Little Venice and the cavalcade.

Until next time be good, stay safe, and do something nice for yourself.

Pamela and Ken

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Sunshine, statues, & selfies at Stowe

As members of the National Trust we love exploring beautiful parts of England that include history and nature. Our latest visit was to Stowe Landscape Gardens.

The big building you can see in the distance is Stowe School. The building was built in the late 1600's and became a school in 1923. It is a boarding school and some of the famous attendees include Howard Goodall, David Niven, and Richard Branson - they're known as old stoics.

The gardens surrounding the school were given to the National Trust in the 1980's and that is how we now get to enjoy them. The gardens are full of beautiful features like temples, lakes, and statues. Despite all that beauty the first thing that caught Ken's eye was an old car that according to him is a classic - I had to drag him away from it.

Oriental building

My beloved taking pictures

Parts of the area has sheep roaming over the grounds and as it's spring that means cute little lambs. I love sheep (though not like certain antipodeans do) and I'm always taking pictures of them.

Across the lake there is a beautiful covered bridge with seats all along it - it looked very special in the sunshine.

There are some lovely old trees throughout the gardens - I love the twisted trunks that really give them character.

In one area, hidden amongst the bushes, there was a circle of statues representing the seven Gods that gave their names to the days of the week.  One had been removed for some reason so Ken decided to fill in for a while.

It was such a beautiful day and lots of people had their puppy dogs with them - we met a gorgeous St Bernard who was two years old, and there were dogs of all shapes and sizes.

Here are a few more shots from around the gardens including a lovely old gate - you know I'm a sucker for doors, and a gate is a type of door so they get included as well.

The round monument below is actually on a little island and is to commemorate Captain Cook.

Ken loves taking pictures of me when I'm not aware of it, the one below is taken from inside the above building - I was enjoying the view across the gardens.

I can't believe I've got this far through a blog post without putting in a selfie - we decided to get creative this time (or I did and my beloved grudgingly went along with it) so here is a normal selfie and a much more exciting one.

This is the Gothic Temple which you can hire and stay in. It was built in the 1700's and is managed by the Landmark Trust - link HERE if you're interested. It's a very atmospheric building and it must be great at night when all the tourists have gone and all you can hear is the sheep.

Of course I managed to find a graveyard within the gardens, so here are a couple of pics.

Like any good National Trust property there is a shop and a small garden centre. This one had some lovely wooden seats, and horses heads made out of natural wood.

After walking around for so long it was only right that we had coffee and cake before we left - they make a scrummy coffee and walnut cake.

That's it for now - until next time stay safe, be happy, and do a good deed for someone.

Pamela and Ken
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P.S: What I forgot to mention is that when we went through the entrance gates the two ladies went into raptures about our car - if I hadn't been there I think Ken could have got lucky!! For those that don't know, our car is a 1989 Nissan Micra - or as we call him, Grub. Below is a picture of Grub holding his own next to some very posh cars (he's the beige one).