10 Brooches- summarising my Circumnavigation of the UK- half a year later.

Having completed all the posts of the places I visited during my Circumnavigation of the UK posts and just wanting to share some of the gala evenings from the ship, I thought I'd share the little souvenirs I bought from each place. I did buy a few other bits but these fit together nicely.

It is over half a year since I circumnavigated the UK on the Magellan cruise ship and one thing I never shared was the fact that I decided to buy a pin badge in every place that I stopped as a little memento of the journey. I thought I'd tell you a little about them and why I chose them. If you click the place names too, it will take you to the blog post written about that place, just in case you didn't read any of them first time!

Starting from Top left:

1. Scottish Flag: My first time visiting Scotland, and a Scottish flag pin badge was the only way to mark it. Invergordon in the Highlands was a little place, rather sleepy but I did like it.

Invergordon 

2. Puffin:  Visiting Kirkwall in the Orkneys, I decided to buy this little puffin badge. Although we didn't see any puffins, it was a reminder of the natural beauty of the beautiful Orkney islands and a little reminder to return to see more. Kirkwall 

3. Hexagons:  In Belfast, we visited the Giant's causeway so it was a given that when I saw this pewter pin badge in the shop, I bought it as my souvenir.

4.  There was no brooch from the Isle of Skye but I did write a post based on my day at sea.

Lost at sea

5.  In Liverpool, we visited the beautiful Tudor Speke (see Liverpool 1 and Liverpool 2 ) so I bought this pretty Tudor Rose from the gift shop there.

6. I wrote about Dublin and Cobh in one post and I bought a Shamrock to represent Ireland in Dublin. In Cobh, I found this pretty Celtic Cross to represent that part of the holiday.

7. In Tresco, ( seeTresco post 1 and Tresco post 2), I ended up with a Squirrel pinbadge from the Abbey gardens since the Red squirrels were a sheer delight there and the I love Scilly badge was from a bag I bought. Plus, the lovely Anna gave me a wonderful puffin brooch as a present which I should share also!

8. The cow came from Guernsey. There were few badges to be found and so I rather liked this cow as a reminder of the day- not really related to what I did that day though!

9. In Honfleur, Mum and I visited the beautiful Butterfly house so I bought this little sparkly Blue Morpho brooch as a reminder of that day.  

As for other posts, don't forget about 'On board the Magellan' to explore the Cruise ship.

On board the Magellan

I'll probably be doing one more post to summarise the amazing food exhibited at the gala nights- truly an artistic feat, so don't miss it when it comes!

Any favourites here?

xx

Circumnavigating the UK- Honfleur- butterflies!

As mentioned a few weeks ago, I felt I should really finish writing about my last Summer's travels.  If you recall, I was on a 12 day cruise circumnavigating the UK.  Our final day's stop was to be the pretty town of Honfleur in Northern France.  Mum and I had no particular fixed idea about what we wanted to do and decided to walk around, find some brochures and then make a decision.

The town was really attractive, particularly this busy section around the river.

This old-fashioned merry-go-round reminds me of Amelie!

We decided to walk to a Butterfly House we'd seen on a map as both Mum and I adore butterflies.

I have tried to identify butterflies in retrospect as best I can but whilst I know my British butterflies, these Tropical ones are a bit of a guessing game comparing pictures.

Here is a Malachite.

The place was really warm but it was delightful to be surrounded by so many beautiful, huge tropical butterflies. However, it was extremely hard to get them to land and pose prettily for a photo.  Most of them were extremely flighty though, and just fluttered tantalisingly out of reach most of the time.

I was after this blue-tipped one for ages. Could this one be a Blue Morpho? I'm not sure.

This looks most like a Common Crow, but I am not sure if my identification is correct!

We soon discovered that the butterflies weren't alone and there were a whole host of other creatures within the tropical gardens.

A very strange low-pitched moaning attracted my attention and I caught this strange fellow lurking on top of a doorway.

I always love how much like eyes these outer wings seem.

Trying to photograph this beautiful turquoise prettily shaped one was a futile venture!

These pretty curved orange and spotty ones were positively docile by comparison. They look like a Golden Longwing

A wonderful opportunity suddenly presented itself when I spied this pair of Giant Swallowtail butterflies alongside a Blue Morpho one but I had to stand on one leg, leaning over a pond to take it at full zoom!

At long last! A Green Swallowtail!

This pretty marbled fellow sat on a leaf for a while but his wings were constantly on the go- this is the least-blurred of a myriad photos! I think he's called a  Paper Kite or a Rice Paper but then again, he resembles a Wood Nymph too!

This one below looks like a Tailed Jay.

I think this is called a Tiger Longwing.

This strange and detailed one really reminded me of a cat! I think it may be called a Clipper.

More watching eyes...Apparently this is called an Owl Butterfly.  How wonderfully appropriate!

This one looks also like a Blue Morpho  (ventral) from the outside.

A variety of a Lacewing here.

Hello Giant Swallowtail!

This resembles a Gap-banded swallowtail.

This one looks like a Lacewing.

What I failed to capture on film is the moment a butterfly landed on my hand! My camera had died by this point.

Afterwards, I had a yearning to visit the beach so we made an extremely lengthly and tiresome trudge to a beach which appeared much nearer on the map.  The tide was right out and the beach, to be honest, was rather yucky.  I regret dragging Mum all that way in my haste and causing her to be tired.

After this, we headed back to town to look for somewhere for something to drink.

With a little perusal of shops, we eventually made our way back to the ship.

Honfleur was undoubtedly pretty and we were glad to have made its acquaintance, even if all our photos were of the butterflies!

Do you like visiting Butterfly houses?
xx

Circumnavigating the UK - Day 10- Guernsey St Peter's Port

It struck me back in January writing my South Africa posts, that I never did finish my series on my cruise circumnavigating the UK. I did consider leaving it but since I had already put the photos into a blog post, that I would like to be able to read this in the future.

So forgive me for this being 7 months late...

We arrived at Guernsey and it was an anchorage so we had to sign up for tenders (boats) to the port.

Mum and I headed out fairly early but not amongst the first most eager beavers and found ourselves on land.  We didn't have any particular plan in mind, just decided to have a little explore and see what we could find.

I dressed suitably nautically in a Navy sailor top and striped skirt.

Although these photos don't look particularly bright, it was a warm and sunny day.

The marina was full of all sorts of sea-vessels.

Mum and I were both glad of our hats.

We decided to walk right away from the marina and explore in hope that we might find a beach to paddle on.  There seemed to be a sort of area with a lido created with the sea. It looked a bit deserted and none-too-salubrious but later when the sun really hotted up, we  saw children jumping in having lots of fun.

As we walked along, very soon, we came to signs for an Aquarium.  As a bit of respite from the sun, we opted to head in.

It was nice to see the different creatures within the Aquarium though it wasn't the most exciting place ever.

It is remarkably hard to photograph fish in that sort of lighting. These are the best of a rather shoddy lot.

This rather rotund fellow had really attractive sparkly scales which I wish I could have captured better.

These clown-fish are just so cartoonish, aren't they!!! Not surprised Nemo became one of those.

Not sure what this little fellow was, but he sure has an impressive set of whiskers!

This lizard was so still.  He turned his eye to look at me once but then just sat there as still as can be.

So many lizards..

After that, we headed to the kiosk nearby to buy some ice-creams and went and sat down by the cove.It was very stony and not really paddleable as there were lots of treacherous rocks, it is a pity.

At this point, I decided to hunt for seaglass and shells and created this arrangement.  Mum also looked for shells. We are always so content beachcombing. I could have done this for much longer.

I debated leaving it for passers-by as an art-gift but decided I liked my finds too much.  Sooo.... Mum and I decided to do a 5-minute beach collage to leave.

Mum made this delightful mermaid. I loved how she found flesh-coloured stones for her skin and seaweed for her hair.

I made a simple heart.

And then we left them for the public.

You can see that natural seawater lagoon I talked about earlier.

After this, we began a walk along the cliffs but Mum was rather tired so we headed into the town and found somewhere for milkshakes.  After this, we tried to find a paddling beach but it seemed we would have to walk for miles so she walked back to the boat and I mooched around for a bit in town.

Eventually, I joined Mum back on the boat and we went in the pool and jacuzzi on board. I had a great laugh chatting with a few people in there!  Lots of people were encouraged to come to the pool by our raucous laughing.

In some ways,  I wish we'd caught a bus to one of the glorious sandy beaches I heard tell of but our adventures were pleasant as they were.

That evening, we had a Gala dinner. I'll tell you more about that soon.

I'd like to visit Guernsey again.

Have you visited Guernsey?

xx