End of summer

This is our last weekend before the new school term starts.  We have managed to fit in one more little break away from London. It was freezing and I had to pull the toggle of my sleeping bag in the middle of night to snuggle my head in. But glad we did it!

Tree House

We booked very special tree house accommodation for our Welsh adventure. It was totally worth booking one year in advance. Everything fits, works and luxurious! Tree house was built  or more like cramped on 4 stilts of tree trunks. It tolerate swaying and floats when it's windy! Really enjoyed cooking, get the fire going, composting loo and woodland shower! Yes, water get heated by wood burning stove, you go down the spiral stairs around the tree naked or towel wrapped to have a shower dangling under the tree house. There's a modesty cubical but it's so liberating to have a shower in a middle of a wood.

Trefriw Woollen Mill

I had a little summer break and visited Wales for the first time. Second day raided all day, we gave up nature walk and instead we drove out to visit Trefriw Woollen Mill.
We learnt how the traditional woollen tapestry and blankets are woven from woollen fleece to all the way to be made into products.

So much wool and smells like sheep, in a nice way! We saw working spinning mule like victorian times.

This is a process called warping. Wrapping yarns which will be lengthwise on the loom. It have to be right colour, right order and right tension.

This is shuttle weaving loom. Man and machine collaboration. Shuttles are sent back and forward by power loom but he needs to stop the machine every few minutes to top up the yarns in a shuttle.

Display of original tapestries, some dating back 200 years ago.

The loom is powered by the water turbine. Factory is built by the local stream. Such a clean energy!

Some example of finished textile. Then Finally...

Turned into products to be used! I'm little sad that only tourist visit here. Seems like locals think they are ancient and out of fashion... Didn't witness any local shops selling traditional products like these. But I love them and I want to visit here again!

Photos from Scotland

Following up last post, I found lots of mind cleansing photos from our Scotland adventure. I'm sharing few here...

This is a walking path to Coral beach looking across Isle of Skye. We've been lucky with the weather.

Applecross's famous Langoustine at Applecross Inn, the only pub in the village.

Sara's willow basket with freshly laid eggs.

We visited Croft woollen mill. The owner Tom weaves blanket from his sheep's wool naturally dyed by his wife. Below is basket full of beautiful yarns...

Geese! Trumpet was sitting on her egg and Daddy-O has been very protective of her, causing havoc.

Tasting Aron's award winning Hot Cross Bun ice cream.

Thumbs up!

Aron was a chef at Moro before he became ice cream maker so we were constantly fed very well duration of this holiday. This is his mighty shepherds pie. (so many food photos...I was originally intended to post more of stunning highland nature...)

Lastly this is their beloved English bullterrier Onion. Very clever and sweet girl. I can smell their wood burning stove again looking back these photos.