sculpture

A postcard from Another Place, Crosby

~ Making Stitches ~ 10 Comments

As yesterday was August Bank Holiday Monday and as we woke up to sunshine, we jumped into Bluebell (our car) and headed off to the seaside.

Look at that blue sky!

It took less than an hour to drive from our home in Manchester to Crosby on the Lancashire coast. A really good friend of mine who was brought up by the sea and subsequently moved to Manchester recommended it as a trip out if we were ever finding ourselves missing the seaside.

Eldest and I were in Gibraltar recently but the two youngest Postcards haven’t been near the sea since we moved here in July. As they have spent most of, if not all of their lives within sight of the sea, six weeks inland is the longest they have spent away from it for over a decade!

We parked up by the Crosby Marina and followed our noses towards the sand dunes, passed a busy adventure playground and some fairground attractions for small children. There were plenty of people out and about but it wasn’t overcrowded which was good news.

To the left of the footpath was a large boating lake and to the right, a smaller body of water teeming with birds. There were lots of swans looking rather elegant and aloof!

We crossed the sand dunes and spied…

… Sir Antony Gormley’s statues…

I have seen them before on tv and in photos, but I was glad to be able to see them for myself at last!

‘Another Place’ is the name of the installation of 100 life size figures which are set into the sand along the beach at various heights. The installations stretches 3km along the coast and up to 1km out to sea.

The cast iron figures were made from a cast of the sculptor’s own body, and left nothing to the imagination. The sight of his crown jewels caused much tittering (hence the tastefully positioned crown below).

All the statutes stand facing the sea and looking towards the horizon – they are meant to signify man’s relationship with nature and the ebb and flow of the tide.

Crosby beach is a non-bathing beach because of the tides and quick-sand, so visitors are asked not to attempt to reach those statues out in the water. This one (below) looked as though he was striding out towards the Snowdonian mountains in the distance.

I thought I would join him and paddle my toes. It was surprisingly warm to dip my toes in the Irish Sea compared to my swim in the Med just over a week ago. Not sure I would like to go the whole way in though!!

We walked a good distance along the beach…

… before tummies started rumbling and we succumbed to the ice cream van!

We headed back towards the car, this time walking amongst the dunes. The Little Postcards loved scrambling up them and sliding back down again!

What a beautiful place to visit, I’m so glad we had the recommendation to go. The perfect place to spend the last day of August!

Now we know the way, we will definitely be back…

Thanks for stopping by!

Lindsay x

Monthly meet-up July : Sculpture

~ Making Stitches ~ 2 Comments

July’s prompt for the monthly blogger’s meet-up arranged by Sandra at Wild Daffodil is sculpture.

Last summer we saw many, many sculptures on our travels, especially in Rome, but this one stuck with me most of all. It was a fountain in Toulouse, in southern France, and was erected to commemorate the 210 victims of a flood in 1875. It was beautiful and poignant.

The fountain can be found in Place Olivier in Toulouse.

Sunday Sevens #4

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Time flies when you’re having fun, I can’t believe this is my forth installment of the Sunday Sevens series. I have linked up with Natalie at Threads and Bobbins to let you see what I’ve been up to during the past week. There was no watercolour class to share this week and my dressmaking class didn’t offer up any exciting photos so I’m craft free this week in Sunday Sevens.

1 Let’s go fly a kite

Last Sunday, we all jumped into the car and headed off up the coast to just outside Estepona. We had a great family day out visiting my brother and his fiancée who had just flown over to stay for a long weekend with her family at a beautiful villa right on the seafront. My boys absolutely loved playing in the huge garden there, and spent most of the day tearing around the enormous lawn. Although the weather wasn’t perfect, it didn’t dampen our spirits, the windy conditions were perfect for kite flying. We were also able to handover the frog & fox hats I’d been working on for a few weeks.

2 More rain!

The wet, autumnal weather of the last few weeks has continued here in Gibraltar. Thankfully it hasn’t been as wet as it was last week and the landslide I mentioned in my rainy weather post has been cleared up and the road reopened thanks to some frantic work. The rain brought this little chap out and was a focus of much attention on the school run by my own little bug hunter. He was fascinated by the snail, and we had to look out for him each day to see if he was still there, sadly he has moved on…

3 Lunch with a view 

I went for lunch with my parents to the Eroski supermarket café one day this week and had front row seats for the activities going on at the airport. We sat out on the roof of the supermarket and watched the comings and goings. This photo shows the EasyJet to Gatwick taking off and for those of you not familiar with Gibraltar and it’s unique airport arrangements, it also illustrates how the main road from the Rock to the border with Spain bisects the airport runway. The traffic is brought to a standstill with traffic lights and barriers each time a plane needs to take off or land. Well, almost each time, my in-laws were once on a plane which was forced to pull up at the last minute and take a brief detour as the pilot saw traffic still on the runway as he was coming in to land! That, thankfully, is a very rare occurrence.

4 Sunset at the marina

One evening this week, I found myself walking through Queensway Quay marina at sunset. It was really lovely and I couldn’t resist taking a photo.

5 Ocean Village Marina 

Another of Gibraltar’s marinas is Ocean Village, it’s the largest and busiest. I walked through on my mission to buy some more school uniform ready for the soon to come winter weather and thought it looked glorious in the afternoon sunshine.

6 Street art

This beautiful wooden sculpture appeared outside a frame shop in Gibraltar this week. The shop is called Face Frames, so it perfectly illustrates the name don’t you think? How refreshing to see something so beautiful to advertise a shop instead of the usual neon or plastic signage. It sits right at the end of a road off Main Street and has instantly become a landmark, dominating the end of the street. I love it!

6 Hallowe’en

Now, if you read my previous post Trick or Treat? Hallowe’en – bah Humbug!, you might find this photo a surprise. I am not quite the old misery I perhaps made out, so when my boys asked if we could carve a pumpkin, I couldn’t say no. Here’s our very simple effort. With more time I would have liked to make a more intricate carving but time didn’t allow. (The face was designed by my 8 year old, he wanted a cheeky face, not a scary one :-)).

7 Midterm getaway

  

It’s midterm in Gibraltar now, school broke up on Friday. We decided to go away for a few days so yesterday we reluctantly said goodbye to my parents who have been here for the last couple of weeks, we packed up the car and drove a short distance along the Costa del Sol to just outside Marbella.  This magnificent palm tree is right outside our home for the next few days. 

I believe strong winds and rain are lashing Gibraltar this morning, luckily for us the bad weather hasn’t followed us here. 
Have a great week all of you.