Doodling around on the Barbican

I am super super lucky to live in a wonderfully Devonish market town.  It's brilliant in every way except that everyone knows you, so when you accidentally flash your boobs out of the living room window during breastfeeding you can pretty much guarantee that someone you know (and probably wouldn't flash your boobs to on purpose) will see them (I did get a comment from a lovely friend of mine that I had flashed her but that I had nicer shaped boobs than her do I shouldn't worry) (AAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!). But I secretly love that "oh-are-you-Sarah-who-lives-in-*previous house owner who must have been lovely as everyone knows her*-old-house?" conversation. The very nice lady in the little bakery we go to told me I needed to cut my grass, and that I could borrow her strimmer. It's that kind of place and I love it.  Anyway, I digress. The point being that myself and hubby only rocked up here in our leaky caravan (ooh bit of a long story for another time, the living-in-a-caravan episode) about eighteen months ago and so we still have occasional little-kid excitement episodes that we get to live in a bit of a holiday destination. We're only about 40 minutes from Plymouth, and as such decided to go for a bit of a mosey to have a gander at the olde worldey bit of Plymouth as pretend tourists for the day (I do actually work in Plymouth when I'm not having babies so I feel like I can claim non-touist status!).  There may or may not have been the semi formed plan to perhaps go on a tour of the Plymouth Gin factory (one word: tastings) but like a total numpty I forgot to book it (boo!) so will have to try another day.  Fortunately the Barbican (the old bit of Plymouth the gin factory lives in) is totally ace and we had a super time bumbling about.  Thought you might like to see some pretty pictures of it...

The waterfront looked pleasingly Mediterranean like...

This bit of the country can really look like France sometimes, just A Lot Colder. And with a lot more old(er) people wearing beige on coaches.

Whilst doing a cheeky baby feed I realized I was sitting opposite the Mayflower Steps where the Pilgrim fathers stepped off England to voyage into the unknown, find a new world and build America:

Just on the left there!
Coooooooooooooool!!

Those actual steps! Imagine how much food they would have taken? Knowing you would never ever see another shop or farm or loaf of bread you didn't make yourself? Brave really. 

I don't know if you can see with the resolution but this list has the names and occupations of the people who left.  A most of them were something to do with material - linen weavers, tailors, shopkeepers and so on.  A nation of crafters! Seems a bit low on the old building/farming/survival skills though. If I were going I think I'd try and persuade Ray Mears along too...

There seemed to be a theme of Very Pretty Signs on Tasteful Stonework going on...

In fact in general tasteful stonework seemed to be a bit of a thing, as did random and really quite good street art...

                                         love the stone patchworking 

 

I think this one was pilgimmy in nature

                                   

I love old buildings like this which look like they've been added to and patched like this, it makes me think of Ron's house The Burrow in Harry Potter...

 Not so sure what this one was about, looked a bit trippy tbh...

As did this one...I like the unfinished feel though.  I like art that is a bit raw at the edges, the contrast of rough unfinishedness brings the finished painted figures alive.

Feeling like we had been sufficiently cultured I gave in to my chronic inability to walk past a juicy looking charity shop without having a good poke around.  This one was a corker.  It was a St Luke's hospice one I think and they'd gone for a shabby chic theme which I'm sure is a tad obvious I'm a bit of a sucker for.  Their linen section was ammmaaazzinggg, just LOOK ---->

There was a whole pile of those lovely hand embroidered tablecloths and napkins which you so often see going for 50p in charity shops.  I think in five or ten years these will come back into fashion and become horribly expensive.  Although to be fair, I think they should be expensive, considering the sheer amount of work that goes into making them.  I often think that old skills that were traditionally the domain of the ladyfolk are even now still pretty poorly valued: look at what you can sell hand knitted jumpers for (say about £100, at a push, with nice wrapping paper) which after buying the wool pays far far less than minimum wage when you take into account how looong it takes to make these things.  On that note, they had some lovely granny crochet small knee blankets, for about a tenner each which I also think is a bit too little (I may be just a teeny bit biased.  But I still think I'm right)

PRETTY THINGS (cue sigh from hubby and mumblings about waiting outside)

 

coffee yay! Does a pretty tea shop count as culture? I think so.

A gen-u-ine fishing boat complete with slightly intimidating fisherman (out of shot) who gave me a bit of an evil for looking like a photohappy tourist.  Which I was really all being honest.

And teeeeeny streets! So small the writing doesn't fit! So you think the road signs writer saw this and did an inward sigh?

This one makes me think of the olden days when all the Navy Sailors and fisherman would have been bustling about with all the fish selling and washing hanging out of windows and grubby kids and stray cats and the odd bout of dysentery.  Ah the olden days.  Sigh.

This last one was taken on the way home.  Lovely hubby had popped into Tesco for a couple of bits and oh-no the baby had really really needed feeding (such a shame!). So after a cheeky milkachino baby, dog and I had a spontaneous group snuggle.  Brilliant.  Makes all the various poo I have to clean up all worthwhile.

More crochet next time....

P.S. Thank you for introducing me to the Barbican Plymouth nursing people.  Sorry for being a tourist! But I wasn't wearing beige, so quits?