Panorama

When we were first married, my husband was a keen photographer. And when I say keen, I mean bordering on the obsessive. He was more likely to leave me at home on a day out than he was to leave the camera behind. These were pre-digital days and he used to agonise over whether six 36 exposure films would be enough for a week's holiday. Despite me telling him they were civilised lands we were travelling to and he would be able to buy more if he should run out while we were abroad. He was a member of the local camera club and our weekends were spent going to scenic places that were full of photo opportunities.

Fast forward a few years, and two children later (and all the associated 'stuff' that children need for a day out) there was not room in the car for all the paraphernalia that he used to take out with him and neither they, nor I, had the patience to wait for him to set up the perfect picture. Although he still enjoys photography, and has a good camera, it is not with the same intensity that he used to have.

So now he finds it amusing that it is me who takes the camera everywhere, where handbags to use in the evening are bought on the decision as to whether or not there is room for a camera, glasses case and purse.
My little Panasonic Lumix point and shoot has a function on it where you can take panoramic shots. You take a photo, then when you take the next one, there is a shadow from the edge of the last shot showing so you can line it up perfectly. I've not used it before, but sitting on the terrace with a glass of Tia Maria after dinner one night, watching the sun setting over the Bay of Naples, with Vesuvius on the horizon, I decided the time was right. I could see my husband itching to get his hands on the camera and have a go himself, he was having to bite his lip in order to not give me advice. I thought the resulting photos were worthy of the next page from the Sarah's Cards Kit.

She made me do it

A little while ago, my dear friend Denise twisted my arm and MADE me sign up for a subscription to Sarah's Cards. For a little under £20 a month I will get a wonderful pizza box filled with goodies, new paper collections and inspiration delivered to my door - which seems like a very good idea. My first box arrived just before I went away on holiday. I opened it, and reverently took out all the patterned paper, all the cardstock, all the stick-ons, all the little glass headed pins, the Japanese tape, the chipboard cut outs, the ribbon, the alphabets ... it was just like Mary Poppins' carpetbag - so much stuff in one smallish box. And then as normally happens to me in these cases, I was scared to use any of it. Needed to save it for something special. Didn't want to waste anything. I put it all away and just opened the lid of the box on a daily basis to just check on how lovely it all was.

Then at the weekend I had an email from Sarah's Cards to say the next box would be on it's way soon. What? I haven't even started on the first one yet! Oh blimey, at this rate I'm going to have a pile of pizza boxes in the house, overflowing with scrapping gorgeousness and a husband making comments like ' what exactly are you doing with all this?' 'are you ever going to use it?' and 'how much are you paying for this each month and not using it?' and then I'll have to blame Denise and say how she made me do it and it wasn't my idea etc etc

And then I thought 'you know what? It's just going to be easier to actually do something with some of the papers and then I'll gradually start using them up before the next box arrives'. So that is what I've done. Ladies - drum roll please - the first layout from the Sarah's Cards Subscription Box.

Phew.

Step back in time

And so I return to an Italian theme for my blog post! We only went on one organised tour while we were away, a half day trip to Herculanium. A town that was destroyed when Vesuvius erupted about 2000 years ago. The most famous ruins in that area are Pompeii which is a huge excavation project but Herculanium is much smaller and better preserved. Herculanium was buried by 20ft of boiling volcanic mud the day after the eruption but because the mud slid into the town rather than having rocks and gasses fall at force from the sky like happened at Pompeii the buildings are better preserved. The area is much smaller there and you can literally see the whole thing in a half day. My husband is the more historically minded of the two of us but I have to say that the visit here really touched me. I really got the feeling of how day to day life was in that area thousands of years ago. The cobbled streets are intact and you suddenly realise that 2000 years ago, people were going about their everyday business, walking on those same stones.

Nowadays, we know about volcanoes and the damage they can do. If one erupts, the people who live in that area are well aware of what is happening and what to do but back then, they would have had no idea what it was. They knew the whole town of Pompeii was destroyed, never dreaming that the following day a totally different type of destruction was on it's way.

The archaeologists there thought the whole population had deserted the place and escaped after the first day of eruption as, unlike in Pompeii where many bodies were found, no evidence of people were found in any of the buildings they excavated. But recently they dug out the next area of excavation which was the storage area for boats on what was originally the harbour and found skeletons of about 300 people. Obviously trying to escape by sea but the mud slide had slid into the ocean, causing a tsunami and when the force of the water came back to shore, it brought all the mud back with it and where Herculaneum was once at the water's edge, there was now 2km of mud added to the shore line and they were trapped.

And so ends the history lesson. Normal blog writing will resume tomorrow!

Another kind of wonderland

Well after posting photos of the Wonderland that is Italy, I guess it's time to share the mini book that we made at the crop on Saturday. The theme was Alice in Wonderland and Karen at Ecletic Keepsakes had prepared an amazing mini book for us to make.

I was a little concerned to find that I was expected to make a book out of a piece of card and 8 pages from an old book, held together with a bit of red twine but hey, what's the worst that could happen?!

Even someone with my poor maths skills could guess that 8 pages of old book, folded into half was going to give 32 individual pages, and suddenly I realised why we needed to bring 16 photos with us! The book is so crammed full of embellishments and pockets and tags and labels that it is not that easy to photograph but I've taken some pictures of a few of the pages.

Karen had brought with her some beautiful Alice in Wonderland stamps, lots of pretty edging cutters, two old manual typewriters for typing journalling ... 3 tables of equipment and ink pads etc and the kit itself was absolutely jam-packed full of papers, alphabets, ribbons, twine, roses - you name it, it was in there. Such brilliant value for money and a great way to spend the day after I got back from holiday. No chance for the post-holiday blues!

Capri

Well, as predicted we did end up going over to Capri on Monday. We caught the 10.20am hydrofoil and were on the island by 11am. We had a quick walk around the harbour area and then got on the funicular railway up to the main town on Capri. The shops up there are almost exclusively designer names. Gucci, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Dior .... nothing in the windows has a price on and I worked on the old saying 'if you have to ask the price, you probably can't afford it! We kept finding these little fibreglass Fiat 500s in random places, with little trees growing out the sunroof!


This was a view looking down at some seriously expensive yachts. How the other half lives eh? What a lovely life, just crusing around the Med stopping off at beautiful places like this. When I win the lottery.......... I shall drop anchor in the harbour and then be staying here, the Hotel Quisisana .....

A room with a view

The view while we were having breakfast

The view when we were having dinner

As you can see, early morning and sunset were equally beautiful over the bay of Naples. We've had a beautiful week in Sorrento and I ought to warn you - there are many, many photos!
I haven't had chance to look at what everyone has been up to while I've been away, but that's on my 'to do' list for tomorrow. Because today, whilst most people would be unpacking and doing holiday washing on the day after they get home - I have been to an all day crop over at Ecletic Keepsakes, where we did a mini-book with an Alice in Wonderland theme. More will be revealed at a later date {when I've finished it!}

Island hop

I strongly suspect that by the time this post publishes, I will have visited Capri . The boat over there leaves from Sorrento and takes just under an hour.
Although my husband hasn't been to this area before, I have. I used to work for a holiday company called OSL which sold villa and apartment holidays. It was here that I met my friend Denise, who married a friend of my husband's and we have now been friends for over 30 years! She is the person who introduced me to scrapbooking so has much to answer for! Part of my job at OSL involved going on 'Educational trips' to look round the properties that we were renting out and one of my educationals was to this area. We had a wonderful week touring around the Amalfi coast and ended up visiting Sorrento/Capri one day.
We were supposed to also be visiting some luxury villas up in the hills along narrow tortuous roads and the manager of the office there could not possibly let 'the English ladies' do such a journey on their own. He insisted that he drove us there personally. It was a bit hair raising, steep narrow roads with few passing places, hairpin bends, Italian drivers ...... so we were grateful for his offer. There were a few moments where we just closed our eyes and trusted him to get us there safely and it was good to get back to where we were staying that night. We went out for a meal with the other office staff in the evening and they asked how we got on with driving ourselves on those roads. When we told them that the manager had done the driving they were horrified. He had a heart condition and was not supposed to drive ......