On the river addendum

A brief update on yesterday's post. This morning Laura at the Mitre Carlton Hotel Hampton Court made good on her promise to bring in her card reader. This successfully read my camera card and we chose, somewhat randomly, a dozen photos to email to me.

The result is below - not a considered choice, but a tribute to the best hotel service I have ever had, and a really lovely place to stay.


Today I am off to Ely - a quite new experience.

On the river

This morning was a bit chilly with a little rain. I planned to take a boat ride along the river from Hampton Court. Monday is the recovery day from the weekend, and boats only go to Kingston - about 35 minutes up the river. On other days they go further to Richmond.

I planned to go on a round trip to Kingston and back. Unfortunately I decided today to experiment, and take photos with my camera instead of my phone. I figured, since the hotel has a computer that I have been using to write my blog, (in light of the terrible wifi), that it would be simple to plug my phone into the computer using a usb port. It looks, however that either the computer is set up to avoid this happening or I have a faulty connector. The obliging receptionist has just tried to download from my camera to the computer in reception. No go. She is in the early shift in the morning ( in 10 hours time) and will bring in her card reader to see if that works. 

Another reason to love this hotel!







So at the moment I am not able to transfer my photos from the camera to the blog. If, in the morning, before my transfer to Ely, the card reader solution works, I will add the photos.

In the meantime, hats off to Laura, the hotel receptionist who has pulled out all stops. 

Until I retrieve the photos, you will need to imagine that on the way to Kingston, the southern bank of the Thames is mostly houses and houseboats - a really interesting mix of old, faded, decrepit, spruced up, carefully tended, modest, grand and opulent.

The river is obviously not just used for tourism, but a way of life for some.

The northern bank is park and path. The path is well used - lots of dog walkers, cyclists, walking groups and families,


I had intended, on my return, to sit in the sun and stitch for a bit, but the weather wasn't kind. I therefore repaired to my comfortable room and worked on my Sheep and Daisies from yesterday. I have managed to repair the leaf I got wrong yesterday and finish the five petals. I am now ready to cut them all out and construct the little scene. My magnifier helped as did some natural light.

Even if I can't share my photos taken on the boat, it has been very pleasant using the hotel's library to write - and meeting Laura.

Stumpwork Sheep and Daisies at the Royal School of Needlework

 

 My day began with breakfast in the hotel dining room overlooking the river. Breakfast on Sundays doesn't begin until 8 am, so I was first there.

It was dull and raining so I left myself plenty of time to get to the class meeting room - Barrack Room 3- in Hampton Court at 9.30. I had slipped over yesterday while doing a test run of finding the meeting place and did not want to repeat that in the wet.

All went well and 12 of us were there to be met, given our Palace passes and guided through the maze of back stairs and corridors to our classroom, on the second floor.

I teamed up with Elizabeth, a woman from Cornwall and a member of the West Country Embroiderers,  who was also cautious with her knees! We enjoyed each other's company and hung out together.









It was a good group and the tutor, Heather Lewis, was attentive and clear. The room was an oddly cluttered space with a tiny area for morning tea. There were several levels up and down short sets of stairs.

The view through the round windows was great.








We got down to work quickly and learned a series of stump work techniques.

The RSN provided sitting hoops, magnifiers and most tools we needed. The tutor provided a kit.

The photo does not do justice to the graded colour with which we filled the daisy leaf. The leaves are worked on a white cotton and will be cut out and attached to the background of our piece.













We made a needle-lace leaf. I made a mistake with mine and will need to work out if I can rescue it.

We created a stem using detached ladder stem stitch. I was more successful here.
 

The piece de resistance was a sheep made of French knots. Using six strands of cotton in two different colours made all the difference here - a great effect.

None of us got anywhere near finished, but we have the techniques to finish the stitching and construct the final piece. I'm not sure how much of this I will be able to do while away. It is demanding on the eyes and the small travel hoop I have with me may not be up to the job. I will, however, show the final product on my embroidery blog when it's done.

At lunchtime we competed with the public for food and were free to move around the Palace.




Elizabeth and I popped briefly into the Chapel Royal and caught a few minutes of an organ concert.

We finished at four, by which time it had stopped raining, but was still overcast.







On many fronts this is a good thing to have done. I learned several techniques of stump work, met an interesting group of women, saw the Palace from a working perspective and had first-hand experience of the Royal School of Needlework. A pretty satisfying experience.

Hampton Court

This morning I bade farewell to the Radisson Blu Bloomsberry Hotel. It had been a good choice. The contrast at Hampton Court is considerable. How quickly the inner city bustle and landscape gave way to suburbia and finally to the river.

 

There is a sense of tranquillity. My room - obligingly cleaned and made available for me at 11.30 am- opens on to a small inner courtyard, sunny, quiet, pleasant - and featuring a Bottle Brush!

 

I brewed myself a pot of (extremely weak)coffee and sat by the window to stitch and write for a bit







In the afternoon I walked over to the Palace to find the meeting point for my class tomorrow. It is at most a 10 minute walk from the hotel at the end of the walkway..

There were lots of people out visiting the Palace - locals rather than tourists.


It has a lot of charm. I walked a while along the river path, bought one of the ubiquitous soft-serve ice-creams and ate  it in the sun.

The wifi connection in the hotel is lousy so I spent a couple of hours on the computer in the Library, occasionally looking up to admire the tapestries.

I had dinner in the Brasserie by the river  

- at least one wedding and two celebrations involving crowns and sashes for the guest of honour were being celebrated in the three eateries in the hotel.

Back in my room it is quiet and comfortable. Early start tomorrow for my RSN class - very pleased to be so close.