Sunshine and warmth

Pines

We felt in need of a bit of sunshine and no wind or rain so booked a last minute holiday to Turkey. Below a few images.

Banana palm

Waterfall near Antalya

Views of the Taurus mountains from our balcony

Azure sky

Sunset over the mountains and sea

We did have one rainy day but heavenly sunshine the rest of the time and we seem to have missed the worst of the storms in the UK, and come back to a lovely day here, so no complaints.

Ceremonial covering

 The tan colour background is my sofa so you have to imagine the strips and diamonds hanging free with no background

This is a ceremonial horse covering I bought in Turkey, its from the sixties so not that old but I loved the colours its from one of the countries that ends in 'stan' but I can't remember which one

Turkey

This is a pure silk carpet in shades of blue.
They only work on the bottom of the loom
up to about one foot before wind on.

While in Turkey we visited a carpet co-operative, the women work four hour days and knot carpets so fast it was difficult to see what they were doing, some of the larger silk carpets take up to four years to weave, imagine that, I get fed up if a weaving takes me more than a month. They also make some miniature pieces, about 12 x 12 inches which have 2500 knots per inch,yes really, they are made under a magnifying glass and can only be work on for 45 minutes per day. We also saw wool being dyed, all natural dyes and silk spun.

Turkey

Istanbul

Caravanserai-hostels on the silk road

Cappodoccia- fairy chimneys

A couple of pictures just to prove we actually did go to Turkey. John has taken loads of photos and they arn't on my computer yet. We had an amazing time visiting some very interesting places.

Just back from Turkey

Have just got back from a fabulous tour of Turkey, more later, and seem to have come back to summer. I think we timed that very well, though saying that have just been outside and there is a sea mist coming in and it feels quite chilly.