Atlantic Thread

Good afternoon all, hope this finds you well and happy! I left you last week on a happy bus journey to Sines, and it was happy too to arrive. It's the first place I had ever wandered around in Portugal, and I did just that on this day, with a pilgrimage to say thank you to the town beach where the idea came of doing this project. This is an Atlantic town, and stays in touch with the rest of the world through being a port, and its World Music Festival every summer.  I end up wandering quite a lot backwards and forwards throughout the whole town, eventually finding the lovely Fernanda at the yarn shop. Someone recently, on seeing the pictures, asked me for directions to the shop, as she was from Sines and wanted to visit next time she saw her folks. I couldn't tell her, and I couldn't tell you either, but if you go around on a spiral from the art gallery in the middle, you will eventually come across it. Probably. And then followed an even happier bus journey to Cercal,

Good afternoon all, Hope this finds you well- and warm, it's cold outside, but I do love a bit of winter sunshine, and I have Grace Jones in the background, which always makes things feel quite sunny anyway. I've just posted off the last of the scarves, so work on the blanket is well underway, and am starting to look for an exhibition space, and aiming for April/May. I have found a couple of possibilities, both local, but if you have other ideas, please feel free to suggest! I'm now casting my mind back three months...three rather difficult months in my life...but I won't go into that here. I left you in Porto, just after my birthday, when I had a teeny weeny meltdown, but also a speedy recovery. I'm pretty introverted in general, and having three days in the same place, being able to stay in, away from too many people a bit, with time to reflect is pretty essential; and quite hard to get while travelling sometimes. The brightness and energy of Porto definitely

Good afternoon all, I hope this finds you well and happy. Please excuse the title if you're a bit fed up with people larking about with the names of the months. Movember was always particularly annoying when I already had a moustache anyway, and Sobertober isn't very inspiring either...but gloan is the Breton for wool, and it's nice to think of what's glowing amidst these dark months, so Gloanuary is my choice over Lainvier, Lenero, Olannair or Laneiro. I know I broke off from blogs mid-journey, so three or four more diary entries to add soon, but wanted to wish you all a Happy New Year, and to celebrate that the Atlantic Thread journey has finished, the final scarf is on the hook, the blanket is well underway and have just started compiling all the photos; have posted on facebook (billyblacklondon) those of the yarn shops and their inhabitants; here is Mohamed at my final stop in Essaouira. It's been a very tough time emotionally, and I'm grief-stricke

Good morning all! Please excuse my silence,  am a little behind on blogging, thank goodness I have a lovely notebook, so I know what I'm writing about...this will be the first of three entries about wonderful Portugal, and though I'm in the south now, am casting my mind back a week or so to when I was in the north, where I was in three towns/cities, which although close together seemed to be startlingly different from each other... I didn't actually get to see much of my first stop here, Viana do Castelo; it seemed a little austere, perhaps just the contrast from Spain. We arrived very late, with rather frazzled nerves after the very long wait in Vigo...it's a funny thing about travelling, and have been able to see the difference as most of it has been alone....when you travel with somebody, the good bits are better, having someone to share it with, but the bad bits are worse, for the same reason. It's also a little hard when you are on a particular per

Good evening all, I hope this finds you well. Am writing today from Vigo station, nearing the end of a 6 hour wait and a confounding morning at the bus station, served by a dozen different bus companies, where each person gave different information...it was just easier to wait all day and get the evening train...it is surprisingly hard to travel the 35 miles to Viana do Castelo from here...but it is across a border...and I cannot complain as the time in beautiful Galicia has been like a dream. My first impression was how similar to Brittany it looked, in terms of the houses and the landscape...it is another nation of sailors, worldwide emigration, a huge coastline of inlets and outlets, and its own language, much as it is seen as part of a larger neighbour. Apparently the Galician kings of old found it better to align themselves with nearby Castile rather than with Portugal, since the language being so similar, a union with Portugal would have meant absorption, rather than being p

Good morning all! I hope this finds you well and happy. I'm writing from the beautiful little fishing port of Tapia de Casariego- it turns out it was well worth embroidering such a long name after all! This is just at the edge of Asturias, before the border with Galicia. I arrived in Spain at the huge port of Santander...a very impressive variety of architecture with a backdrop of enormous mountains. It's perhaps not super friendly...but it's easy to see why that might be...I couldn't say many good things about my fellow passengers....I felt for the French staff, who were clearly apprehensive about whether someone was going to kick off....a huge party of 500 people; loud, pissed and entitled, wearing the fancy dress of those who rarely wear fancy dress (nuff said), and a few fairly obvious drug/tobacco/money smugglers. If I lived in Santander and I heard an English accent, I doubt I'd be inclined to greet them with that much warmth either. Many people come on a