New York, New York!

Yet again, I haven't done a lot of stitching that I can show over the last few weeks...

We went to Cardiff to see the girls last weekend, so I didn't manage to have any time to do any stitching, and this week has been spent on a round robin piece and an exchange piece.  I'll be able to show progress on these items over the next week or two - the round robin when it is ready to send on, and the exchange piece when the recipient has received and opened it!  I'm going to continue with these two items over the next week, as they both need finishing and sending on as soon as possible.

We have been fortunate enough to book some holidays this weekend...  The one we are most looking forward to is a week in New York City, USA!  We are going there in November (countdown clock at the top of my blog!), staying at the same hotel we stayed in back in 2011.  We are going to book day trips to Washington DC and Boston for during our stay, and also a helicopter ride over NYC (one of my bucket list items!).  As we have already done the main touristy sites in our previous visit, we are hoping to go to different areas of the city, and the more unusual attractions (I would really like to go to Yankee Stadium - no idea why, since I don't follow baseball!)

Statue of Liberty - August 2011

Our other planned breaks are a night at a hotel in Nuneaton this month (when I go to the Needlecraft Haven meet-up), and a weekend in Edinburgh in June for my birthday.  We had hoped to go to Rome for a weekend, but the price was just too much, so we are postponing that until next year.

We walked up to Peel Tower in Holcombe today:

Peel Tower, Holcombe, Lancashire

Peel Tower is a monument to Sir Robert Peel, who was Prime Minister of the UK in the 1800's, and also helped to create "Bobbies" (Police).  The Tower can be seen for miles around, and I'd wanted to walk up to it for a while.  It is opened up at the weekend, but it wasn't open when we got to it, so we are hoping to go up again sometime over the summer.

I have been listening to an audiobook in the car recently.  "Angels and Demons" by Dan Brown is an excellent story, but I did the unthinkable and saw the film before listening to the book...  I spent the whole time imagining Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon, and Ewan McGregor as the Camerlengo, and also thinking "...that doesn't happen in the film!" in different areas of the story (particularly the last chapter or so!)  I really must read books before going to the cinema to see the film!  (I went to see Angels and Demons as I had seen The Da Vinci Code, and thought it was a sequel...).  However, I read "One Day" before seeing the film, and felt that the film would have been a bit disjointed if I didn't know the story beforehand...so I suppose it works both ways...

My power walking has had to take a break - I have done some damage to my achilles tendon (on the other leg than the one I broke the ankle on last year), and it has been quite painful this week.  I was planning on having a couple of days off, but have ended up taking the week off, as it is still not 100%.  I'm going to go out tomorrow night to see how I get on, but I won't be doing anything like the 5 miles I was managing last week!  I'm going to try 2 miles on the first try.

Happy Stitching!