News & Updates from Lyn Simms

I am back now after a month touring the UK visiting friends and family and a few interesting places. One of which was Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland. Owned by the Armstrong family of Armstrong and Sidley fame, the castle has many of the state rooms open to the public.

There is also a museum which houses one of the original Armstrong Sidley cars, and relics of jet engines etc they designed and which were used during the war.We travelled up to Abbotsford which was where the grand house was built and lived in by Sir Walter Scot.

Although breezy and rain threatened, we strolled down by the river and visited the four rooms open to the public.

We also went on to Jedburgh in Scotland and visited the castle prison, (long since closed to prisoners!!) and a house where Queen Mary Of Scots was reputed to have stayed.

All very interesting.I will soon upload some new designs but in the meantime why not look at these done some time ago.

I have just returned with my husband from a trip of a lifetime. We spent two weeks touring parts of China and then cruised the China seas on the 4th largest cruise ship in the world.

We stopped off at a small Japanese island, Taiwan, Hong Kong three stops in Vietnam and finished up in Singapore where we caught our first of three flights home.

The Chinese people were on their national holiday and this meant that there were crowds everywhere. The countryfolk do not often come across western faces or long noses as we are called and so many of them wanted to pose with us for photographs.

It almost felt like we were famous!We were able to visit Tiananmen square, The Great wall of China and the panda conservancy in Xian to name but a few places of interest.In Vietnam we learned a little of their culture and watched someone making edible rice paper and also how they distilled rice wine.

Both of these occupations are cottage industries made in the homes of local peopleI must say it was lovely to visit all these places but it was very tiring and now it is good to be home again.

As you may know I live on the Costa del Sol, and the wildfires which have featured in the international news lately are very close to where I live, however I am lucky to be far enough away not to need to be evacuated from my home.

The fire fighting planes and helicopters fly directly over my house and they are still going over as I write this more than 36 hours after the fires started.

There have been many people who have suffred and lots of wildlife lost. I have been inspirerd by this to create some cutting files of birds and animals. I have designed a couple of files featuring birds, these were done before the fires.

One of them is a peacock, and many people here keep them as pets. I hope you like my design.