Stunning glass jelly fish

Last week I popped into our Island Museum as they had been doing some major work to the main exhibition space and the first section was now open. Which does look very impressive.

But the exhibit that made a huge imprecision, literally blew me a way,

was the display of glass jelly fish

Yes you heard correctly, glass jelly fish!

Portuguese - man - of - war about 30 cm high

Turns out they are the work of Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka

These Bohemian glass blowers in the late 1800 mastered a technic of replicating

invertebrates and plants in blown glass. 

This was for scientific teaching, as invertebrates like jelly fish were impossible

to preserves for research.

Harvard University has an amazing collection of their plants. Can you imagine the difficulty of shipping such delicate objects across the Atlantic.........

But as you can see these objects are stunningly beautiful and so lead to their popularity with Victorian collectors, in the island Mr Guille and Mr Alle were two such gentlemen.  They were the founders of our local Library having taken inspiration from the Public Library in New York.

Their library surprisingly called the Guille Alle(!) also was home to the first museum in the island predominately made up of their collections and that of their friends.

It wasn't till 1979 that the museum got its own purpose built home up in the grounds of

the Priaulx Library, where it still is today.

I was mesmerised by them, the back lighting casting such beautiful shadows.

So amazing that they have survived so well in storage, I certainly don't remember ever having seen them on display before, and I have hear rumours that there are few more still in store....

If you get chance to pop in do and I hope you will be as amazed as I was.

(I did ask permission before taking these photos, but only had my photo with me which is why they arn't great, sorry)

cant beat a Guernsey sunset!

Beautiful day yesterday, so after work Chris and I headed down to the west coast to enjoy the sunset.  Tide was too low for a swim,

but we found a peaceful spot over looking Lihou Island to enjoy our picnic

 .

 Chris doesn't take the easy option with a picnic,

oh no we had mussels steamed in onions, garlic and Breton Cider.

Absolutely delicious!

And as he had decided to drive I could finish the Breton Cider my self!

Ok, we forgot the glasses, so I had to drink from a bowl, but that felt very Breton, though it was plastic not one of those classy china cider bowls...... 

Then the entertainment started.

Not a bad sunset at all xxx

Tumbling toms!

Chris and I have always been a disaster when growing tomatoes,

we don't have a green house,

so they go on the flat roof to get the most sun,

but consequently we forget to water them and

I end up making vast vats of green tomato chutney.......

Its different this year, saw a clip on Gardeners World on growing them in hanging baskets,

and I thought this could work! 

So Tumbling Toms were brought, and have thrived,

I wont say its been a bumper crop, but its been a steady crop perfect for the two of us.

And the basket is on the wall by the hose, so no chance of forgetting to water them!!!!!

Castle Swim

one day I said, one day I will do the Castle Swim,

well I missed it last year, but this year I was organised.

So armed with the essentials, an old friend to gossip with while swimming (thank you Emma!) 

and serious goggles (hate those little one, seem to get stuck in my eye sockets....)

Had forgotten how much I hate swimming caps, think the last time I had to get one on

was at school, maybe that is why I swim like my mum,

breath stroke with my head out the water,

so I don't get my hair wet and don't have to wear a swimming cap!

We were ready to go, the swim is about 500 meters, roughly 20 lengths,

from the slip way in Havelet over to the Castle. 

Its all very well organised, we went in waves of 50, the first group in green hats, then yellow etc. 

In all there were 228 of us swimming, it really was a great atmosphere.

pebbles.....just not possible to enter the sea elegantly.....

And we are off, my spotty costume definitely made it easier for

the official photographer (Chris) to find us.

There were kayakers stationed both sides of the course to be ready to help

anyone that got in to difficulties.

One of the many reasons Emma was totally vital to me, was I have an over active imagination. 

I know we do get big fish in our waters. Basking sharks do come in to this bay,

I know they wont harm me, but what will is the panic I get into when I see a fin heading my way.  My brain wont go, oh that's just a Basking shark, not a problem,

it will go SHARK!!!!! Panic, sink......

So a swimming chatting partner when out in deep murky water is

vital to keep my mind busy on other things.

That's Em waving.

As we got closer to the Castle slip way the swell increased, so you really felt you were riding waves, very good full body work out, but at least the waves weren't breaking in our faces, which I hate.

And it was a nice temperature, not cold at all.

And we did it! 

The swell breaking onto the bottom of the slip wave did make landing rather challenging, some very gallant gentlemen swimmers, stayed down there to hold onto us as we came ashore,

so very much appreciated. Thank you.

But we did it!!!!

And I have my certificate to prove it, same time next year Emma?

beautiful, beautiful book....

Last winter I was in our beautiful library and I cam across this beautiful book.

Its a ships log of a voyage up from the Chausey Islands

(down by St Malo - the only French Channel Islands) up through our archipelago.

The artist is Jean-Loup Eve and the author/skipper is Gilberet Hurel who is from Chausey.

It is a stunning book, very very strokable.   

The water colour sketches of St Peter Port are some of the best I have seen.

And he definitely captures the atmosphere of Sark, its piece and tranquility.

In contrast to some of the seas we get round here!

I am sorry to say but I WANTED IT!

But this gorgeous book played hard to get, it wasn't in any of my local bookshops, or on their data bases, it wasn't on Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com had only the French version.

On a closer look through the book I found the publisher,

it turns out that these chaps self publish, and have a lovely small series of these books set round Brittany.  And you could order them on-line.......but not the English edition....

So armed with my French dictionary, an email correspondence grew,  turned out they only had a handful of the English ones left, and a few months later, my gorgeous book arrived.

I must say it was so worth the effort.

Lovely strokable book xxx