Medina Azahara

This is not exactly a "You are here." It is a sign that tells you what number to telephone to get a recorded explanation of the site you are about to visit.

In this connected age, our telephones can tell us where we are.

Catching up

We came across this exhibition in the library at Coimbra university. They would only allow me to photograph the poster of the exhibition.


This map is in the cathedral in Sevilla. It is noted for its opulence thanks to the wealth Spain acquired in the Americas.

This map, and it's label are in the park that used to be an army outpost at the very edge of a cliff at Sagres, Portugal. There are stations with informaton about Portugal's exploration of the world from the 15th century.

Cacilhas (just across the river from Lisbon)

Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon

Pena, an OTT summer palace in Sintra

Castle St George, Lisbon, Portugal

PHM visit

We spent a pleasant hour in the textile storage area of the Powerhouse Museum basement on Tuesday. As usual we took too long on each item so that we didn't see all that we had chosen from their collection of textile maps. But each item we saw was very interesting.

Following our visit to the Mitchell Library, we chose to see a piece of tapa cloth that was collected before 1900. It would make a very striking waistcoat. And it is much thiner than the piece that Elizabeth Cook was "working on."

Her embroidered map of Australia was (dimly) reflected in a doiley that brough back a rush of memories of the printed linen of my youth.

We inspected and discussed a couple of fabrics lengths printed by Jenny Kee.

There was the cotton handkerchief issued to passengers on an Orient Line cruise from Sydney to Japan in 1957. I expected this to be the most ho-hum of our selection but it is delightful.

But the tour de force is an 8 metre long, hand dyed, double woven sequence of sketches woven by Kelly Thompson.