And the winner is.............

Thank you for joining in the fun for my Wimbledon Tennis Giveaway.
The 11 names were put into my hat this afternoon...a summer straw hat of course

And my Hb pulled out a winner, the name was read out by Billy......(who also oversaw the draw)

And the winner is....

Well done Robin! I shall be in contact with you re your address and  I shall post your unique keyring out on Monday. A little bit of Wimbledon will be on it's way to the USA!

For those of you who didn't win don't be too disappointed. I have another giveaway coming up on 26th July, a very special day, as it will be by 1st  Bloggerversary. The prize involves a couple of the lovely  alabaster  beads I bought in Volterra, Tuscany. Keep watching!

I will be back in a few days with my final Tales from Tuscany, see you all then.

Bye for now,

Jane x

Tales from Tuscany...Certaldo Alto and Volterra

After my little interlude at Wimbledon I am back to share a couple more Tales from Tuscany with you. What a fantastic tennis final it was too, Nedal was runner up but I must admit the Djokovic was a very worthy winner on the day. He has woken up this morning as no less than World Number 1 today, what an achievement.

Anyway, back to my  holiday. Near to where we stayed is a small town called Certaldo which is very sleepy and appears just to be a place to "drive through" en route to San Gimingano. However it hides a little known place called Certaldo Alto which is an amazing medieval fort town only accessible via the funicular.

It can be seen up in the hills above the town. The funicular is almost hidden away and not surprisingly very few people seem to make it up to this little gem

The cable car runs every 20 minutes and we were able to stand in the shade to wait for it. The journey only takes a couple of minutes and at the summit you find yourself transported back in time.

This is the view back down to Certaldo from inside the cable car.

This is the "High Street, it is actually the only main street there and at the top of the hill is the Palazzo Pretorio. Half way up the street is the house where Boccaccio lived (he wrote the very racy Decameron in 1351, it must have been quite an eye opener in its time!). His house has been converted into a museum and at the top is a roof terrace with a fantastic view.

This was the view across the town from the summit of his house.

We were also able to visit the Palazzo Pretorio. On our 2009 trip this was closed for renovation.It was great to see the inside for the 1st time. The Palazzo was originally a castle and dates from the c13. It housed  the Governors who were sent there for 2 years at a time from Florence. Each Governor left a plaque or a mark of when they served office and it was quite incredible to see some that remained and their dates.

It is even possible to see back to San Gimignano (2nd small hill on left and the towers there are visible)
We also managed to sample some wonderful Italian hand made ice cream here. We managed to find some shade to eat them and wonder at the views.







Another lovely day trip was our visit to Volterra, about 40 minutes way  by car. This city is very famous for its alabaster production. It also has a beautiful Cathedral and still has the remains of an ancient amphitheatre.

This was the view looking across the town.

Here is the ancient Roman Amphitheatre

and this is from the inside of the Cathedral, a stunning nativity painting.

Whilst there I decided that I wanted to try to find some alabaster beads to make myself some earrings when I got home....we searched around, most beads were already made into jewellery. Eventually though I found a shop which had pots of wonderful beads.

I was able to pick out these beauties
and in a future post  I will show you what I did with them.







I shall be back with the last of my "Tales from Tuscany" later this week. Thanks for visiting me here and don't forget to add you name to this post if you would like to be put into the hat to win my limited edition 125 years of Wimbledon Tennis keyring. Don't miss out, everyone is welcome to enter and I will close the comments on 8th July.

Bye for now,

Jane x

Game, set and match...my day at Wimbledon and a giveaway!

Wednesday finally arrived...it was time for us to see the men's Quarter Finals at Wimbledon.

We took the train and then the tram from our local station to Wimbledon. We are really lucky that we only live a few miles away. Usually we would drive but during Wimbledon fortnight this is an absolute no no! One year we were taken to Wimbledon by one of my Hb's work clients and he parked where we thought was perfectly legal only to come back in the evening after a very pleasant meal to find the car had been towed. That was a very expensive episode which we have no desire to repeat!


Outside Wimbledon train station there is a regular bus shuttle up the hill to the famous grounds of the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet club (to give it it's full title).

We really enjoy this bus trip as it is not a normal route for any bus and and it's really quick journey. We also managed to get on the open topped double decker so we had a great view for the 10 minute bus ride.

We passed the village Cath Kidston shop (above) and were able to peek into several VERY expensive homes nearby! Houses like the ones below sell at around £8-10 million.

We had packed a big picnic, enough to last for a long day of tennis and after all the usual security checks we were inside the famous grounds. We are lucky enough to have attended Wimbledon for many years but this year was the first year we had seats for Court Number 1.
We arrived just before the grounds opened (at 10.30am) so I was lucky enough to take some photos before the crowds poured in.

This is looking in towards Centre Court with the Rolex Clock.

Once we were inside our first port of call were the shops. I  L*O*V*E everything that is sold at Wimbledon. It is really high quality, if a little expensive, and the staff are so courteous.

We bought a limited edition 125 Year towel, 2 limited edition mugs, a 125 years of Wimbledon limited edition keyring and a new charm for my "Tennis" Links of London necklace.




The matches do not start until 1pm and so we had time for a "Pimms" for me and a coffee for my Hb

We also started our picnic as you are able to eat your own food both in the pavilions and even court side.
After lunch we had a wonder around taking in all the sights and also taking some photos to show you.

This is "Henmann's Hill" or perhaps "Marrays' Mount" now with all the crowds gathering to watch the giant TV screen.

This is the famous Fred Perry Statue outside Centre Court.

A view of one of the outside courts.
By 12.50pm it was time to take our seats on Court Number 1. This is the first time I have been inside this court, we had been lucky enough to get seats for Centre Court for the last 3 years. I was SO delighted though to have our seats this year as it was Men's Semi finals day and my FAVOURITE tennis player was on as the 2nd match....Rafael Nadal...swoon. Yes I know I should be shouting for Murray but I saw Nadal play in 2008 and I was well and truly hooked! He is such a joy to watch.

The first match was also a great draw. We saw Tomic Vs Djokovic. It was a very good match and although it was only 4 sets Tomic put on a good fight. Clearly though Dyokovic was a worthy winner who has gone on to tomorrow's semi finals.

There was a brief gap after this match, enough for us to get our some more of our picnic....

How could it be anything else?! I prefer the slightly healthier opinion of strawberries and grapes rather than cream and we sat and munched through these until we saw Nadal and Fish coming onto court, there was such a roar for Nadal.

Nadal has a very funny ritual before he starts playing of setting out his water bottles in a specific way. He lines 3 up....it was fun watching this first hand...

The match was brilliant, despite Nadal's win again it was no walkover. The crowd treated to a spectacle of tennis magic. Nadal is left handed and has a back hand that delivers such a blow. It was such a joy to watch him play.

He was so overjoyed to win the match!

and he signed for autograph hunters as he left the court to thunderous applause.

So now Nadal goes on to meet Murray and Djokovic meets Tsonga in the semi finals tomorrow afternoon. I wonder if both may even get through to the finals? In any case we will have watched at least one of the finalists. I will be glued to my TV to watch the final matches. 

Before I leave I thought you might like to see my new charm to add to my existing "Wimbledon" necklace shown in this post. Well here it is

It is a special limited edition "Links of London" charm produced just for this special 125th Wimbledon. My dear Hb treated me again.

 I know that I am a very lucky girl so I decided that as a treat for my blog readers I would offer one lucky reader, as a  giveaway, the very special limited edition keyring I bought. I so enjoy your visits to me here and I really love reading all your comments. Even the "lurkers" ( I mean this is the very kindest possible way), yes my stats show there are many of you out there from all around the world, hello to you too! :0)

We hunted high and low for this as it had sold out everywhere in the shops around the courts last week. We managed to get the VERY last one available, which was the one on show, at one of the kiosks.You do not need to have you own blog but you do need to leave a comment at the end of this post to join in the fun. Please leave a contact email if you do not have a blog that I can contact you through, should you win. I will post world wide. There are no hoops to jump through for this; you do not need to follow me (but I really thank those of you who are) etc etc. It's just a good old fashioned gift that I would like to offer as a thank you to one of my lucky reader's. So if you are a "lurker" out there don't feel too shy to put your name in the hat, everyone is very welcome. Last day for putting your name in the hat is 8th July.

I hope you enjoyed your trip with me to this year's 125th Wimbledon and let's see who is crowned men's singles champion on Sunday. (And good luck to you all for my little give-away).

Bye for now,

Jane x

(PS Just for this post I will not respond to any of your lovely comments, so that I do not affect the numbers in the give-away).