POTD - Phonebook

Phonebook - by Kristin Corlett

It's an unusual photo of the day, but this is a picture of a page of the Isle of Man phonebook.  This is the Corlett page, specifically the Corlett J's - N's page.  When I was growing up there was just one other Corlett in the phone book and rarely a Corlett in any phone book in other cities.  It's just not a common name.   When we got to the Isle of Man and looked up our name there were several pages of Corlett's.  It was truly exciting.  I doubt I'll find a Corlett in the phonebook in Rome, but you know I'll look!

Enjoy!
Kristin

POTD - Queens Hotel

Queens Crescent Hotel - by Kristin Corlett

This is a sign that hung on the balcony of the Queens Crescent Hotel on the Isle of Man. We stayed on the Queen's Promenade in the Queen's Hotel, but I do believe that sign this was on a hotel just down the road.

Enjoy!
Kristin

Isle of Man again

Welcome to the Isle of Man.

I think all of us took a picture of this awning. My mother took a picture of all of us "Corletts" under the sign - we were totally holding up the line. I haven't seen the photos she took yet. I hope that one comes out well.

from Wikipedia

The Arms consist of shield bearing the triskelion, a symbol consisting of three bent human legs, on a red field. The triskelion is an ancient symbol used in the Isle of Man. The supporters are a falcon and a raven. The falcon is used due to the historical importance of the bird in the Island's history in that when Henry IV of England gave the Isle of Man with all its rights to Sir John Stanley on condition that he paid homage and gave two Peregrine falcons to him and to every future King of England on his Coronation Day. This tradition carried on up to the Coronation of George IV in 1822. The raven is used as a bird that features in Manx legends. The shield is mounted by a St. Edward's Crown, representing the British monarch who is referred to on the island as The Queen, Lord of Mann.

The motto is Quocunque Jeceris Stabit (Latin: Wherever you throw it, it will stand)

A banner of the arms is used as the flag of the Isle of Man.

This sculpture is just outside the doors of the airport terminal. It was the most unusual representation of the triskelion that we saw on the Island. I really love the motto, wherever you throw it, it will stand. You can really see that in this sculpture.


The first thing we did was to get on one of the double-decker buses. I think these buses were actually in Ramsey, but you get the idea. We didn't rent a car on the island, so we were riding the other transportation options. It was nice, real nice. We bought a 3 day pass that allowed us to ride all the trains, the buses, and the horse tram.


We checked into our hotel on the Queens Promenade. It's the furthest end of the promenade away from the heart of downtown Douglas. Douglas is the largest, most populated town on the island - although it isn't called a city because it doesn't have a cathedral.

There is a gorgeous Panoramic view of Douglas Bay. Be sure and take a look. Out in the water you can see a little castle. It's called the Tower of Refuge. The photos I took were fairly awful. It was cloudy, rainy and I was too far away to get a good shot, but the links below have some really nice views.


Very close up view of the Refuge - Isle of Man Guide

Isle of Man: The Tower of Refuge Video

This is a really cool photo of low tide and the Refuge Castle.




The first day on IOM (Isle of Man) we all went down to the harbor to catch the steam train to Port Erin. These boats caught my eye as we were headed toward the station.



I really liked the old old stone on the top of this building. I'm assuming the brick has been covered over on the bottom portion of the building, but it's still underneath.



I can't remember where I took this photo, but it was IOM. It's a close up of an iron gate. I loved the chipped paint, the knob and the bright bright greenery.


This is the steam train station. It was gorgeous. The red brick was truly brilliant.

The steam train was very cool. It was individual cars with two bench seats, facing each other. All 6 of us were able to get one car. The ride was about 30 - 45 minutes down to Port Erin. We saw more pheasants and rabbits than I'd ever seen in my life. They don't have any natural enemies on the island, so they literally have the run of the place. The pheasants were just standing in the fields, hanging out. Same with the rabbits. Truly amazing.



This was the coastline at Port Erin. Rugged Beauty.

We walked around a bit and then took the bus to Castletown, then another bus to Douglas. When we took the bus from the airport, we had to sit on the first level, because we had bags we needed to hold onto & it was just easier to not haul them up the stairs. This bus ride though, we were without baggage! So we sat up on the top. I really liked that.

More to come. Tomorrow? I hope so...
Kristin

Post Boxes

Welcome to Postcard Friendship Friday hosted by Marie of Vintage Postcards. I've only officially participated once on Friday so its not ingrained in my brain that I need to get something posted for Friday morning. Since the carnival is hosted from someone in France, it's already really late in the day!

I hope you go over to Vintage Postcard and take a look at all of the postcard posts, as well as anything at all that has to do with mail. Today I will be showing you some of the post boxes that I found in Ireland and the Isle of Man. A few of them you may have seen before, but I thought I'd put them all together in one post.


This shop was in the heart of the little downtown area of Nenagh, Ireland. Nearly everything was closed because it was a Sunday, but I was drawn to the tile in the entranceway so I went over to take a picture. Then I saw the letter flap.

I thought the closeup of the letters flap was very nice. I loved the burgundy door and the gold. I also really liked the font used for the letters.

The first night in Ireland we went looking for a place to eat dinner. We were following directions, but pulled over to check the map and see if the folks in the other car knew where we were going. I walked around snapping photos while the drivers talked to one another. I saw this post box set into this giant rock and new I had struck gold!

This post box was spotted at Bunratty Castle in Ireland. I loved the two tones of green paint and I so love the roundness of the "box."

I think this is a stylized version of the P and R that I saw on the mailbox in the stone up above. Ahhh, turns out I was wrong. Sheila gave me a little history lesson in the comment section. Thanks so much! This post box is even more special now that I know a bit of the history.

Sheila said...The two-tone green letter box is an old British one dating from Victorian times. The letters are VR, Victoria Regina. Rather than replace all the letter boxes when Ireland became a republic, they just painted the existing ones green. I imagine it's had a good few coats of paint since it was last red. :)

Extreme closeup of the word post and part of the drop slot. I am kind of fond of this photo.

This is the Isle of Man post box that we saw at the IOM airport. It is so bright!

Those are all of the mailbox pictures that I took. I have to say though, every time I saw one I wanted to photograph it, even though most of them were the same shape and color. I forced myself to focus on other things.

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to visit other Postcard Friendship Friday participants.
Have a Wonderful Weekend!
Kristin

Thrifty Souvenirs

Welcome to another edition of Thrifty Thursdays hosted by Leigh of Tales from Bloggeritaville. A fun little time to hunt around the house, the garage, someone elses house and garage or even a thrift store or two to dig up some cool finds. Be sure and check out the other Thrifty Finds, from the other participants.

I stopped shopping for stuff several years ago. Every so often things come into my house, but for the most part I go to the grocery store a few times a week and that's about all the shopping I do. So when I went to Ireland and the Isle of Man this past week (Be sure to come back and read about the trip. I've got three posts up so far.) -- Yes, so on my vacation I wasn't there to shop. BUT I knew I had to bring back souvenirs and I knew they had to be thrifty because airplane fare, food and lodging was 99.9% of my budget. I had very limited space in my bag to carry anything, too.



I'm obsessed with mail.

I love mailboxes.

I love paper to write on.

I love writing out addresses on envelopes and I am in love with fun stamps.



Before I left I decided to invest my Dollars, Euros and Pounds into post cards. I copied off a few dozen names and addresses of friends and family and took them with me, so I could send off postcards to them as small gifts :)

Then I made sure that I got a really nice assortment of postcards for myself, too.

Continuing the Thrifty Theme - I'm going to mail out a few dozen more post cards to people, even though I'm home. It's much cheaper to send the cards to the US, in the US.



I only got to the Post Office in the Isle of Man and not in Ireland, so I was only able to bring home IOM postage. I usually like to get a few stamps from countries that I visit. It's a very inexpensive way to get a souvenir. The flower stamps were 1 cent, 2 cents and 4 cents each- so that's REALLY thrifty!



This stamp was so neat - it's an IOM stamp that shows the US landing on the moon. It's even got a US flag in it. I thought it was the perfect stamp to bring home.

I did end up buying one shirt and I had to buy a windbreaker/rain jacket because I was not prepared for the deluge of rain we experienced. Other than that, my Thrifty Souvenir adventure was perfect and I don't feel like I missed a thing.

Oh, I also took over 400 photos! Those were really inexpensive, too!

Please go on over to Leigh's place and see who else joined in on the carnival.
Kristin

I was asked by Marie of Vintage Postcards blog if I'd like to link up to her blog carnival about Postcard Friendship Fridays. I thought it might be nice, so I did :) If you'd like to see more fun postcards, stamps, pictures of mailmen or other things postcardish, go on over and take a look. I'll have to do the same!

Meeting a relative?

Jumping forward to then end of my trip overseas - I want to show off pictures of some friends I met when I was on the Isle of Man.

Let me give you a little background.

I joined a Facebook group called "I have a Manx name" - which means that I have a last name that comes directly from the Isle of Man. C's, K's and Q's are the most popular first letters. Here's some interesting info I found about my last name - Corlett - here.

1986 telephone directory		1881 census ranking
1	Kelly	1
2	Corlett	4
3	Quayle	2
4	Moore	7
5	Cain (Caine was 47)	3
6	Christian	5
7	Kneale	18

I have never met another Corlett that wasn't a family member, so finding out that there is a place where my name is popular - VERY popular - was really kind of cool! Second most popular last name in 1986? as Steve Martin said in The Jerk... I'm somebody!

So I joined the Facebook group and within a day I had a message from a girl named Kelly Corlett and she wanted to be my friend. She also lived on the Isle of Man.

LIVED THERE!

It was so weird.

I friended her. We chatted. I looked at photos of the Isle of Man that she took. I asked her about the weather. Then I told her we were coming to visit :) She said she'd love to meet us.

And we did.


It rained all day, so take that into consideration when looking at these photos LOL That's Me in the stripey sweater, Kelly and her son Miles.

Kelly's two lovely boys, Brody and Daniel.

This is Ian and in the background is Tom. Ian is Kelly's and Tom is mine...if we are claiming them :)



What do you think?
Do you think we look like long lost relatives??




Kelly, it was so much fun to meet you. Thanks so much for coming out on a rainy, cold day after spending the entire day being a social director for your other visitor! It was amazing to meet you online and a few weeks later see you in person! I have a funny feeling that we're going to be friends for a very long time. Very.

Kristin