Waxy at a Candle Factory

Wednesday 30 January 2002. We are, as ever, up early in the morning to get washed, wrapped in numerous layers of clothing, breakfasted, teeth cleaned, woolly hats pulled on tight and presenting ourselves to the drivers at the coach for today's exciting activities.

Today we start at a place called Brixlegg, where the point of interest is a candle factory. George warned us that some of the candles might be "interestingly shaped" at which point the ladies on the coach all started giggling and pushing their way out of the coach, leaving the men floundering, crying out in alarm and squeaking in protest... These look perfectly acceptable candles, but you will notice that there's not a woman to be seen - no. They are all clustered around a shelf not too far away saying things like "Ooh, that'd make Fred feel inadequate..." and "Do you suppose friction might melt them..."

We are called to attention by one of the candle makers who is to give us a demonstration - no ladies(!!!) - of making candles. For Heaven's Sake...

There are lots of containers of different coloured waxes, kept at liquid temperatures. You start by dipping your wick (this article is taking a rather strange course, but it gets better from now on, I promise...). Each dip leaves a thin layer of wax and multiple dipping builds up the width of the candle. Dipping in different colours produces layers that can be peeled back to reveal them - next slide please...

With the wax solidifying but still soft, the candle is cut and the cut part bent down into a curl. This is how the candles shown in the first photograph are made. A heat source to the side keeps the wax soft enought to mould without breaking.

It's one of those crafts that you feel could be a lot of fun, trying your own hand at candle making. I imagine it could be a whole heap messy too though... There were other cheaper and simpler-shaped candles, tapered, cylinders, pyramids and so on.

"Have ye found any aiggs?" asked Jock. She did... By the time we got back to the coach, Jock was sweeping it out. "Anyone bringing bits o' grit in again will get such a slap!" he warned with mock ferocity. We all did though - there was so much spread about on the snow-covered pavements.

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Farewell to Sorrento

Wednesday 24 August 2005. It's our last night in Sorrento.

Night time in the market streets of Sorrento. Whilst colourful by day, at night they have a special atmosphere! It's a place to see and be seen.

Whilst most holiday makers are dressed casually, occasionally a couple, a group of girls or an Italian housewife will stroll by, dressed to impress.

There were a large number of folk with rather familiar accents too - snapping up tiny bottles of Limoncella lemon liqueur, saying "Eeh, George, let's take some o' this back for our Florrie!"

In fact we've still got a couple of said small bottles gathering dust on the shelf, contents separating and looking not quite as appealing as it did when we bought it that night...

Eventually even the ladies had had enough of the markets and shops. We started to head back towards the hotel, past this little park which looked completely different to how it appears during the day.

The hotel next door had a DJ playing loud music until the early hours. The DJ was indistinguishable from an English DJ actually. "Verberve buh vebberrev, ha ha ha! Beverber ha ha! beebussy cooooobah! Hey ho! Ha ha ha!" Yep... just like any DJ in England at weddings, in pubs, clubs, etc...

The next day we have a few hours before the coach picks us up to take us to the airport. The ladies make back straight for the market streets, so I have a wander inland and find I'm walking over a bridge across an immensely steep and deep chasm.

At the bottom are the ruins of a large factory and to take the photo I'm shooting almost vertically down from the roadway bridge. A quite awesome viewpoint.

Further inland I find some of the old city walls. I hadn't even known that Sorrento had a city wall until I wandered up this far and passed under the gate in the photo.

They are fairly solid chunks of masonry though as you can see. And these lengths of wall that I saw are so complete and seemingly in such good condition that I had to conclude that the rest of the city wall was deliberately demolished, probably to allow the town to expand.

I couldn't really work out what the three corner corbels would have supported... The wall above them is unbroken so they are hardly likely to have held a fighting platform - which would have been more use on the inside of the wall anyway. Perhaps they had some extremely large hanging baskets?

Then as the heat grows, I head back towards the market and harbour and find somewhere cool to wait for Fran and Mum. The little open space here looks like they have set up for an open air concert of some kind for tonight. Typical - the day we go home! Ah well...

Ahhh.... yes, that'll do! And that's about it. Now we are whisked off to Naples airport where my battered hat gets stuck in the X-ray conveyor to be eventually thrown out to a bemused person who couldn't remember putting it in... I forgot all about it until I was on the plane when I suddenly said "Where's my hat?" but it was far too late! And probably far too battered to make me care all that much!

And by way of coincidence, as I finish writing about our Sorrrento holiday, my mate Clive is about to set off on his Sorrento holiday, so have a good one, bud!

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