Quite a week

It's been quite a week, with not much time to think but certainly one to remember. Much of it is recorded elsewhere, so rather than repeat myelf I'll simply add links. At times, during the last few weeks, I felt my life was something like the picture above!

Coming home from Birmingham was great. Not that the exhibitions haven't been great fun and so hugely rewarding, but there's no place like home. In particular, there is nowhere to sleep quite as comfortably as in my own bed!

Monday and Tuesday were days to sort out, to catch up and most importantly, to make sure everything was in place for Wednesday. That was the day of the big meeting, the sell out event with a full Town Hall and eminent speakers. My Swansong.

It would be wrong to say I was nervous. Having got two of these events under my belt, I know that it's a bit like leaving on holiday. Get the thing started and anything that's been forgotten or omitted is simply hard luck. I knew that I had Liz there for me, secretary and veteran of many such occasions and I was confident that she had thought of everything. I had written and tweaked my speech, gone through the timed agenda over and over again to make sure nothing was forgotten and taken out a couple of phrases which I knew would prove too emotional to speak out loud. I had checked everything I could think of. But having said that, I was conscious that having been away from home for a couple of weeks, I hadn't quite got all my ducks in a row as I'd normally have. Most important, I had no shoes to wear!

So, on Monday I went shoe shopping.

On Tuesday I had my hair done and bumped into so many friends in Cirencester, all of whom were looking forward to the meeting and who said how sad they were that I was coming to the end of my three years. I guess that was the first hint of what lie in store for me the following day. Edward came home on Tuesday evening and his presence was a great distraction from the big day ahead.

I felt calm on Wednesday morning and confident that everything would go smoothly. A call from BBC Radio Gloucestershire at 7.15am set my nerves a-twitching - just what was the best collective noun for a large number of WI members? As soon as "my slot" was over, the phone rang and a neighbour who'd been listening said how she'd enjoyed it. By this time, I was feeling pretty shaky!

My colleagues were pulling out all the stops and putting together a fantastic show by the time I got to the Town Hall and it felt good to be part of such a terrific team. I had little to do myself, which was probably as well, since I could walk no more than a couple of steps - not because of my shoes (!) but because everyone wanted to stop and chat and to say thank you and sorry to see me go and so on. Quite amazing.

Just before we were opening the doors, the phone rang again - Radio Gloucestershire wanting a final decision on that collective noun. We settled for "A Flirtation"

The meeting itself was wonderful. Baroness Fritchie of Gloucester, local girl and a familiar face to many was so very inspiring. Understated and quietly spoken but so powerful in what she had to say. I think she left a huge impression on everyone in the audience. Anne Widdecombe was - Anne Widdecombe! Great speaker, very amusing and so eloquent without a note in sight - her performance was an entertaining start to the afternoon. she was rushing back to Westminster for a three-line-whip, so the Chief Constable spoke last. He too had thought provoking things to say - did any of us realise before then how very close we'd come to absolute disaster last year after the flood? Maybe just as well we didn't.

I was delighted to present a cheque for proceeds from our book, to the Gloucestershire Flood Relief Fund knowing there's yet more money to come!

Which brought us to the end of the meeting and the traditional thank you. I had been quite ok throughout the day, in spite of occasional thoughts which threatened to bring a tear to my eye. I was, however, totally unprepared for the response to my friend and colleague's formal "thank you" which brought everyone in the hall to their feet and that tear (and several more) to mop up.

The rosy glow of that moment has continued and I have so much appreciated cards and calls from friends with so many kind words and good wishes that I treasure. My successor has been elected and I am happy that she will do a grand job. Relieved of the day-to-day responsibility, I will have time to do more tutoring, spend time with friends and best of all, have time at home to do whatever takes my fancy! Not only that, but all those friends will still be there as well.

So, Thursday was relatively quiet, except that in the evening I'd been invited to celebrate an 85th birthday in the company of a local celebrity. That was fun!

And on Friday, I was amused to hear the party referred to on BBC Radio 4! We sat listening as snow/hail pelted down leaving the garden room roof white over for a (very) sort time.

Who would have thought that Good Friday would be colder and more wintry than Christmas Day?

How very much I'm looking forward to my holiday next week! I won't miss the pots and pans and assorted paraphernalia which made up that amazing display in Habitat in Cheltenham this morning. Quite reminiscent of an Anthropologie display, I thought. (Oh dear, in getting that link I note they're now shipping to the UK...that's pretty dangerous)

Meeting a friend

The day dawned bright here in Glasgow and a fine morning to walk down to Sauchiehall Street for breakfast in the Willow Tea Rooms.

A Scottish breakfast of porridge, fruit, coffee and a shot of Drambuie!

Then off to meet Sally, long time online chum. Would we recognise one another? Of course we would!
We went in search of culture to the "House for an Art Lover" in Bellahouston Park. Good job Sally knew the way!

This was an amazing place to spend a few hours, with beautiful interiors and a fascinating display of sketches and designs in progress.

The contrasts between the light, airy rooms filled with sunshine and painted in pale colours and the dark, wood panelled rooms with strong lines and amazing light fittings were magical.

We loved it so much we felt immediately hungry! What a good job there was a simply stunning place to eat there....and we joined the stylish people and became ladies who lunched. Yummy!

Culture Vultures such as ourselves need to seize every opportunity so we headed to the Burrell Collection after lunch and enjoyed a quick whizz around the "must sees". I loved the glass walls and the feeling that the museum blended into the woods so easily.

And the stumpwork and 16th century embroidery was all the better for not being part of our C&G work!

We drove back into the city and went our separate ways - what a great day out and what fun to spend time with a like minded friend.

Time then to begin work as I met up with my colleagues and headed to the exhibition centre to start setting up the show. We worked till 8 and got a good start. Taking the taxi drivers recommendation we ate at Shenaz Indian restaurant tonight - great food and delightful atmosphere. We enjoyed it so much that we booked for Saturday night too!

Meeting Maggie

To Cirencester today for a haircut and a coffee with Maggie, in the newly refurbished Brewery Arts. Conversation led to work in progress and Maggie's need for small plastic curtain rings. "Oh I've got loads...I'll put some in the post to you" said I, knowing that I'd found a bagfull when looking in vain for my small red-handled jewellery tools last week. I've just spent a happy hour looking in every cupboard, every box in my studio and can I find the plastic rings? Of course not!

But look what was staring me in the face when I opened the drawer in my worktable.

Now, what to look for so that I can stumble upon the plastic rings for Maggie?

More fun

We've been up in Hull again and spent last night in the company of the delightful Susoolu . Fortunately, I was the guilty party when it came to choosing and booking somewhere to eat last night, so I can take all the credit for offering an opportunity to enjoy the small idiosyncracies of the place.

"We opened three years ago and used to be a pan-Asian restaurant, but now we serve Global food. Special today is Beef Wellington"

"Do you want wine as well Sir? - give us yer glass then" (at which point wine is poured into a tilted glass held a foot above the table, can-of-lager style)

"The Goan Fish starter is off - would you like to choose something else?" (yes, if you'd bring me a menu)

I don't think the evening convinced my two companions that Hull is anything but the gastronomic desert they believe it to be. Having said that, my Chicken Biryani was pretty awful, Mark tells me his King Prawn Sambal wasn't much better, in spite of the radish content and we can only hope that our guest's "House Curry" was more successful! Next time we'll eat at the Parkway Chippie...

On the way home, conversation included a discussion on the trend for totally tasteless over-decoration of houses for Christmas, at which point we screeched to a halt in front of an inflatable Tigger, drunkenly propped up in front of an illuminated Santa on a motor bike.

Why?

Sadly I couldn't offer any suggestions for Susoolu's latest knitting conundrum, so in awe of the amazing complex cabled yoke was I. All I know is that no way could I bear to take out so much lovely knitting and redo it - I think I'd simply keep it as a pet and take it out to stroke and admire daily!

A week of fun and friends - and a good deal of hard work!

I got stuck in traffic this morning and looking out of my car window, look what I saw...

Sadly not what it seemed, and Edward wasn't at work there - it was the top of a ride at Hull Fair which is always held the second week in October. Though the brandy snap stand wasn't open for business when I drove past in this direction, by the time I drove back, the lights were on and there was even a parking space right nearby so I could jump out and make the purchase!

I've been at the Fashion and Embroidery exhibition with the Textile Treasures at Harrogate since last Wednesday, and when we'd finished packing up last night, I drove over to Hull so that I could spend an hour or two with Mummy before coming back to Gloucestershire today. Another 650 miles on the clock this week.

We got off to a good start and managed to get a few bits of our exhibition up before we were shooed out of the Harrogate showground at 6pm and went in search of a pub with food somewhere near our temporary home in Nidderdale. More of a challenge than we thought but after a bit of a detour we found The Wellington Inn

It was quite a lucky find and Susan decided we had earned a bottle of Champagne - delicious! (Thanks, Susan!) The food was yummy - we ate there three times and felt quite at home, so warm was the welcome (and so tender the steak....)

We took around 12 hours to set up the exhibition, which has 300 items in it, and finished around 6pm on Thursday, ready for the Friday opening.

This was the view for most of Friday, Saturday and Sunday! The exhibition is amazing and the comments left in the visitors book include almost every superlative we could dream of. Anyone unlucky to miss it so far can catch up in Cardiff next month, then Brighton, Glasgow and Birmingham next year.

As we drove to and from the showground, we got to see some of Harrogate but not much. Mostly we saw this

At lunchtime, we found a sunny step to sit on and the view from the other side of the building was somewhat better.

The show finished at 5pm Sunday afternoon and we set to immediately to take down and pack. We left the showground at 7.30pm, somewhat cream crackered, all four of us.

The exciting thing was meeting so many friends: Artful Dodger friends, WI member friends, knitty friends, stitchy friends, ladies who proudly announced their part in some of the textile treasures, Kate from the Quilters Guild who turned out to be my exact contemporary at St Johns, York all those years ago, and Margaret, WI steward who went to the same school as I did, in Hull. We were so well versed in our German conjunctions by good old "Bill" Sykes that we could still recite them word for word. It was as if we'd written them all in our "Sykes Guide to Success" yesterday.

And of course, my colleagues, the real Textile Treasures; Pat, Sue, Sue and Susan - cheers team!!