The Delightful Amy Butler

Well, we woke up feeling very sorry for ourselves this morning, dehydrated and a bit of a sore head, despite the bottles of water I'd drank throughout the night.

The plan had been to leave for the Festival of Quilts at 8, it took a bit longer than anticipated. Three cups of tea , with a touch of sugar helped.

Got washed ( you have to be very sparing with water on a boat you know), got dressed and then attempted to put on make up. I had forgotten to bring my 10 x magnified mirror, it makes me look really hairy, like a blonde werewolf.
Tracy found a mirror with less magnification, so I had to hold it as far away as possible in order to focus, but it was not far enough. I did not look my best yesterday I admit, but I felt so bleurgh I didn't care.

Tracy struggled with her make up too, she was having problems drawing on her eyebrows with a pencil. She couldn't get them even and had a look of Roger Moore about her, she repeatedly wiped them off and redid. I cried most of my make up off during this process.

Had smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, took Wilf ( the dog ) for a walk along the towpath. Then we left.

The NEC in Birmingham is MASSIVE, the car park was about 12 miles from the hall that we needed to get to. I noticed a whole row of motorbility scooter things for hire inside, I asked Tracy if I could get one ( I suffer from plantar facilitis ) and she said no.

Inside was mainly filled with women of a certain age ( I am almost there), with massive rucksacks or on motorbility scooters ( they are everywhere nowadays !). You always know you're going to get bashed about at these things, it's always good to do some yoga breathing before entering.

There were some amazing quilts exhibited there, but there were also quite a lot of beautifully made quilts , but made in the most dreadful colours. The good news is that I was inspired by some of them and I'm looking forward to making something.

I was looking through a couple of books at a table on a stand, very nice, with sewing projects and patterns included. There was a nice blonde lady sat at the table and I was chatting to her, I was pointing out things in the book to her saying how nice blah blah. Tracy came over and said to the woman ' oh I made my friend Alison here a drawstring bag out of your fabric'. I then noticed a sign saying 'Amy Butler will be making a personal appearance and signing books between 2-4 today' .

I had been showing her , her own book. She was very nice, I bought 2 books from her and made her write something daft inside.

After 5 hours of walking about I was hobbling, it was time to go. I decided not to go to the toilet before leaving because the queues were very long and it hadn't taken us that long to get there ( Tracy's driving).

We sat in traffic for an hour and a half on the M1, there had been an incident, later we passed an ashen
burnt out shell of a car. I hope everyone got out.

My bladder had a really good work out and managed to hold out until we got to the pub where my car was. I didn't go back to the boat, I was tired and just wanted to get home.

Forty minutes later I was back with stupid dogs and André, had a shower, then a Thai tea, fell asleep zzzzzz