I'm still here!

Hello all, sorry I have been absent for a few days. It was a very busy weekend as I was travelling a lot and had a demonstration on Monday too, so I had yesterday as a proper day off - I was banned from doing anything remotely to do with work! Did me good though, so it was back to making samples again today.

I had a lovely time at Sew Simple near Norfolk. It is a really great shop, very spacious and well stocked and in a lovely setting too. Lorraine and her staff had set out a great display area for me and I had plenty of room to work...though it didn't take me long to use up all the space with my clutter of course! Here are copies of my book and you can see my favourite K&Co snowflake embellishments in the left hand basket.

There were lots of tables for me to display my samples on, so just as well that I had been busy and made plenty! I was using alcohol inks, amongst other things, and had a surprise when I came to use the blending solution as when I unscrewed the lid there was no nozzle on the bottle! Silly me had been decanting an almost empty bottle into an almost full one, and I had forgotten to replace the stopper....I said that I needed a rest! So I had to sprinkle the contents by putting my thumb over the bottle neck...had a nice clean thumb by the end of the day! Unfortunately I had little time to take photographs, but will definitely rectify that this coming weekend. Hello to all the lovely ladies who came along to see me.

My journey home on the Saturday evening was uneventful until the train got to Sheffield when a horde of Manchester United football "fans" boarded the train. There were lots of railway police on the platform and I thought they were going to leave us to the mercy of the chanting, swearing "fans". However, around ten burly policemen got on the train too, much to my relief. We were delayed for over fifteen minutes whilst they tried to settle the horde down, but with little effect. One guy ignored the instruction to stop swearing and chanting and was immediately grabbed by an officer. This set them all off again and there was quite a bit of scuffling. One policeman escorted me into the front carriage as they were trying to contain them in the rear one, but there was some overspill. If it wasn't so serious it would have been hilarious to hear all the yobs (no other word I'm afraid) complaining about the police behaviour whilst totally unconcerned about the disruption that they were causng to all and sundry. It would be good if the police were always in such high profile on weekend trains.

Sarah is drawing (well, her husband Ewan is) the winner of her blog candy tonight, so good luck to all who left comments for her. I hope whoever wins really enjoys their treasure. I must get organised and do another one myself.

On Monday I was at CJ Cardcrafts in Edgeley, Stockport, so hello to everyone who popped along to see me there - hope you can all remember how to use the different pens that you bought!

I'll be at Strikes (Burnside) Garden centre in Blackpool on saturday where I'll be showcasing Christmas stamps, Nestabilities and Distress inkpads amongst other things. Hope to see some of you there...if you are a blogger, do introduce yourself as it's always good to put faces to names. I am not even going to mention bringing ATC's with you for swapping this time....oh, I just did! My sister will be popping along at some point in the day too, so she may well have some for swapping too....there's an incentive!

Lindsay