Gloating

Booking for Festival of Quilts opened today at midday. So, was I at my computer, fingers poised, credit card ready? Um no. I was on a podium in a conference venue at London Gatwick airport talking about Forced Marriages. Arrgh! Not that the show sells out - you can pay on the day. And the lectures don't sell out either - the auditorium is pretty big. ( I know. I shared a stage there once with Ricky Tims. Ok, he was on it at Festival and I was on it a week earlier talking to lawyers about enforcing contact orders, but still...!)

So why the panic? Because the workshops sell pretty quickly. Which is where having a retired husband is handy. (I just asked him if he preferred to be called retired or stay at home. He requests 'Major Domo'). I left him a detailed list of requests from me and Best Quilting Buddy Lesley and strict instructions to go online at midday prompt.

Being scared by the frenzied look which no doubt accompanied this instruction he went on at ten to midday 'for a dry run to check my route'. Horror - booking was open early and, deducing from the varying numbers of tickets left Other People had been buying. In a sweat he began to frantically click and search the diary. Meanwhile I am trying to be entertaining about changes to child maintenance and looking at the little clock on the lectern and crossing my fingers that all will be well. I finish. I switch on the mobile phone. No signal. I fight past two hundred delegates to the Hilton Hotel restaurant. Still no signal. I go up to the lobby. No flippin' signal. I go outside and there, with Boeing 777's thundering overhead I get the message:

"All systems go,go,go. I hope.Love you."

He hopes????

I ring. He is smug. Since he sent the text not only has the confirmation come through that in fact he did not foul up but also he has been back on the booking system and the three workshops we booked are already sold out. Crazy! And people think quilters are sweet old ladies who make patchwork tea cosies for their great nieces. Imagine the cyber-fighting-at-the door-of-the -January-sales that must have been going on! Anyway this is how come a show that costs £10 to get into is going to cost me more than a family holiday in Europe.

I shall - as you might have guessed from the illustrations - be going down to Birmingham early to do a two day workshop with Sandra Meech pre-show called Connecting Art to Stitch. So that's six nights hotel then. During the show we both get to do a three hour workshop Create and Colour with Clare Martin where we play with different product and an hours slot with Laura Kemshall. Plenty of the four days left for shopping and shopping, ahem, I mean looking at quilts and - um, shopping ( make that a family holiday in the Maldives) together with a lecture on design from Magie Grey, a lecture on Egyptian Quiltmakers by Jenny Bowker and a session on embroidering on water soluble film. With dancing one evening and the company of a wonderful and entertaining friend... I can't wait.

PS. Does anyone need a lecture on Forced Marriage any time this year? I have bills to pay!