The three of us (being myself, Wendy and Bronwen) had fun on Friday doing some shopping and sightseeing and then came back to pack all the stuff for the Bear Fair. I always enjoy making miniature bears but when you pack for a show you really appreciate the size of the bears you make. We only had to take a small wheelie suitcase each and everything we needed was packed.
Saturday dawned with rainy skies and it didn't stop, it rained the whole day. We got to Marylebone train station early as per usual ( I don't seem to now any other way of keeping time but to be hours too early for everything). The train journey to Stratford-Upon-Avon was 2 1/2 hours of looking at beautiful countryside through the rain. England is so different to France, everything is so ordered in France and every little inch of ground is used for growing crops etc, England has so much land that just seems to be left to grow wild.
We walked around Stratford looking at all the beautiful old buildings, I couldn't take many photos because trying to juggle an umbrella, handbag, shopping bag and camera in the rain is just not fun and you just don't get very nice photos. I did manage to get a couple of Anne Hathaway's house and the museum. Amazing old buildings.
It was still raining on the Sunday morning and we even had thunder and lighting when we were sitting eating our breakfast at the B&B we where staying at.The bear fair was lovely, Samantha Potter does an incredible job of organising it. We met some lovely new customers and some old friends and enjoyed ourselves a lot. We also brought some new fabric which really made us happy as we are both rather uninspired with the small stock that we have to work with. So expect to see some fantastic new bears very soon.
We had a choice of two trains to catch to get back to London, the 4:00 or the 6:00. The fair ended at 4:00 so we decided to slip out 1/2 hour early to catch the train rather than have to wait around for 2 hours and only get home at 10:00 at night. Of course our table was in front of the stage where the prizes where handed out and that started at 3:00. We threw everything into the bags and ran out of the hall at 10 minutes to 4:00 and ran all the way to the station, luckily not to far from the show venue. The train was at the station and we flung ourselves through the first available door. We never seem to have boring lives. Managed to get home at about 8:00 which was so much better than the other option.On the Monday we went into the centre of London to get some thread and fabric dye and had to stop for a few hours at Borders to look at all the books. Tuesday was a very early morning trip to the train station so that Wendy could catch the train back to France and by this time she was really fighting the flu that she got from somebody. She then had to repeat the epic journey back to Brittany while I went home.
I thought I had got away with it but by Wednesday I was also starting to feel under the weather, luckily I have managed to sort of recover in about three days.
On Thursday Bronwen had to go for a job interview in central London. It was day two of the tube strikes so we were a bit worried about the journey and how many delays there were going to be so allowed plenty of time for the trip. Plenty of time for us was 2 1/2 hours for a trip that should normally take 1/2 hour so we were fine. We took the overground train to Liverpool Street Station and then a long bus trip. One nice thing about the journey is that you get to see amazing buildings and do a bit of sightseeing as normally you would be below ground for most of the journey.
While Bron was at her interview I wandered around the area and found the Imperial War Museum. Amazing looking building and we will defiantly have to go back for a visit.
Enough news now, such a long post from me is unusual. I am busy stitching some new bears and in the meantime we still have a few lovely bears left from the show on the website looking for new homes.
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