Bloomin' Hectic Week

After driving from Norfolk last Sunday, I attended the welcome reception for Nicholas Ball’s retreaters prior to their week at Quilt Direct. They worked on their improv fish all week, ending up making them twice the normal size in their enthusiasm. 

As well as making sure the retreaters were fed, watered and happy I had a customer quilt and lots of teaching. There was a day of 1:1 overlocker, another day of 1:1 Bernini Aurora and 770QE, a B990 zoom session, then my new Friday job. 

My evenings were also busy - Nicholas came round for tea, we went out for pizza and had a gala dinner to attend!

My house could do with a jolly good hoover, Nessie needs a brush, and I have not even taken the new heavy duty Singer out of its box.

On Saturday my work colleague, Sue, and I turned up at Jo’s house to do a “Groundforce” special on her back yard which had not been completely cleared since she had a new kitchen installed. In addition, a previous owner had painted the concrete green and it was a victim of Devon winter slime. We made 3 trips to the dump then pressure-washed everything. Jo was delighted and keen to repaint fences and walls, purple of course:)

Family Funeral

I was in Norfolk last week to attend my dad‘s funeral. He died rather unexpectedly, but it was not a shock since he was 89 frail and had dementia. 

The funeral was actually quite a happy affair with many friends and family travelling from all over the country to honour his life. There were some great photos on the slideshow and many anecdotes about how he would buy livestock from a man in the pub or decide to dig a really deep well in the garden and about his times as a deep sea diver. 

All three of my children came down to stay and reconnected with their cousins which was lovely. 

I made it back to Tavistock in “just” seven hours which is less than a drive to Scotland but a reminder that we’re all so far apart. It won’t be too long before we do get to have our family summer holiday altogether here in Devon. We were going to go and stay somewhere but decided it was just too jolly expensive and it’s perfectly nice just being together.

What Day Is It?

After a long Bank Holiday weekend it is easy to get confused about what day of the week it is. Nella is still staying and I only worked for 2 days before going to Cardiff on a 2 day training course for a new job working remotely on Fridays. I will be answering emails for the Singer sewing machine helpline and trouble-shooting problems. Singer and Bernina are actually part of one UK distribution company so it is not that weird for me to have a side hustle involving a different brand. 

I brought home a “heavy duty” model to familiarise myself with a popular model. I had secretly hoped it was going to be one of the black ones and I was going to make a rockstar style cover for it. However, I think it will be called “Sid” and I plan to make it a punk inspired cover instead.

Nella and Nessie were home alone in Tavistock but survived without me so I took them on a road trip to Totnes and the Make SW gallery in Bovey Tracey. We mooched in many charity shops, enjoyed vegan drinks and lunch, then kept our fingers crossed that I did not run out of diesel on the way back over Dartmoor. 

Sunday has been a sort of reset day, doing chores and hoping to get outside and repot my struggling new rhubarb plant, while Nella works on her sketchbook and Nessie snoozes. 

Easter 2026

I had quite a varied week at work with some teaching, some quilting and making a movie about a new Accuquilt die with Karen. 

Nella came to stay and we had a super 4 day weekend. Plenty of chocolate was consumed, we went to see Mel in Looe and visited Lydford Gorge with its stunning White Lady waterfall. 

The sun came out at last so I could cut my grass. I was glad of an assistant to put my pop-up budget greenhouse from Lidl together. I was sorely tempted to purchase a hanging egg chair from Tesco but common sense prevailed. 

Nella is staying on and will be getting on with some written work for Uni so Nessie will be glad of the company this week:)