It Was Amazing...

Hi folks, I recently travelled to Stockton-on-Tees to The Return Of Autour de Mwa workshop organised by Sue Tucker from Art Workshops and it was amazing. Huge thank you to Sue, Debbie and the team for an amazing weekend, the choice of venue right on the River Tees was perfect

even the extreme temperatures of the hottest weekend of the year didn't dampen the spirits of all the attendees although it was two days of sweaty betty clothes and in my case, specs that kept sliding off my nose. Sue's attention to detail and organisation skills are second to none and I would highly recommend signing up for future workshops if you haven't attended before. A huge thank you to the amazing Autour de Mwa, owner of the fabulous ALL&Create, for sharing his wonderful creative talents and exceptional teaching skills with us, it was so inspiring, educational and above all a "lots of fun" hoot.

And a huge thank you to my very special friend Anne and her hubby David for their wonderful company and generosity

It was lovely to catch up with old crafty friends and make lots of new ones. Thank you all for making the weekend so special.

I'll be sharing the Journal cover we made in the morning and the afternoon canvas project soon...

but as always, all good things come to an end. Anne and David kindly dropped me off at the station for the journey home and as I sat relaxing at Darlington Station with a coffee and the Sunday crosswords admiring the amazing architecture and fascinated by the history of George Stephenson's Darlington to Stockton railway founded in 1825, where rail travel as we know it today basically began, little did I know the travel traumas that were about to unfold.

To cut a long story short, an accident involving a lorry and a railway bridge further down the line delayed the first train on my journey meaning that I missed my Scotrail connection in Edinburgh. But these things happen and with my replacement ticket in hand from the nice man at Waverley Station's Travel Centre for the 2.28pm Scotrail train, it was time for a coffee and a bit of people watching, confident that the minor blip was a one-off. Sadly the rest of my day turned into a mega farce. The Departures board directed me to Platform 19, then we were moved  to Platform 11 and back to 19 again, only to be told that the Scotrail service had been cancelled and we would be boarding the LNER 12 coaches long service from London Kings Cross, the infamous filled to the rafters, standing room only, cattle truck train that I try to avoid at all costs. No seats, broken air conditioning left me with no alternative but to travel most of the journey home standing at one of the emergency doors with the window down just to get a breeze and oh boy, travelling along at 150mph definitely creates a breeze, it's a bit like being in a very cool and very very welcome wind tunnel. Three hours later than planned we rolled into Aberdeen, slap bang in the middle of rush hour traffic, facing another lengthy frustrating journey home but there is always a silver lining...the good news, it was raining and far cooler than it has been for weeks, the not so good news was our landline telephone had developed a fault over the weekend and hubby was not best pleased. One call to the nice man at BT and the engineer is calling today to work his magic, fingers crossed that one more problem will be ticked off the list.

But those traumatic memories are fading and I'm bravely embarking on another train adventure this weekend, Edinburgh and back in one day to meet up with some very special friends from across the pond...what can possibly go wrong, surely lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place, she says confidently.

I'll be back tomorrow to share another Alcohol Lift Ink card, in the meantime, have fun whatever you're doing.

Hugs Kath xxx