Feb 15: RCHS - crafty weekend in Derbyshire...

This post won't be staying here - it is just a temporary home until Sally's husband can (hopefully) build us a permanent little site of our own...

It's just a handy place to store it for the moment while I can still remember what happened and what we did!...

Friday 13 February

Unlucky for some but not for us (the famous five to start with - Wendy, Sue, Siobhan, Chris and Rosemary) as we set off from various points of the compass to meet up at Broadhurst Farm Cottages, Waterhouses on the edge of the Peak District near Leek...

First stop Tesco for shopping...

 ...all thrown onto the back seat as the car was already packed to the hilt with necessities!...

Multiply that by five of us...

Plenty of essential supplies (needed to fuel our intended creativity!) - and a convenient large windowsill by the sink to store the empties...

As more of us arrived it soon became apparent that we had vastly overcatered - as everyone had bought loads more stuff...  

But we soon got down to the serious business - organising the fridges, blowing up balloons etc...







And we quite liked Rosemary's storage solution of a bottle of wine or spirits for each boot or slipper!

Our first meal was a huge goulash - lovingly prepared at home by Siobhan...

We raised a glass and toasted absent friends...

 This was our first picture with the selfie stick as we were waiting for Rosemary to arrive.

Well it was the first selfie picture that had people in - it took a bit of getting used to!

Sue had passed her first aid course at school that same morning so we bought her a useful little medical kit...

And Chris had bought her Valentine's Day flowers with her - we said that she had to share them.  They are pictured here posing tastefully with the communal pack of emergency Tena Lassies...

We set up a little craft corner for our paints and sewing machines and put up our bunting (thanks Sue!)

And Siobhan got on with the job of making the icing for Barbara's bunny birthday cake...

As there were five of us we decided to sleep together in the bunk room - big mistake!!  We soon found out who snored, who ground their teeth and who did it all at the same time... no names...

Don't know how Sue had arrived at the profound conclusion that you can weesie in a onesie but it was probably better not to ask...

Kedgeree for breakfast (thanks for the recipe RCHS!) along with a little glass of Buck's Fizz (little?!) and Sally arrived. 

A quick breakfast and she was soon into the painting with the others...  I don't seem to have any pictures of her paper wetting technique which was quite unique - and very artistic looking.  I won't say any more in case she decides to patent it for future use!

And they were soon churning out all sorts of artistic masterpieces...  A quick break for lunch and it was into the sewing...

Carol arrived in the middle of all this and as it was still Valentines Day both she and Sally received mystery gifts...

 More sewing ...

... and the finished products...

How happy do we look?!...  We were all so pleased with everything that we had achieved!

We found that Prosecco - or indeed anything alcoholic and bubbly - was a great help to the artistic process...

And a strange thing that I noticed... In almost every picture taken there is at least part of a bottle or glass showing!...  Funny that...

But all the alcohol didn't help in getting the hang of the selfie stick... 

Chris tried her hand at knitting and Carol had a quiet five minutes as she concentrated on stuffing her sock monkey (oooer missus!)......

Then we decided we ought to do a bit of exercise so we did - a bit...

Our accommodation - the one in the middle with patio door and small walled patio...

So - exercise done, it was time to eat and drink! - delicious moussaka this time courtesy of Chris - thanks Chris!

And so to bed...

The next day started with a mystery - where was Carol's other slipper?...

As we all got up we found that Rosemary had already been driven downstairs by Chris' snoring and teeth grinding - and Sue had retreated to the next bedroom to escape..

Rosemary had thought that Chris and Sue were snoring in unison - she said it sounded like one answering the other and having a conversation.  

She finally realised that Sue wasn't even there and that Chris was snoring on the in breath and on the out - and grinding her teeth too - now that's multi tasking!!

Sally started on the kitchen clean up from the night before (which we'd just left) and made us all some scrummy scrambled egg with smoked salmon - lots of butter and cream - very decadent, lots of calories but DELICIOUS!...  

And Chris made us more Buck's Fizz!...

Janice arrived and quickly caught up with the painting while Carol wisely knitted and stuffed her monkey a bit more (probably still pondering over the mystery of the missing slipper)...

 Carol still seems to be suffering from that closed eye syndrome...

Chris got painting mania and covered every canvas she could see - we even had to resort to opening our own bottles as she was so into it...


So - a quick cake break at this stage while we ate Barbara's birthday cake.  Unfortunately Barbara wasn't feeling too well and couldn't get over to be with us - but in between bites we were able to assure her that her cake was delicious!  

We were even reduced to having this with tea or coffee as our bar person was STILL painting...

A quick catch up sew from Janice and she was happy with her cushion cover...

Sue meanwhile had sewn up a little sock monkey who sat on her sewing machine watching Chris do yet more painting...

Meanwhile - back to Chris' knitting...

















After it was started for the third time everyone got involved and most of the group did at least a row or two on it.

It eventually started to look hat shaped and Chris sewed it up and added the pom pom and she finally had her OWN KNITTED HAT!...

Everyone was very impressed with the things they had made so we soon had little impromptu galleries springing up on chairs and settees (except for Sally - did you put yours away somewhere?!)

Even Simon (Janice's OH) managed to look suitably impressed when he arrived to take her home.

Siobhan went for the 'muse' approach...


























And the mystery of the missing slipper was solved when Dick came to pick up Carol - it had been left in the boot of the car...

We said a reluctant farewell to Sally as she set off homewards - and soon it was time for food again...

The pile of empties on the windowsill was coming along nicely... 

Chris made us some hedgerow cocktails  and we all settled back down onto our settees - back to our original famous five.  We sipped our drinks whilst reflecting on all we had done over the past two days - well four of us reflected whilst Rosemary danced very enthusiastically all the way through two films...

What a lovely weekend and what lovely company. 

We all agreed that it had been a huge success - and when is the next one??!...