Olympia Show Report

What a lovely day I had at the show yesterday! :o) It had vastly improved on last year's effort which seemed to be far more papercrafts than stitching & I believe the company that runs the shows had lots of complaints about it. They've redeveloped the Olympia site, so there's now 3 levels - the entry level which is the main show which was 90% stitching stalls, an upper level which had most of the other crafts and a lower level with a restaurant & seating so you could munch on your picnic! There was a good selection of stitching goodies available & my best friend Sharon really choked me up - she knew I didn't have a great deal of cash to spare & she gave me a rather large sum of money as a gift of friendship. I really didn't know what to say & it was pretty emotional stuff! She is my oldest, dearest friend & we go back a very long way having known each other most of our lives. It's just great to know how much your friends think of you in the good times & the bad. So, thanks to Sharon I was able to have a lovely splurge on stash! I bought some beautiful beads from a stall called Whichcraft by an unknown maker (well, they weren't Delicas or Mill Hills - that much I know!) which I'm going to try & incorporate into my Titania conversion, I also bought Celestial Spheres by Mary Hickmot which is a gorgeous kit & I've wanted to stitch the solar system for ages! I picked up Mira's Blossom Harvest and L&L's Celtic Winter and my bargain of the day were these fantastic bead storage boxes which were £9.99 each & the day before I'd come across them online at their full price of £50! So, not one to let a bargain pass me by, I got 2. :o) The show wasn't as crowded as previous years, although we've never been on a Sunday before & I presumed it would be packed as it was the last of 4 days. I'd definitely go on a Sunday again & can't wait until next year!

When we got back to Sharon's parents I spent a few hours with them & our other friend Richard came over in the evening so we played a couple of games. One was hilarious - it's called Dancing Eggs. There's an eggbox containing 10 rubber/wooden eggs. There are 2 die, one indicates what you do to get an egg (run around the table, crow like a cockerel etc) and the other one tells you where you have to keep your egg (between your knees, inbetween your neck & shoulder, under your arm etc). It's hilarious & obviously the more eggs you have, the more difficult the tasks are! We also played the movie game Scene It, which was pretty good. We're all film buffs, so we were in teams - me & Sharon versus Richard & James (Sharon's DH) and of course, us girlies beat the guys not once, but twice! Lol. We had a great evening & I am hoping to go up to Yorkshire so I can see them soon.