Finally caught up enough to blog..

It’s been a busy couple of weekends. A fortnight ago I was in Paris for my Graduation ceremony and last weekend was spent in Cambridge so I could attend a Sampler study day at the Fitzwilliam Museum.

It was a flying visit to Paris, we got the Eurostar on Friday afternoon after meeting D at Waterloo so we arrived into Paris around 7pm. We decided to blow some of D’s Holiday Inn loyalty club points on a stay at the Intercontinental near the Opera which was very nice especially the bathroom! (it had windows and room to swing a cat!!) And the major selling point for me it was conveniently located near a LNS LOL. Saturday was the graduation, which was taking place at Versailles, in a conference centre next to the Châteaux. But first I had to go visit the aforementioned LNS ‘Des fils et une Aiguille’ an absolutely gorgeous little shop I could easily have spent a lot longer there browsing than the half hour I had. I picked up a couple of charts Spanish Geometrical Sampler by The Needles Content and a gorgeous Sewing pouch chart, ‘La pochette a ouvrage’ by Bleu de Soie but I saw a lot more there that I would like not least from their comprehensive selection of linen banding.

Then it was on to the RER up to Versailles for the ceremony. There’s not a lot to say about it, I took a short walk in a funny outfit and could now add the letters MscDevMan(Open) after my name if I so wished. The one of the nicest parts was that the music was provided by a New Orleans style Jazz Quartet, I don’t know if this was a post Katrina decision or not but having the formal processionals to ‘When the Saints go marching in’ was a definite improvement on all the other graduations I’ve been too. After the ceremony was finished we grabbed a bite at a nearby café then headed back to Paris as we needed to do some more shoping. First stop was FNAC to find some CD’s for Stasha then it was on to another LNS pausing to get D a phone charger (he’d managed to leave his power brick for his laptop in London DOH! And so couldn’t use his USB phone charger). Entre des Fournisseurs is another gorgeous shop, more of a haberdashery with lots of gorgeous buttons and ribbons and what got me the most excited; wool felt. They had a small selection of charts and I picked up ‘Ou sont cashes mes Aiguilles’ by Alix Imagine and ‘Bienvenue le Printemps’ by Au Fil des Reves as well as three pieces of the felt. After I’d finished there we just mooched slowly back to the hotel stopping for drinks/food as the mood hit us.

Sunday I was heading back on Eurostar mid afternoon leaving D in Paris to head to the airport as he was due in Prague for work on Monday. So we decided to take a walk along the Seine in the morning before getting lunch at the café in the Tuilleries. Then it was back to the hotel to collect our luggage and head off for the Eurostar. Which was all nice and uneventful until the train had just cleared the tunnel when my phone rang, it was D and what he had to say was ‘You don’t want to hear this but mother rang and there’s water coming through the kitchen ceiling’ At which I observed he was right I didn’t want to hear that! Turned out that the flexi tube connecting the taps on our bathroom sink had perished and sprung a leak, fortunately it was making enough noise for my MIL who was house sitting, to investigate and then get our neighbour to turn the water off at the main when she realised what was going on. Fortunately she caught it really early so apart from having to have a plumber out Monday morning to fix the pipes to the sink there was no other damage. Apart of course from the 5 hours I spent worrying while I completed my journey home :\ Hey ho