Our day out

Yesterday Ruth, Paula and I went to the newly opened Quilt Museum in York. We had a great day out. The traffic was kind to us (except for several idiots who undertook me on the motorway - it's illegal in the UK - and then wove their way off into the distance!), the company was wonderful and the museum and exhibition were worth the trip. The building the museum is housed in dates from the 15th century, and is an ideal setting for the quilts. There was a good variety of quilts on show, ranging from the 1718 silk quilt (even more fabulous to see in the 'flesh'), through 18th and 19th century medallions, strippies, samplers, soldiers' quilts, crazies and much more, right up to 20th and 21st century ones, including one made of plastic bags and quilted with tyre tracks, and one made of metal drinks cans. Check here for details of this exhibition and future events. Of course, we weren't allowed to take photos, so I can't share our pleasure with you.

We then had a stroll along the narrow streets of the Shambles, which we assumed must be pedestrianised, had a quick tour of the craft shops - the Bead Hive is not to be missed - then a cup of tea in a lovely cafe and back to the car. It was then that we realised that one careless person had left her sweater in the cafe (yes, that idiot was me!). I wasn't too worried (I have other sweaters) but Ruth insisted that we drive from the Park and Ride back into the city centre to retrieve it. She even volunteered to leap out of the car and fetch it if we couldn't park anywhere. We tried to remember the route the bus had taken us on our way into the city, but obviously none of us was paying proper attention. We could see York Minster, which was very near the cafe, so headed for that. After several attempts, foiled by the one-way system, we found that the narrow streets of the Shambles were indeed open to cars, as we ended up driving straight down one, at a very slow speed to avoid killing any of the window shoppers, and hoping not to meet a traffic warden or policeman who would point out to us the No Entry sign we must have missed! We were very relieved when we caught up with another car, which was travelling even slower than me! Needless to say, we turned the corner and instantly knew where we were. The cafe was just yards away down a one way street. Ruth jumped out of the car, and luckily the sweater was still under the table where I had left it. Hooray! A fantastic day out, and a little adventure.

Here is the offending sweater safe and sound!