May Day Bank Holiday Weekend...

...came and went in the blink of an eye.

Which was a shame because I was on my first crafting retreat.

What seems like an age ago, Carol Whalley emailed me and asked if I would be interested in a weekend away with four other crafters. Having said 'yes' the time seemed to drag and I wondered if the weekend would ever arrive. Then, it was here and I was panicking about what to take LOL

Friday arrived bright and sunny and I bundled everything into the car.

A quick stop at Barleylands for a reed diffuser from "Naked Flame", some glue and last minute essentials from "Pinnacle Crafts" and I was on my way.

Surprisingly I had no problems and was soon sailing over the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge to the other side of the Thames (it is times like this when I wish I had one of those traffic cams so I could get a few photos of my journey). We had agreed to meet up at "Oyster Stamps" for a little retail therapy but my printout from AutoRoute wasn't as clear as it could have been.

A text from Carol to say they were still stuck in traffic getting out of Southend and me not sure where I was, didn't bode well for the day. A few more texts to clarify my sorely lacking printout and I arrived at 'Oyster'. Shortly after which a text came through to say Carol & co were now crossing the bridge. About 40 mins later we were all laughing & hugging and of course...spending.

Carol's hubby Phil was driver and trailblazer and we left 'Oyster' in convoy heading to the Maidstone Services for lunch...

 ...so meet the 'gang'. Left to right...

...Madelaine, Rene, Chris and Carol (Phil was outside keeping an eye on the cars).

We then set off for the final part of the journey.

Let me just say, driving in convoy can have its scary moments...

Having all pulled out to overtake a caravan and some lorries, Phil & Chris pulled back in but the lorry driver decided to speed up and there wasn't space to safely pull in - resulting in me being at the head of the convoy and not having a clue where I was heading. What a sigh of relief when Phil took the lead once again.

We managed to arrive without any more mishaps and tomorrow I'll take you on a tour of the house that we called 'home' for the weekend.........................................................