An expensive trip to Harrogate!!

It was the Harrogate Knitting and Stitching show this weekend. This is the highlight of the year for all stitchers in the North - and elsewhere apparently as I saw a coach that had come up from Shropshire! - so although there was snow on the ground J and I decided to have an afternoon out  - after all, it is only 15 miles or so between Leeds and Harrogate. What could possibly go wrong? The forecast was quite clear - there would be snow but only late in the day and we would easily be home by then.

The photo above is the Exhibition Hall in glorious sunshine as I arrived. J and I agreed to meet outside the hall at around 4 for tea at Bettys  (here)  and I went off to have a wander around the exhibition and sales stands while he went for a wander round Harrogate itself.

 There was a wonderful display of the late Julia Caprara's work which I had only seen in books before and the real work was moving especially her hangings embroidered on scrim - so I had to go and buy some. Then I talked to Jean Greenhow and admired her lovely sampler, and decided to buy a metre of linen so that I could try to do something similar.  And finally I found a kit I had been wanting for a few years at a reasonable price.  At that point I found myself near an external door and could hear other women talking about the SNOW (what snow??) and when I looked out, sure enough - it was snowing. I called J in a panic and he came to pick me up and we set off home.....

At this point it doesn't look bad - but within about five minutes the snow started falling heavily, the light started failing, and the traffic built up very suddenly - people panicking and leaving Harrogate in a hurry as we were doing.

This is a photo of one of the trees on the Stray wearing its blue lights, with the snow blurring the trees behind . It took us two hours to travel two miles - we crawled onto Leeds Road, struggled to find the road leading to the by-pass and then I said "Let's go back to Harrogate..." and we did. That took another half hour or so. We pulled in to park, and found ourselves outside a hotel (the Cedar Court) and decided there and then to book in for the night. After a consultation with the desk clerks (and the offer of a bed for the night for MarthaDog at the home of the chef, which was not needed as we were allowed to keep her in our room!) we settled in for the night, had a bar meal, took Martha for a walk, talked to others who were stranded there and finally went to bed.
Strangely enough one of the people I spoke to was a woman who had been at school with my brother Yossi and who knew his wife Sarah before she became an Orthodox Jewess as Yossi's wife.

I had no medication with me so I didn't sleep at all, but the alternative would have been a three or four hour wait in a freezing car....we were very relieved to be off the road last night.

So here is the result of my shopping trip - a metre of scrim, a metre of linen, and a kit......What an expensive day out!!