John reminded me that it’s been 47 years since we’ve been in England—and that was just passing through London on the way to Africa during our Emmaus days.
This time we came so I could attend Europe’s largest annual quilt festival. I entered two art quilts—“The Gift” in the pictorial category and “Faraway Family” in the contemporary category. There were 17 categories in all, with a range of entries (55-75 quilts in the two categories I entered). While I did enjoy seeing the quilts at Europe’s largest annual festival, I do think that Houston’s International Quilt Festival is better overall.
The first day we were so jet-lagged we didn’t walk much. But on the second day we walked around downtown Birmingham, England’s second largest city. The blended old/new city boasts more than 56 miles of canals—more than Venice. But did we see any? No. 😂 I must say, though, that England knows how to do public transportation well. Lots of trains go all over, and there’s even a monorail from the airport to the convention center.
While I’m glad to have had this experience, I’m not sure I would enter this particular festival again. The insane amount of money it took to just ship the two quilts makes a future entry look doubtful!
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One of my first trips to England I went to a train station. I forgot now why. But I do remember you had to stick your arm and hand out from the inside to get to the handle if you wanted to exit. That door was broken, or at least I thought it was. I think. This was probably in the 80’s. But, when we visited about 3 years ago visiting a friend of Petra’s in Coventry, I had to go to the American Embassy in London because I had lost my Passport on the way there, the train ride was more comparable to modern German trains.
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