Finally!

Backtracking a bit - our weekend in London was mostly quiet.  Saturday night was far from quiet: we saw a fabulous production of Sondheim's Into the Woods in the outdoor theatre at Regent's Park.

The daytime rain cleared up, sun came out, and it was a beautiful evening.  Sunday, the husbands hung out at home and Marlene and I went for a walk along the paths at Kenwood.

 We had cappuccinos and admired the Henry Moore, which I remembered seeing the last time we were in London, 5 years ago.

Today, David took Marty to the airport and I am keeping fingers x'd that the airlines take good care of him and that he gets home and safely into bed for a good night's sleep.  Here are the two friends before they had to say goodbye.

Marlene and I arrived in Birmingham mid-afternoon to set up the classroom, but now I have to deal with the fact of  not having sinks large enough in which to wash out screens for the next three days. The NEC people are very accomodating and hopefully will pull off a miracle by tomorrow morning so I can teach my class.

Susan Shie arrived at the NEC while we were there, so we all came back to the hotel together. Later, Marlene, Susan and I went down to the bar and encountered Elizabeth Barton, who joined us.  Alicia Merrett joined us a bit later. Here is Marlene studying the bar food menu.

Elizabeth and Susan were chatting and taking pictures.

and then Hilary Gooding came over to say hi to all of us.

What fun to finally meet her - and I'm looking forward to connecting with many more of the people I've been talking to and blogging with for a long time.

Elizabeth and Dominie Nash have an exhibit here, as does Susan Shie. Today they were just putting up walls.  Here is what the exhibition space looked like this afternoon.  The white walls are the individual galleries for special exhibits; the pipe and drape for the rest.

I expect it to look entirely different by tomorrow. We'll keep our eyes on the transformation. Tomorrow we're up at 6, so I'd better sign off and make it an early night.