Saturday at the Chateau

We have an outing to Chauvigny for the market today. The first car load sets off at 8 am on the dot, I go on the last trip to get some shopping in the market. Chauvigny is a mediaeval town in two parts, the market is in the newer bit which is built on the river, to visit the old part of the town you can climb up the winding steps to the top of the hill and can visit the beautiful church which has painted friezes that are just perfect for fairisle and intarsia projects. Culli and I wander around the market, one of the first stalls we come to is the haberdashery one and guess who we find - the whole group rummaging through the button box. I love this stall, some of the buttons are just fantastic - you could spend a fortune and some of us did! The market is great with lots of colourful stalls selling everything you could possible want. I Bought some mussels and prawns for tonight's paella and some yummy looking strawberries and raspberries for pavlova (and of course some buttons...). Back to base for lunch followed by the final workshop, which was how to finish off the projects and an introduction to mattress stitch for those that didn't know. At last - show and tell, everyone lays out their projects, a few finished and some not quite. But a fantastic effort from all and apologies to any that I haven't included in the photos, I know I didn't manage to get them all. When asked to sum up the week these were some of the comments - 'Naught Mallory Towers girls go mad knitting in France: yarn, sun, buttons, wine and patisserie' by Yolie, 'this week has been truly inspirational, dedicated, good humoured and generous tutors, first class hospitality and delightful company' Suzanne (see Suzanne and Yolie's blog glittyknittykitty), 'delightful and brilliant' Gloria (Gloria is Connie's mum and comes from Texas and brilliant is her new word for the week), 'Thank you for a glimpse of what heaven might be' Mary Leeson, 'Fantastic in all aspects, when's the next one?' Chris, 'what a wonderful week of knitting, what wonderful women and wonderful creations, the best holiday I have ever had' Natalie. Back to the terrace and more Kir, we have a little prize-giving ceremony. Instead of choosing the four best projects of the week we ask the guests to vote for the person they think most deserves to win a prize and put the names in the hat. Felicity, Toril, Natalie and Chris were the four names drawn. Sarah, Emma and I all received some beautiful gifts and a bottle of whisky and bubbly for Culli - thank you everyone for your generosity and for being such good guests! For the first time in the week I actually managed to sit down and eat with everyone, was a total slut and left most of the clearing up in the kitchen for the next day and carried on chatting until the early hours of the morning sitting outside in candlelight and smothered with Toril's mosquito cream. It was a great week all round, just need to get that date booked for next year! Culli arrived back from the gig at 2.45, I knew that neither of us would feel like doing the clearing up in the morning.