Catch up.

Well hello.  How strange it is to be writing this when I ought to be at the NEC in the middle of Miniatura.

I went to an altogether different show yesterday with a friend.  It is run by a TV channel and I had won tickets, several times.  Off we went to have a look and though it was nice it was not Miniatura.  The toilets were unattended and swimming by lunchtime.  There was one refreshment stand in the hall; we had to wait twenty minutes for a cup of tea because the coffee machine had broken down and the two people behind the counter had no idea what to do about that.  The stands, despite there being fewer than fifty  with a huge space in the middle for workshops, were so close together that wheelchair visitors were struggling for room.  Worst, there were no bargains to be had, everything for sale was very full price so all I bought was a packet of needles and some wire.  I could have done workshops but they all looked a bit easy.  There was a glass soldering workshop but it lasted an hour and I didn’t want to make my friend wait.

But I was glad to have gone once to see what another show looked like.  I realised how incredibly well organised Miniatura is and how much there is to see and do at the show.  The only problem with Miniatura is how you are going to fit it all in to the time available, which is why the weekend tickets are such a bargain.  At the show I went to yesterday I had seen everything by lunchtime.  I also was so glad I had not agreed to do Miniatura regardless, I am not sufficiently recovered.  Just after midday, having been walking round for only and hour and a half, my knees suddenly buckled and I thought I might fall over.  I didn’t, instead we waited in the queue for tea and I surreptitiously leaned on my little wheeled suitcase.

It’s six months till the next Miniatura.  I have booked the show but only time will tell if I can be fit enough by then to do the show.  I’ll only be able if my hand is working, currently I can only lift it about four inches from hanging down uselessly.  I am doing the exercise which involves walking my fingers up the wall until my hand is above my head, quite a lot.  I am supposed to do 10 repetitions four times a day but so far can get to about seven reps twice and then my arm simply will not move.  To do Miniatura I have to place several hundred dolls on the stand I have built in about two hours.  At present I could perhaps lay ten flat on the table.

All of which makes me grateful to be here still, determined to enjoy something every day, and glad that I can write this and that you are reading it.

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Life – a state of being to be enjoyed regardless.  If you are reading this on Sunday 1st October, there is still time to get to the Min and pay at the door if you are near enough to Birmingham UK.  If I had anyone to take me or the energy to go I’d be there with you.