I have been away from home for ten days and although I took my laptop – the motel where I was staying were charging an arm and a leg for internet access so I just didn’t do any blogging or surfing – only checking business emails … boring.

So onto more interesting things – the ANZEG (Association of New Zealand Embroiderers Guild) Conference. (Their website is a shocker but they are updating it in August and changing providers). The Queenstown Branch of the ANZEG sent two of us to, in Hastings, New Zealand (not UK). We travelled to Hastings via Christchurch (where our name was paged over the PA system – opps) we didn’t realise we had so little time to change planes. Then to Wellington where we shopped and stayed overnight, notice I said stayed and not slept – we had some drunk men trying to get into our room – hmmm not really what you would expect staying at one of the more upmarket hotels there. We left the next morning in a very very small plane to arrive in Napier. We were collected from the airport by a lovely Guild member there and taken by car to Hastings (20 minute drive). We spent the afternoon and following day exploring Hastings and Havelock North. We really enjoyed Havelock, a little village with boutique shops – just lovely. We had two days of Conference. A presentation by a member who had received a study grant and travelled to the Royal School of Needlework in the UK. The key note speaker was Carol Naylor – a machine embroiderer from the UK – she was a very entertaining speaker and had a power point presentation of her work.