Welcome to Techno-Billies

Our village is well known locally for the production of first class fig products. A little farther afield they are less well known. There is a presence out in the wider world but it's scant. That's a shame because the fig products they make here are truly excellent. They deserve a bigger profile.

Almoharin held its first Fig Festival this weekend. We were looking forward to it. The programme was advertised and we decided to visit on the Saturday when a cooking demonstration was to take place. Along with lots of stands full of local food and wine to taste. It promised to be a great event.

Unfortunately for me it wasn't. The noise level was phenomenal, a chef with a needlessly loud PA system (I say needlessly loud because no one was listening to him at all) and a very large crowd full of people shouting at each other.   After a short while of trying to communicate with friends and neighbours and giving myself a terrible sore throat, I had to admit defeat and leave. That was …

No sooner than I express the desire to be a textile artist than it happens! Just like that!  Well actually no, not quite. I had been expressing the desire for quite some time before posting on my blog and when friends alerted me to the fact that the village was looking for artists of all kinds to put on an art 'thing' during the month of November I jumped at the chance. No that's a lie. I hesitated big time for several reasons - the main one being that I didn't and still don't understand exactly what this 'thing' is.


Anyway after some persuasion by friends I submitted a proposal which was sent off with lots of others to the powers that be - apparently more than one town is participating in this Art Container (that's the literal translation, yeah, don't ask me!).
Anyway to cut a very long convoluted story short, I have been allocated three small rooms within which to mount an exhibition about the Wool of Almoharin and demonstrate the process of how i…

Some people just have style don't they? The rest of us follow. I don't mind admitting to being a follower. I have searched for decades for my own style but am so easily swayed by everything!  You know how women used to go into hairdressers with a photo of a film star and say 'I want to look like that!' and of course you know it was an impossible task because what they wanted wasn't simply to copy the hairstyle but somehow they thought that the hairstyle would make them look like their idol, irregardless of what their face actually looked like.


I am like that with clothes to a certain extent. I see something and I love it but trying it on makes me see that actually I don't have the right shape for this or the colour does nothing for me.  Sometimes we need to try something different to see if it works.



Recently my mother in law sent me a huge pile of fabric. She asked several times if I'd done something with it so I devoted an entire weekend to The Tunic.


I b…

Earlier this year I wrote a post about my father's passing entitled 'End of an Era'. That was very much a backwards looking, sad reminiscing of things that I will miss. This post is about the future, and what I am looking forward to. This week I celebrated my birthday. I have started a new decade and it seems a very good time to announce a new start, a new beginning.


Firstly everyone I told about my age instantly commiserated with me and began to try and cheer me up. They misunderstood. I am delighted to be 60. Not everyone makes it to this age so that makes me a very lucky person for a start. I am doubly lucky to be healthy and with very few age related aches and pains. Of course I am not as fit as I was in my twenties, but I no longer feel the need to jog or go to aerobics classes - perhaps I should, I sometimes feel bad about no longer practicing yoga, I often make a resolution to begin again, I have the time and the space, but not the will as I never do.



I can divide m…