Yesterday, with the threat of an unsettled forecast, I set off, along with my mother, for a trip up the M1 to Nottingham. I've never visited Patchings Festival before, but was lucky enough to have work selected for the exhibition and I wanted to see the whole event. We joined the M1 at junction 1, then around 2 hours later we came off at junction 26, and Patchings is just a few miles further. My goodness, what a lot of cars and coaches in the car parks! The enormous marquees housed crafts, all sorts of materials, working artists and lots of displays, demos and more. I headed straight for the Rosemary & Co stand as I'm in desperate need of new brushes, and met Rosemary herself. We then browsed around the painter's marquee, so many paintings/faces I recognized..... I had a quick chat with 2 familiar faces, or at least their work is familiar. Carole Baker RBSA and Richard Harpum, both were exhibiting and both have POL galleries. The level of detail in Richard's work is astonishing, and Carole's use of colour simply wonderful. All the artists exhibiting were working on something and it was a real treat just to stand and watch. Outside, with the sun shining, the band playing and whilst we were enjoying some home made ice cream, I spotted The Artist and Leisure Painter marquee. Now.... I know there are some on this site who might have found a recent project ... a wedding day double portrait... a little frustrating, but there are many of us who thoroughly enjoyed the whole procedure and the results, as evidenced by the top tens for that month - practically an entire gallery of Terrys and Fionas! I spotted one half of the duo walking into the marquee about to give a demo, and peered over a crowd of heads to catch some of the presentation, I had no trouble recognizing Fiona. And where was Terry? Apparently he was there too, but unfortunately I missed him :( A lovely day out if you get the opportunity, everything seemed pleasantly familiar. I realize I've become quite addicted to this site.