Thornbury in Bloom......

Thornbury is my favourite place. I have lived here for more than 40 years, and have never fallen out of love with it.  I have always loved the High Street - I've watched it change so much over the years, and fondly remember some of the old shops that used to be here.....Dorothy Gubbins and her penny sweets (we used to get 4, yes 4 blackjacks for a penny!), the old pipe makers shop next door and the smell that used to come from there, Mrs Rugman and the pet shop, and many more including my favourite shop ever and the reason I am owner of a wool shop now - Pats Wool Shop. Here I bought my first ball of wool when I was 14 years old, and here I thought.....'I'd love to own a wool shop, what a great job'.

 

(Photo above is Thornbury High Street in the 1960's when I moved here and as I first remember it!) 

Well, several careers (and many years) later, I was in a position to do just that and The Wool Stop was created just over 2 years ago. I am 'living the dream' and having the most fun in any job I have ever had, however its not as simple as it seemed all those years ago when I just thought I could sit and knit the day away.....customers, stocking up, ordering, accounts, orders, cleaning, tidying, workshops, banking, posting, supporting and marketing via social media take up most of my days. And on top of all this there's the charity knitting - always something on the go for a charity, always lots of wonderful knitters out there willing to help out. Most recently (and the point of this post!) is the Thornbury in Bloom project. Thornbury enters the Britain in Bloom competition every year, and wins prizes every year. You cannot fail to see the beautiful hanging baskets and floral displays around the town, and this year I very proudly got to be a tiny part of it......I was asked by the Thornbury in Bloom team to make some hanging baskets for some of the empty brackets on some of the shops. With a wonderful team of ladies working with me, we managed to produce 11 beautiful flowery baskets which today went up on show about the town for judging day. They look fabulous, and there have been so many comments from customers and non customers popping into the shop it has made all the hours of knitting, crocheting and wiring worth it. 

What I am most chuffed about (apart from all the ladies who made such an effort to help!) is the fact that little old Tina Mason, quiet as a mouse and picked on all throughout school, is now running a shop in my favourite town in my favourite High Street and that shop is becoming part of the Community  - a community where most people care about their surroundings and the people in it. I am today, very proud.

A huge thankyou to all of my ladies who knitted and crocheted their fingers off to make the baskets, you are all fab! Drinks are on me at Knitter Natter :-) And thankyou to Guy and Andrea from Thornbury in Bloom for asking us to take part - I really hope the judges liked the pretty flowery town as much as we do!!

The woolly baskets will come down today, as they are needed next week for the National Judging day on the 30th July - good luck to Thornbury, the town looks beautiful.

And now I have finished knitting flowers, I just dont know what to do.......

(I'm sure I'll find something though!!)

Hope to see you soon

Tina xxx

Our day at CountryFile with the BBC

Imagine my surprise when I got a call which went like this....

Hi, can I speak to Tina please
Yes speaking
Hi, my names Katy and I'm a researcher from the Countryfile programme at the BBC, and I've been looking at your yarn bombing on the internet
Really??
Yes really
What the BBC?
Yes, the BBC....

So once I actually picked myself up off the floor, Katy asked me if I would like to be involved in the Countryfile Summer Show being filmed at the Cotswold Show in Cirencester

Of course I said Yes (please!!)

Over the following two weeks, the requirements changed from 'making pom poms with the public and decorating a tree' to knitting something for the presenters to wear during a cricket match, knitting squares with the public and spinning a newly shorn fleece into a tea cosy!! All we could do was promise to try to get everything done, but due to the smelliness of a newly shorn fleece, we decided to take a back up of our own clean sheep fleece, a kind of plan b!!

The day arrived and we excitedly drove to Cirencester. When we told the parking attendants we were with the BBC, we were ushered into a little private parking area (no parking with the masses for us!!) and were quickly met by Katy who was as lovely person as she was on the phone and shown our area for the day. We set up camp, and were totally surprised by the friendliness and hospitality of the BBC crew - several came up and introduced themselves including the producer and director (who to our delight said they too had decided the sheep fleece would be too smelly to spin - phew!). Everyone was interested in what we were doing, and throughout the day we were looked after, even though they were all so very busy. Such a fabulous team of people.

During the day we sat and knitted and spun, and chatted to so many members of the public about knitting and yarn and stuff - it was great to get to chat to such a variety of people. The spinning wheel was the draw for the day, my mum is surely a YouTube sensation by now as she was filmed so many times. We had samples from raw fleece to spun hanks of yarn, and so were able to describe the process from start to finish and I think maybe there might be a few people now interested in spinning. Success!! All this while sat amongst the crew and presenters while they were filming the show. Not only very enjoyable, but also very interesting watching how a show like Countryfile is filmed - we said hello to Matt Baker five times on camera due to them having to retake the 'scene', it will be interesting to see the show all edited and put together having seen it so disjointed and 'bitty'....

Highlights of the day....

Making a cup of tea in the 'green room' next to John Craven 

Having my photo taken and chatting to the lovely Matt Baker (I was a little bit starstruck!!)

And knitting with John Hammond who was a very good knitter! 

 
All in all we had a brilliant day. The show will be aired on 10th August - we're not sure how much of us will be in the programme (if any) but we had such a lovely day, we dont mind!! If we're not shown, I'm hoping that my Cricket Jumper Tea Cosy will be as it was used for the High Tea scene after the cricket match!!

A huge thankyou to the Countryfile Team (especially Katy, she was fab) for making us part of their team for the day....I've already told them we are free for the next one :-)

If you watch Countryfile, I hope you enjoy the show and maybe spot a little bit of us

Lots of love

Tina xxxx