Fun and Sun

Okay so England are out of the World Cup but I've had a great weekend, and that sunshine, wow, 30C today.

It started with a trip down to the bach in Norfolk and the purchase of a new sewing machine from Steve in King's Lynn!  "Just" a basic one, but she's lovely, a Janome 2200XT and she even has turquoise dials to match the bach - that's where she's going to live so that I don't keep hauling my main machine backwards and forwards.  She needs a name of course, all ideas appreciated, something associated with the sea would be nice.

• Added 8th July:  Thanks for all your suggestions, I have christened my little Janome, Muriel \m(u)-riel\, Muriel, is pronounced MYUR-ee-el. It is of Irish and Gaelic origin, and its meaning is "sparkling, shining sea". First used in the Middle Ages.

On Saturday we had more fun than I could cope with.  Al and I took the bus - so no driving and no parking and great views of the coast - to Cromer which is a gorgeous, traditional coastal town.  It even has a pier and look at those gorgeous lines.

There are lots of small streets to explore like this one, Jetty Street, with a teasing view of the sea, looking wonderfully blue in the sunshine.

Back in Mundesley after a lunch of fresh crab sandwiches it was time for the village fayre.  Some people had been working very hard to organise a fun event to raise money for the local youngsters and the sun continued to shine so a great time was had by all.  There were the usual stalls and games, truck rides, a climbing wall, belly dancing, gymnastics displays...English village life at its best.  Al even let me take his photograph!

After a lazy couple of hours with the newspapers (Al) and my book (Philippa Gregory's The White Queen which I highly recommend, it's very well researched historical fiction) it was time for a barbeque on our chalet site (ours is a bach as we're NZ addicts, everybody else has a chalet!)

The idea of the barbeque was to get chalet owners to know each other, a sort of bonding session

and again a lot of people had been working very hard as all we had to provide was meat and wine, there were tables of salads and the most yummy desserts.

I don't drink alcohol so I have nothing to blame but I did something I have never done before and will never, ever, do again - karaoke!  The bonding went a bit far when one lady encouraged six of us to form a Norfolk version of Abba, don't ever mention "Dancing Queen" to me if you know what's good for you!  It was terrifying, that song is sooooo long!
I needed a little fabric fix to get over it so after a wonderful Sunday lunch in our favourite cafe, Lilia's in Mundesley, we stopped at Sew Creative on the way home for a few FQs for a quilt I'm making for my daughter, Sara, yet to be shared on this blog.
Thank you for all your lovely comments on my post about the V&A Quilts 1700-2010 Exhibition.  I'm still waiting for my copy of the book to arrive and then I'll post again.
I hope you all had a lovely weekend and that the football wasn't too disappointing - the second week of Wimbledon is coming up and the sun is shining!