Day 337 - Quilts To Go

Today is my last day in Florida: I head back to the UK tonight. It's been another coldish start to the morning but the forecast for the day is positive with temperatures definitely a few degrees higher than of late - which is great for our visitors who have a game of golf planned.  They will be playing with a couple of fellow Lady members from Burhill, Christine and Sue, both of who also have homes in the Sunshine State.  They are going to be playing at Laurel Oaks which looks very nice - we haven't yet had the chance to play it, but all the reports are very positive!

Kathryn cannot be a member of the party as she has kindly volunteered to be my chauffeur (chauffeuse?) to Tampa airport this afternoon.  Before we leave though we have a couple of things to do: reserve a car for her trip to LA next week (done), book some tickets in the BA Sale to allow us to return to Florida for a month in the autumn (done) and, lastly, to make enquiries about some carpentry work we should like o have carried out.

For the latter, our first choice was to return to the company who had done such a fine job on our kitchen just over a year ago.  There has though, it now transpires, been a change in ownership so we decided to go down to have a look see.  Unfortunately, when we got there the shop was closed as someone had to "run an errand". 

Quilters at work

Not wanting to go straight home again, we wandered around a couple of the other local shops, including a quilting establishment.  This part of Sarasota is where many Mennonites have settled and they are very much in evidence, both in person on their bicycles but also by the shop names (e.g. the Dutch House Furniture or Der Dutchman, a strangely named restaurant).  The quilt shop was no exception and we saw a number of ladies, all in Amish-style dress, working away at some very large and complex looking quilts - all retailing for well over $1,000 so not cheap.

Home for a cup of tea and then a mildly painful drive up to Tampa (the usual traffic bottlenecks were alive and well...). Fortunately, the plane is on time so I hope that I shall be able to get some sleep tonight....