Busy weekend - Part one kimono demo

I have been hoping that the snow and ice would melt by last weekend so that my little trip to Birmingham was not hindered by the cold.

Well I made it to the train station on time and yep the train left on time however due to signalling issues between Sheffield and Derby I managed to be delayed by 10 minutes and missed my connecting train to Birmingham. Sigh...................................

So much for my careful planning.

However I got the next train which was a twenty minute later and then had a nice chat with a lady on the train which made the hour journey seem to disappear. Strange how a conversation with a stranger makes a journey more enjoyable.

Arrived in Birmingham around 13.30 and found Hong (with her boyfriend) looking a bit tired. Well she has been ill for the past week so I'm not surprise. After another 20 minutes wait for the next train to Blake Street, we all arrived at April's house and accommodation for the night around 14.30.

She has two gorgeous shiba inu, Azuki and Cassey. Azuki was very laid back when we invade our friend's house however Cassey was a bit nervous but she eventually calmed down.

All we have to do now is wait for the remaining guest (Lyuba) to arrive, have a bite to eat and then off for the first event for the weekend.

ETA was 15.00 but when 15.00 came she still has not arrive. So we waited and waited until it was time for dinner. By now it was 17.00 and we were wondering what happened to her, did she get lost in the wilderness of the Midlands? Well we found out around 17.45, it appears she took a wrong turning and was lead astray by her satnav. One should never trust their satnav is the moral of the story.

Fortunately we still had time and after dinner we got our kimono and kitsuke-ware together for the journey back into Birmingham city centre for Birmingham Japan Society Christmas party and kimono demo.

You would have thought with all our adventures that this journey would be incident free but you are wrong. Being slightly unsure of the route we missed the turning however the mistake wasn't as bad as we thought and in the end, it turned out to be a nice if a somewhat unplanned detour to the Brasshouse Centre.

With plenty of time, we got ourselves dressed and by 19.00 we were all dressed and ready for the demo.

Here is Liz looking gorgeous in her green furisode with pretty butterflies.

Hong is sporting a hikizuri which has a co-ordinating dounuki. This made all of us drool because just look at it! The colour and patterns on it are amazing. However we had to fudge it a little because none of us had experience in putting on a hikizuri but Hong spent most the time sitting down so no one saw any mistakes. Lyuba decided not to change and instead become the photographer for night. Hmmm I wonder what pictures she managed to get?

It started off slow but it picked up and we even had two lovely ladies who were more then willing to try on kimono. They are the ones on the left and right, if you are wondering who is the one in the middle well that would be me. I never realised how long my hair has grown and how thick it is when plaited until I saw this photo.

We always enjoy meeting new people and as these two were so enthusiastic we told them about our Kimono de Jack UK get together for the following day. As they say, the more the merrier.

Well time flies when one is in good company and conversation and soon it was nearly 21.00 and we had to be gone by then or we would have been locked in. After exchanging mobile numbers with our two latest members to the the KDJ UK group we hastily packed up and made our way back to April's house for some sleep.