It was the Carrefour Européen de Patchwork, the largest patchwork exhibition in Europe, held each year in North Eastern France, and Irène and Nicole from the art textile group wanted to go, along with Nicole’s husband, Harry. Harry’s a sweet old man, the epitome of a slightly eccentric English gentleman, who, in spite of having lived in France for many years, speaks almost no French, but happily chats to anyone and everyone in English, seemingly oblivious to their incomprehension. I wasn’t convinced that I wanted to go with them, but somehow got talked into it, as well as into being the driver of the rental car.

We flew from Toulouse to Mulhouse, where we soon found the car rental office. I’d started signing the necessary forms when Nicole noticed that Harry was missing, he’d only just been to the loo, so he couldn’t have needed to go so soon again…. could he? She and Irène went off to look for him, checking the gents’ toilet, the newsagent, (as he hadn’t managed to find an English newspaper in Toulouse), but with no luck. There are two exits from Mulhouse airport, one leading to France, the other to Switzerland; Harry was eventually found halfway down the corridor to Switzerland, quite unaware of the panic he’d caused.

The car hired, cases and people loaded, eventually we arrived at the gite, which was lovely, a converted stables; I think we were the first to use it as everything was brand new and very comfortable. The owner had stayed up till after midnight to welcome us. He took one look at the old folks’ faces when they saw the spiral staircase and promptly took their cases up to the bedrooms for them.

The next morning I heard Nicole shout from the loo; ” ‘arry, ‘arry, I can’t get out”. “Oh is that you Nicole?” replies Harry, who’s a bit deaf. “Where are you, Nicole?”

N. “Yes, ‘arry, I am in ze toilet and I can’t get out of ze door”

H. “What, you can’t get out of the back door?”

N   “No, ‘arry, I am in ze toilet and I can’t unlock ze door”

H. “Well it worked for me just this morning, have you tried turning the key?” Just as well Nicole was unable to get out at this point!

This went on for quite a while; Harry wouldn’t believe that the key wasn’t working the lock; I tried other keys, all identical, but to no avail, so I phoned the owner of the gite, who said he’d come straight round. He arrived 10 minutes later, armed with a screwdriver; Nicole was finally released and we were able to set off to the exhibition.

We  ambled around the first village of the exhibition, which is spread over 21sites in four villages; I’m sure I spotted several snails from local gardens rushing past us as we made our way from one site to another. Harry was most unimpressed with the work of the first artist and said so loudly, fine had the artist understood no English, but embarrassing as it was this particular artist’s native language. Nicole was mortified and I just pretended not to be with them. I thought the work was superb and very original; she was more than happy to talk about the techniques and materials she uses and I left with a couple of her books, feeling inspired.

There were so many inspiring quilts in all sorts of styles and of all ages, some from as far back as the 17th century, many traditional in style, for example  a whole church devoted to Shaker quilts and their history, but also plenty of contemporary and art quilts.

The little cafe where we ate lunch on day one was so good that we went back on day two; Harry wanted the same beer as the previous day, the white one, so Nicole ordered the bière blanche; no, that wasn’t right, he insisted; it was the WHITE beer he wanted, not the blanche. The poor waitress took the order, while Harry muttered that it wasn’t the right stuff and if he got brown beer he wasn’t drinking it, it would have to go back and so on. Luckily, it was right.

The weather was lovely the next day, so we sat outside to eat lunch. Amongst the hundreds of people there from all over Europe, as well as several Americans and Canadians, making the place a veritable tower of Babel, Harry had met another Englishman who also spoke no French, and invited him to sit with us; he turned out to be the father of Ian Berry, from Huddersfield, who “paints” using denim and who had a number of works in the show, very different from anything else we saw, incredibly detailed and beautifully executed. He’s even built a life size launderette in denim.        http://www.ianberry.org/

We met Marie Christine Hourdebaight, who we’ve booked to do a day’s course for our group in November; her work is superb, using a huge variety of textiles as well as mixed media, which she turns into fascinating pieces of art.

We catered for ourselves in the gite in the evenings, as the oldies were all ready for bed by 9.30pm. Supermarket trips for the necessary food were interesting; we had to stay together “so we didn’t get lost”, while every item was inspected minutely and a long winded decision making process was undertaken (very French!). On the last such trip, Harry needed to go to the loo; I was reminded of the old sitcom  “On the Buses”, from my childhood (“Has he been?”). He was allowed to go on his own, but failed to reappear. We found him eventually; he’d gone out through the wrong exit and the security man suspected him of shoplifting. He was, apparently, hopping from foot to foot, desperate for a wee, while they insisted on searching him and his bag, which contained a bottle of water he’d bought there the previous day.  Poor Harry was getting quite irate by the time we got there; he’d explained several times that he’d bought it yesterday –  but in English, of course! Nicole explained and it was sorted. By the time they’d chosen bread and ham for their picnic on the homeward journey, I’d completely lost the will to live; I’d have my spare breakfast bars and peanuts, thank you, and that would be fine.

Our flight home was at 12.50pm and we were, by Google’s reckoning, 50 minutes from the airport. I managed to push back our departure to 9.30, but couldn’t believe it when I was told we’d have to get up at 6.30. No way! But I only got it postponed to 7 o’clock, as we didn’t want to be late; so by 8am Irène and I were showered, packed, breakfasted and ready. Not so Nicole and Harry, who weren’t impressed that we’d had breakfast without them as we should all eat together, so we two were reprimanded soundly! We felt like a couple of naughty schoolgirls.

It was a memorable few days, though not an experience I’ll be in a desperate rush to repeat. The exhibition was fantastic though, with so many amazing quilts to see in a wide range of styles, but I think some of my favourites were in the “Artexture” section, a branch of France Patchwork, where the artists were given free rein for the competition. Some of the pieces were frankly weird, others amusing and yet others simply awe inspiring.