Hello Friends.
A year
ago today I was made redundant from a job I thought I'd loved for 25 years. I was devastated but also strangely excited. Could this be an opportunity to make some long overdue changes in my professional life to mirror the enormous changes in my personal life?
A year earlier I married my teenage sweetheart having met up with him again after 21 years. OK, that makes it sound like we bumped into each other in Tesco...the truth is that I cyber stalked him for 2 years before finally biting the bullet and contacting him...2 years later and we're hitched! (Thank You Facebook!)
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| Medieval Wedding at Ruthin Castle - Loving the Stocks!! |
We moved to a little village outside of Ruthin, close to where we both grew up, to finally settle down. I didn't realise how much I'd missed being in the Welsh hills having spent most of my working life in Manchester, London and Lincoln being a typical girl about town. ('it bag', mani/pedi/tan, glass of fizz - oh the shame!)
We plonked ourselves in a lovely house with a bit of land and started to do the 'Good Life' thing..in fact we often get called 'Tom' and Barbara' in the village pub as we're forever asking the local farmers 'which breed of pig shall we get' or 'what's wrong with my chicken?'.
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| Our new home with Labradoodles Cagney and Lacey |
Unfortunately, my work often took me away for days and I was starting to resent being away from our new animal family and think about my options when redundancy loomed. Initially I hopped on the interview roundabout and was offered alternative roles which I should have jumped at but something was holding me back.
Around this time a friend invited me to a fortune telling night. Now, I'm generally sceptical about these things, but as I was at a bit of a crossroads I thought I'd go along and see what the spirits had in store for me. The fortune teller told me she saw me surrounded by pin cushions, needles and chairs. Crikey! Am I going to be an upholsterer?
Over the next few days the idea started to sink in....and feel right....really right. In fact, it felt amazing! I could get out of the rat race. I could be self employed. Could I be an upholsterer / upholstress / upholdstress??? (Still haven't decided which I am yet!)
I researched courses and found one accredited by the Association of Master Upholsterers and Soft Furnishers run by J A Milton in Ellesmere in Shropshire, about an hour away. The AMUSF has recognised that there are not enough new upholsterers coming through the ranks with traditional skills. They have devised a set of qualifications designed to ensure the traditional methods are passed onto a new generation who can continue to rebuild and re-cover antique furniture to traditional standards. This appealed to my love of history so I took the plunge (helped by my paltry redundancy package and savings) and I started two weeks later. The first time I picked up a tack hammer I knew...this is the job for me!!
It's been a steep learning curve and a big commitment. The course is one week a month for 18 months but I've loved every minute including every spine twinge, every hammered thumb and black fingernail!
One year in and I am proud to have launched North Wales Upholstery, (click the name for the Facebook Page and 'Like' to stay in touch) a traditional upholstery service covering North Wales. I'll be using this blog to showcase projects I complete and to talk about upholstery related topics, demonstrate basic techniques, provide the latest news and trends, promote the traditional upholstery trade and hopefully make you laugh! I may not be able to resist sneaking in the odd animal related update and as we're starting a kitchen garden this year there may well be some vegetable content.
I hope you enjoy it!
