Brollies and bikinis .....

Yesterday was the Lala family outing to see the air display on Lowestoft seafront.  The car was packed with all the necessities like rain coats, brollies and sun cream because you just never can trust our good old English weather can you !

It was piddling down here but the forecast for Suffolk was fairly good with a bit of sunshine and some showers ..... after a car journey of two and a half hours (minus a brekkie stop at MaccieDs) we arrived to beautiful blue skies and sunshine.  The organisation was superb and we drove straight to a park & walk car park at the football ground which was 5 minutes away from the seafront.  Some enterprising locals were having a garage sale and it would have been rude not to look, ha ha, much to the dismay of my daughters who exclaimed oh no mum can't we go anywhere without you finding a charity shop, car boot or something similar! 

I found some lovely 1930s Art Deco coloured glassware .... in the first picture are some vases by Davidson in a lovely design called Chevron .... I'd only bought one of the small ones in our local CS a couple of days ago and there sitting in the garage was a twin small one and a big brother too!

I had a lovely chat with the lady selling them and it turns out they had moved to Lowestoft from a town just 10 miles away from us.

Anyhoo bargain hunting ceased and we found a spot on the sea front and got comfy for the start of the display at 1.00 pm  which was a parachute drop

Can you see the UJ on the underside of the parachute??

In between the displays we all went for a paddle and make sandcastles and then true to form the weather changed in a split second to this

and then just as quickly changed again to this ......

some enterprising people on the seafront were doing things in style

The afternoon ended with a display from the magnificent Red Arrows

Unfortunately my poor old camera was having a bad day and kept jamming and then ran out of memory and apart from a short video clip that was all I took of them.  They make the hairs on the back of my neck stand out and when they did the manouevre where their tail smoke is in red, white and blue everyone was clapping and cheering.  It was such a lovely contrast to all the trouble broadcast in our cities this week and made you feel proud to be British.  Ellie exclaimed that Great Britain was truly great and this was the best day ever nanny and it was.  This is a great day out and the prices of everything from the vendors on the front were extremely reasonable and a refreshing change from the rip-off days out in some places.

This morning we went over to the Flea Market in Hitchin but it was quiet and only one little thing caught my eye.  You may remember that blue and white china is my favourite and I especially love collecting antique children's china so I got quite excited when I spotted this little fellow on a £1 table ....

A diddy little transferware tea cup from a tea service dating to around 1840 .... I've got my detective's hat on now to try and identify the pattern and if anyone recognises it please let me know.  I placed the pound coin next to it to give you an idea of the size .... so cute !!

This afternoon I popped into my local CS and just inside the door was a basket of these for just £1 a bag

 A little further on an Edwardian wooden folding cake stand .... only a fiver because of a break in one of the legs but that can soon be mended and I think with a coat of paint it will be very useful for display at the vintage fairs.

 and a Victorian crinoline lady with basket attached to her back which I think was probably for spills to sit on the mantlepiece.

I do hope the weather holds out for the weekend .... I can hear the car booties calling already.

Have a good weekend xx

Remembrance, preparations and a mystery .....

Lest we forget

These are photos from my family tree research .... the first young man belongs on my husband's side of the family and all that we know is that he was in the Bedfordshire Regiment but we have no idea of his name and there is nobody left now to ask. 

The second is Thomas Duffy from my maternal grandmother's family in Newcastle .... he served in France from 1914 to 1915 as a Private in the 3rd Battalion Durham Light Infantry and was lucky to survive and return home to his wife and children.

The third is Thomas's brother James and I am still researching him and that rather fetching uniform that he is wearing.

If we all dig deep enough we will find ancestors with military service and it is them and the brave servicemen and women still laying down their lives for us today that we remember today.

When I took time out this morning for the two minutes silence at 11.00 am I was in the middle of preparing for a Christmas Craft Market this coming weekend .... I've been sewing and crocheting and here is a sample of what I will be taking

and just look what I found in the charity shop this afternoon for a whole 25p

and finally my mystery ...... a few weeks ago whilst out on a day out with Serenata I came across this .... the stallholder was holding it up and asked if we knew what it was.  My first thought was a tea infuser that had come off its chain but when he opened it up just look what was inside.  It is only a couple of inches long with a maker's stamp of Mayer & Co. London impressed on it and its very tactile.

It's a tiny little string holder with the original spool inside but alas the central pin that holds it in place is missing.  Not bad for £2 is it.

Memories and booty bargains

What have I been doing with myself this week???   Well, my sister celebrates her Silver Wedding in August and my nephew is busy arranging a surprise party for them and asked if I would sort out anything I had that he could use.  Being the perpetual hoarder that I am I ventured into the black hole that is called the loft .... anything I can't bear to part with (useless and useful) is popped in there, to see what I could find.

Here we all are on the day ..... that's me on the right and my first born is the little man with the dicky bow.  The bridesmaid's dresses were handmade by me in a peach cotton trimmed with lace and you guessed it I've still got it.  Modelled by my new Freecycle acquisition .... hopefully to be recovered in something a little more fetching.

I also found in the same battered old suitcase this quilt that I made for said first born (he's 28 now!)

and a UFO which was going to be a crochet cotton bedspread which I must have given up on

and my own wedding dress .... again hand made and now 32 years old ..... my darling grand-daughter looked at it this morning, raised her eyebrows and said you're not going to wear that are you nanny (we are off to a friend's wedding reception this evening!).  We got married on a very tight budget on a wet and windy November day and I'm not a meringue type of girl anyway.

and I don't stand a cat in hells chance in getting in either of them these days (thank goodness!)

We went off to the car boot this morning and I'm pleased to report a successful morning of thrifting

Four curtain panels in a lovely floral chintz .... very useful and they are lined too which comes in handy for the backing fabric for string blocks

A vintage 1960s souvenir from Switzerland which opens to reveal

and the music mechanism still works while the little ballerina twirls

A Brixham Pottery nursery rhyme money box

A naked baby with cry mechanism (sadly not working) which I think again is 1960s as I had one very similar when I was small

Some Sanctuary hand treatment and a vintage sugar shaker

Two pretty dresses BNWT in lovely fabric that I am going to repurpose.

and finally some vintage linens which are a little tatty and stained in places but there is some useful crochet edging and hand embroidery that can be repurposed and what's left used as string block backing fabric.  Waste not want not ladies ;-)

Total spend = £15.00

As I mentioned earlier in the post we are off to a wedding reception this evening and it is a football free zone !!

Have a good weekend everyone x

A perfect day for a bargain hunting expedition with a friend

Blogland brought us together and we had our first meet up in St Albans last Autumn and today in glorious sunshine I met with Serenata in Hitchin for a bargain hunting expedition.  Hitchin is a little gem for individual shops, charity shops, vintage shops and the Friday Flea Market.  I had hoped for a full day's shopping but had to cut short the day due to a last minute childminding commitment but we nevertheless had three lovely hours browsing and buying and of course a coffee break in Starbucks.

Armed with our trusty dolly trolleys .... don't laugh .... oh go on then we did when we first met to find we had almost identical trolleys (see Serenata's post for a lovely photo of the pair of them having a well earned rest outside the Parish Church) off we went.  Our first stop was the flea market and my first purchase was from a lady who sells vintage linens who I visit regularly and today for the grand sum of 50p I came away with this table mat hand embroidered in the traditional oriental willow pattern.

We wandered on past all sorts of vintage bits and pieces and the next thing to catch my eye was this blue & white transferware plate.  I have had a passion for this for quite a long time now and the skill to transfer these scenes onto a copper plate and then onto ceramics never ceases to amaze me.

My favourite bit is getting home and researching the design to identify the pattern name, maker and date of manufacture.  My blue & white bibles are The Dictionary of Blue & White Printed Pottery by A W Coysh and R K Henrywood, in two volumes and they are packed with photographs and history.

How pleased was I to find that this rimmed soup dish costing £2.50 (which has no markings on the back to help) dates to the 1820s and was made in Burslem, Staffordshire by the factory of John & Richard Riley.  The pattern is Eastern Street Scene and it is a composite of two prints by T & W Daniell from their Oriental Scenery collection.  The tree on the left is from "The Sacred Tree of the Hindoos at Gyah, Bahar" and the buildings to the right are from "View on the Chitpore Road, Calcutta".  Here are pictures of the original prints

Weren't they so clever all those years ago in comparison with the junk that is manufactured theses days.

We wandered on and my next find was an embroidered table cloth for a whole £3 to add to my stash of vintage cloths for upcycling or re-purposing into something else to give them a new lease of life.

Serenata bagged some lovely bargains too which can be seen on her post today here

Our last stop together was the lovely shop called Rosita Lollipop and after a chat with the lady looking after the shop today it transpires that there is to be a vintage fair in the town on 11th July so that date is now down in my diary.

Thank you for a lovely meet Serenata ..... elevenses on me next time ;-)

What have I been doing this evening?  Well apart from enjoying the rare bliss of having the house to myself I have been machining and pressing some more blocks for the next quilt.  It is half term next week and my childminding service is closed to give me some time to finish my stock for the fair in Berkhamsted on the 5th June and hopefully to give the house a good top to bottom clean .... it sure does need it I am shamed to say.

Fingers crossed for some bank holiday weekend bargain hunting weather .... have a good one whatever you have planned x

I got one !!! I got one !!!!!

I have been looking for a sewing box for months to keep my cottons in and until today it has eluded me. Despite a grey and threatening sky we decided to take a chance at the car boot this morning before going grub shopping ..... it was worth the trip although there were only half the usual number of sellers and every now & then there was a little shower of rain so everybody got the plastic out and covered their stalls. I only usually do one circuit but decided to back track and go round again today in case I had missed something. As we turned the corner to the last row of cars there it was ...... a lady had opened it up and was taking a look at the contents ..... I stood back heart beating ..... a few more drops of rain and she moved on (she was lucky I didn't rugby tackle her!) and I made my move ..... like an eagle I swooped in for the kill and grabbed it before anyone else took a fancy. Why is it that our most base instincts come out at times like these .... I was like a woman possessed ..... how much I asked the seller and she replied a fiver ..... never one to resist a haggle I offered four and she accepted. Now that's what I call a bargain ..... reels and reels of cotton, tins of pins and needles, knitting pins, pinking shears and lots of other little bits of haberdashery which should keep me going for a while. As is customary for a member of the Shabby Chic Cafe it will be getting a makeover with some Laura Ashley chalk pink paint at a later date and I am so pleased I have eventually found one.