Easter Weekend And A Trip To Bay Tree Cottage

As promised here are a few more scraps from my recently acquired 1930s scrapbook.

Unfortunately the weather at the weekend wasn't really suitable for this .......

..... but I saw quite a few of these , we even had hail one day !

I stayed at home quite a bit and caught up on a few jobs around the house

I did a bit more baking with my lovely girl. We seem to be working our way through The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook. The marshmallow cakes were very pretty but much too sweet for me. The chocolate cupcakes made with Green and Blacks cocoa were much more to my taste.

On Saturday Mr C and I took advantage of slightly dryer weather and headed out in to the lovely Northamptonshire countryside. Farthingstone is a very pretty village which was once the home of my ancestors. Our destination was the village hall and Bay Tree Cottage right next door. Bay Tree Cottage is the home of Jenny who along with Annalitta run Bay Tree Cottage Country living Workshops . They put on a range of country craft workshops throughout the year using the cottage and the hall. On the first Saturday of the month they have open days. At the back of the cottage is a plant nursery as well as assorted chickens and cuddly black sheep. The views are wonderful and the setting of the little hall was just perfect for a range of country craft sellers as well as a lovely tea room. Hopefully Debbie and I may be taking part in a future open day and selling some of our vintage treasures. We enjoyed tea and the most delicious range of home made cakes. Mr C was very happy , most trips out seem to be judged by the quality of the cake he has sampled !

The inside of the hall was lovely and light and airy and it had these beautiful stained glass windows.

Bay Tree cottage is on the left and has a wonderful extension on the back overlooking open countryside. Amazingly this little row of cottages was also the home to some of my relatives many generations ago. Originally the cottages were tiny farm labourers cottages but they were very unusual.

If you look closely you will see that the whole of the front is covered in broken china including large pieces of tea cups and dinner plates.

Just down the road is the village pub, very inviting with pretty painted benches outside. To the left of the pub on the site of the car park used to stand Pear Tree Cottage. This was where my great great grandparents lived, and where my grandad spent many of his summers as a child.

This amazing construction is 'The Bug House' at the back of Bay Tree Cottage .

Hope you all had a lovely Easter Weekend.