Last Days Of Summer

Last week I had a break from work and had a lovely relaxing day catching up with my friend Debbie. We had a great day visiting my home town, catching up with my mum on her birthday for coffee and trawling the local flea market and numerous charity shops.

My favourite find of the day was yet another vintage scrap book full of the cutest scraps. The seaside pictures are so nostalgic, the black and white scraps of English seaside resorts show that things haven't really changed in many ways, children still love paddling in the sea and donkey rides.

Sadly, I think the best of the Summer is over and the blackberries are ready for picking. We have had loads of blackberries, gooseberries and red currants from mother in law's garden.

It seems the rain is here to stay for some time to come.

Yesterday I came home from work to a house full of lavender. Mr C had finally harvested our lavender ready for me to use for lavender bags and hearts. I do this every year but almost left it too late this year to pick it. Hopefully it will be ok and if the smell in the house is anything to go by the oils are still strong.

Back to my trip with Debbie last week, it was lovely having a guilt free day indulging our mutual love of mooching around charity shops. We fitted in another local market town on our way home and between us were loaded with bags. We both agreed it was much better shopping with each other rather than with husbands who we know have a tendency to become bored after the first couple of shops leaving us feeling guilty for dragging them round. Debbie did especially well and found some amazing things for her little unit at the Northampton Antiques Centre.

I found a petit point dressing table set with 10 pieces and this pretty Midwinter Stylecraft toast wrack with sections for butter and marmalade.

I also found this great heavy glass fruit dish and bowls. It matches the glasses I recently bought in london.

On Saturday I found a couple of books and the Victorian papier mache rose pot at the antiques market on our market square.

Today I have been a little under the weather and had to have the day off work, the first time in over a year. I slept most of the day but when I woke up my lovely girl had been busy with her Hummingbird Bakery cook book and had made some delicious vanilla cup cakes.

Anyway, back to bed I think. Sitting at the computer isn't making me feel any better unfortunately, hopefully I will wake up feeling back to my old self tomorrow.

Seaside and Sailing Boats

Well, the schools have finally broken up and the summer holidays are upon us. I always have a yearning to get away to the coast this time of year, I particularly love the North Devon and Cornwall coast line. I have reminders of the sea all over my house even though we are about as far from the coast as you can get ! I particularly love my old green pond yacht and my original 1930s Frank Sherwin water colour. Amazingly I picked this up in a charity shop some years ago , I loved it instantly but didn't know the artist. I later found out that he was one of the artists who designed the famous railway posters. My toilet is decorated in Cath Kidston's boat wallpaper which always cheers me up whatever the weather is like outside. Oh well hopefully I will get to the coast for real over the next few weeks.      .

Latest Finds

This morning I spent a pleasant couple of hours pottering around a flea market in a neighbouring market town and managed to find some fascinating pieces of ephemera and a lovely old classroom poster of the seaside which I will frame and hang in my bathroom. On the way home we stopped off at some old stables which had been converted in to a courtyard selling afternoon teas and and assorted dusty collectables. I managed to find some old floral tapestry panels which at some point I will attempt to convert in to cushions. I do keep finding things that I have ideas for and then never seem to have the time to actually make any of them. Finally just before arriving home we called in to our local recycling centre previously known as the 'tip' and I found an old plaster floral swag that looks very like the adornments on Barbola mirrors. All in all not a bad day's work and all the better for the lovely sunshine.