Goodbyeeeeeee for a while!

We are off to France tonight, and as I don't have internet access at the cottage, I might not be able to blog for three whole weeks! Not unless I can find an internet cafe in the nearest biggish town ( 40 mins away ) or a friend with internet access will let me on his computer once in a while.

I'll be sitting outside the cottage watching sunrises like this -

admiring sunsets like this on the opposite side of our fields-

Sit under the trees with friends til the early hours-

Sit in my favourite little garden chair -

eat al fresco lunches -

and in the evenings, snuggle down in the the cottage and perhaps do some crocheting, lol -


See you all again soon! xxx

Ketchup

Oh no, thats not what I meant at all, dang, I meant CATCH UP, more catching up on last weekend's bootfairs. Only got the second one on Sunday to go now, phew, aren't you relieved to hear that? Now before you get too happy about not having to wade through tons more pics, I had better mention that I did go to a jumble sale on Saturday morning as well, and I might have popped into a charity shop earlier last week when I passed one on the way to the post office. But lets get back to the bootfair first.

Lets see, what did I get at the late Sunday bootfair? Shall I show you my most treasured find first? Or should I leave that one til last? Oh what the heck, lets have it. Here it is, a beautiful little glass tray. The centre is a panel of the most delightful tiny petit point flowers on net, sandwiched between two panes of glass, the frame is some sort of solid, heavy metal. I was gobsmacked when I saw it, it is in perfect condition and why anybody would want to get rid of it, is just beyond me. Btw, the white background is just a tray cloth, but the petit point showed up much better on white -


I have quite a collection of large platters in France, I do need them, honest, because often we have impromptu gettogethers with neighbours and friends, sitting under the trees in the garden, and then one needs lots of platters for all the foody things to nibble on whilst drinking the lovely Burgundy wines. I found another one to add to the collection, and its gorgeous! It is a Royal Doulton Orchids platter in lovely condition. The colours are just stunning, a rich creamy background and the flowers, well, just see for yourselves -


This good sized jug will make a really charming vase for one of the windowsills in the cottage, or maybe the bedside table in the yellow bedroom ( because of the yellow bottom half ), hmmmm, we'll see -


Maybe I'll put it together with this pretty little basket, sweet little roses on a yellow background -


I can never resist anything heart shaped, especially if there are roses involved as well, lol, so this little Grafton dish had to come home with me as well -


More flowery little trinket thingies, the first one is Limoges, the second one is German -


I bought two of the tiny little rosy cups and saucers, for when Frank and Christine come to visit ( they love their coffee ) -


Rose prints, five of the prettiest rose prints by Leslie Greenwood, aren't they just ever so gorgeous? and destined for the cottage, of course -

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Oh, and look, a cute little tea cosy -


There were a few more things, like books for example, including 3 cricket biographies, a new photoalbum for my mum to put all the pics of her gread granddaughters in, The Official Star Wars Fact File ( because I love sci-fi ), and last, but most definitely not least, a box of nearly 40 , yes FORTY, beading magazines. I was going to photograph each and every one of them, lolol, just to make a dear friend of mine really sick, but then I decided I couldn't be that cruel, so I am just mentioning the FORTY BEADING MAGAZINES WITH THE MOST AMAZING PATTERNS in passing, so as not to upset her too much. I am such a good girl.

Phew, thank goodness thats the bootfairs covered now. Only the jumble sale and the charity shop to go and there wasn't very much. But that can wait til tomorrow, hopefully I will have a bit of time to post before we leave during the night. Woohoo 1 1/2 more sleeps, thats all. xx

Catching up, sort of

We are off to our cottage in France Friday night, so now I am trying to finish up my bootfair posts before my enforced blogging break. Sigh, we don't have broadband access where we live in France, we did try dial up, but it was so frustratingly slow, I mean really really REALLY slow, it would take minutes to load a page, and 20 mins to half hour to upload a photo, IF it worked at all. So we gave up on that, it literally had me screaming with frustration. I will try to get to an internet cafe once or twice though, just so that you don't forget me, sob sob.

Right, on with the catching up on the bootfairs. Sunday morning was lovely, perfect bootfair weather, not too hot (at 7.30am), a little breeze, and there certainly was a goodly lot of booters on the field. Sadly, there really wasn't much which I could get enthusiastic about, and I only went home with two pieces. Yep, you read that right, just TWO pieces. Mind you, those two pieces were really quite nice, lol, but do have a look for yourself -


The crochet blanket is huge, I did measure it, sort of, you all know how difficult it is to measure anything like that, lol, because its stretchy, but I reckon its at least 2.20m square. and I love it.

Aaahhhh, and more romantic frivolities, my darling husband really wasn't very keen on getting this, but I adore everything about this, the beautiful young lady, the fabulous blue colour of the background, the flowers, and the wonderful Art Nouveau frame. Just look at the elegant trailing flowers, the flowing lines, so very typical of that period -


This picture is definitely going to France with me on friday, I can already see it hanging on the wall in the blue bedroom there. Perfect.

There you go, thats all from the first bootfair Sunday morning. I did buy a few more things at the second one, but I shall leave that for another post. I'm afraid I really have to do a bit of housework for a change, sigh. xx

Lets try again, lol

I know, I know, I am totally confusing you, the last post was supposed to be about the bootfair on the weekend, and what happened? I tried to finish off some other stuff from the weekend before first, and the post got too long and I didn't show a single thing from the Saturday bootfair ( didn't even mention the jumble sale, lol ). And then a couple of birthdays kinda got in the way of posting ( my oldest DS and my DH were celebrating on Sunday and Monday respectively ), so today is really the first time I can sit down and write a post. And of course I am trying to play catch up again, lol, three bootfairs to report on now.

Ok, so I'll start with the Saturday lunchtime one. I had a blast, it was a really lovely sunny day, I had my DS and one of my granddaughters with me, and it was a pretty successful womble as well. Where to start? I can't remember in which order I came across things, dang, ah well, I'll start with something sparkly and pretty and bling bling blingy then.

Just look at these, I was practically drooling when I found a box with costume jewellery bits and starting digging out brooch after brooch after brooch. 18 in total, and only a couple of them have stones missing, which I can probably replace ( I have a lot of broken bits from a boxful of stuff I bought for just that purpose ) -


I have a small collection of the orange Carnival glass in the cottage, in our yellow bedroom, and I was really pleased to find a pair of these, ermm, bowls on stands, whatchacallem? The bowls are lovely, much nicer in real life than they are in the photos, the oil-on-water effect never shows up properly, but the stands they are on are so tacky, just cheap white metal. Hmm, not sure yet what I am going to do about those, they might polish up nicely, we'll see. Oh, and at the same stand I also saw a tin of buttons. I asked the stallholder whether he would chuck a few buttons in with the carnival glass, he agreed and I spent at least 10 minutes grubbing through the dirty button box to find a handful of lovely old mother-of-pearl and glass buttons. When I went to pay him, he asked whether I wanted the rest of the buttons, I could have them if I wanted to. ARRGGHHH, why couldn't he have said that straight away, I could have saved myself 10/15 mins of very dirty work, lolol -


I had been looking for one of these for absolute ages. This vintage enamelled bain marie is in fabulous condition, I don't think it has been used much at all, and it will make lotionmaking so much easier -


A bootfair without a few bits of table linen of some sort is unthinkable really, I found these at a stall with very reasonable prices -



The stallholder told me that her grandmother had made the aprons, probably at least 50 years ago, and looking at the fabric of the secone one, that seems about right. I have an apron made from a similar fabric which I made when I was a little girl in the early 60s.


At another stall I found a beautiful snow white nightdress case, decorated with nicely executed whitework embroidery and this little table centre/tray cloth edged with masses and masses of glorious blue flowers in fine embroidery thread -



Soon after, I chanced on this table runner and a big bag full of these lovely lacy flower trims, one lot of dainty small cream coloured ones, and another lot of large white ones. Great trimmings for all sorts of projects -

Who could possibly resist anything to do with sewing? Not me, thats for sure. I was over the moon having spotted this card with the tiniest sweetest mother-of-pearl buttons amongst a few other bits and pieces I needed as well -


Trays, one can never have enough trays I reckon, one needs different shapes and sizes for different occasions. So I never pass up the chance of adding to my collection, lol. I do love these oldfashioned floral trays -


Ooooh, and at another stall I found a whole lot of diamante stuff, and a necklace with the tiniest glass pearls, I was thrilled to bits. So many wonderful sparkly bits to do things with. No idea yet what things, but who cares, I just know that one day I'll need them for some projects -


And talking of sparkly bits, how about this one?


A lovely Enid Blyton book -


Isn't this just the prettiest pattern? Beautiful flowers on a creamy background, and who cares that there only a few odd plates? 2 large dinner plates and a few smaller plates, but there are three serving platters and a serving bowl as well. I quite like mixing different floral china pieces when having friends round quite informally. And anyway, it was a charity stall, raising money for an electric wheelchair for a boy, so how could I not buy this? -


There were a few more things, like a really pretty multistrand hematite bead necklace, a couple of bags, a teeny weeny flower brooch, and a funky 1960s turban style hat, but I didn't get round to photographing them when I did this lot, and I really don't want to go and do it now, sigh. So just take my word for it, they were pretty things, lol.

Sunday's bootfair report will be tomorrow, I am blogged out right now. xx