I'm back .... again!

Boy I seem to have been away a lot lately, offline for 2 weeks, working to catch up, off up North for my Uncles's funeral, working to catch up, no time for blogging!

Anyway I am back. It's been a strange old week for many reasons.

Obviously it was a sad reason for us to visit the North East, although as I said before my Uncle Harold was 94 and he had an amazing life, I will do a post on him at some point but I want some old photos to include and don't want to hassle his daughter right now, she has enough to deal with.

On the day of the funeral we were getting dressed and Paul had brought a double cuff shirt and no cufflinks, aaaargh! What to do? I shouted down to Mum but despite us thinking Dad must have had cufflinks we couldn't find any. So next door I went, my Mum has lived next door to Auntie Marjorie - not my real Auntie, same family as Uncle Harold who wasn't my real Uncle but just as much family! - for as long as I've been alive which is 44 years and how much longer than that I don't know. Auntie Marjorie has never been married & lived with her Mum until she died quite a while ago now. Auntie Marjorie's tiny house is like a museum, she has amazing things in cabinets and just laid around really, and I just KNEW she would have some cufflinks!!

She had a rummage and she found a pair of her fathers cufflinks, now Auntie Marjorie is 85, so these are pretty old as you can imagine, just right for Paul! They are the cutest cufflinks ever and Paul was so proud to sport them all day, Uncle Harold's daughter Elizabeth was also proud when she saw them as they were her Grandad's and she said it was like having a bit of her Grandad there!

How cute are these?

Oh yes, scotties dogs in glass! Fabulous!

Anyway the funeral went as well as these things can go, one nice coincidence happened, my Uncle was a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm in the War and as we were at the graveside a military jet went over, obviously not planned but a great touch!

We did the obligatory charity shop trawl in different towns and honestly was a bit disappointed, I thought I'd find more, I did find a piece of furniture we would love but sadly only had the car and not sufficient cash and my mum doesn't drive so she couldn't pick it up so we just had to leave it. However I did find one thing at proper charity shop prices, this cost me the grand sum of 75p, bargain and will look very pretty on my dressing table!

On the way back on Friday we had a meeting near Newark in Nottinghamshire. We took a different route to the one we normally take home and it was nice as it really makes you see how fabulous and historic the UK is, we even drove past Nottingham Forest, but I didn't see Robin Hood!

Now I've never been to Newark and wow what a lovely looking place! I'm so sad we didn't get more time to explore, we literally had a meeting and a little time to spare but it's certainly worth an explore one day. There is an amazing castle as you are driving into town, we will definately revisit. However the reason we DID visit - well apart from our meeting - was to check out The Newark Antique Centre. Let me tell you I'm so glad I did and we'll be back! If you get the chance to check this place out, do it! It's 2 floors of antiques/collectables and listen up, reasonable prices!! I haven't been somewhere like this for years where the prices weren't stupid. Sadly I didn't have much disposable cash but I did buy some buttons!

I love all these, but of course I particularly love the red wooden ones, how cute are they and yes if you can see the prices they were 30p a set!! What a bargain in an antique centre! We'll definately go back one day but it's a good couple of hours drive from here sadly or maybe just as well...

Then on Saturday night we did the Cat's Meow club in London with the stall, all went along swimmingly until I packed away and took the lift, the lift door closed, the lift didn't move, yep you guessed it I was stuck! I was in there for about 20 minutes, fortunately I'm not claustrophobic or panicky, but I didn't get home as soon as I'd planned!!