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!!

BAH!

I wrote a whole post, I just needed to get the pics, but for love nor money I can't seem to save pics for blogger at the moment! I have no idea if it's to do with the great blogger outage of 2011, wasn't that annoying?!!

I haven't lost my blogging mojo, honest, but I've been so busy catching up with laptop outtage and tomorrow I'm off to my Uncle's funeral which is on Wednesday, I won't be back til late Friday, we're doing a stall at a gig on Saturday night, so I'm thinking I won't be blogging again til Sunday, sorrreeeeeee!!!

Life just conspires against you sometimes doesn't it?

It's not long to go now until the Rockabilly Rave it's in the middle of June. I'm really looking forward to meeting Kim from The Kim Show I feel like I know her already, her latest blog post is about Neil and Debbie visiting, mmmm I shared a flat with Debbie for short while in my 20s, and Neil is a sweetheart, we have a stall next to each other at The Rhythm Riot, we do love a good bitch ;o) So as you can imagine, we already have friends in common, so can't wait to meet her!

I really want to make something new to wear, yeah I know I have NO TIME! But I've been digging out some fabric I am going to try to sew up before The Rave! I think this one will be ideal for mid June, it's always hot at the Rave!

Seersucker, one of my fave fabrics, with a tropical feel, my favourite kind of print and I do have loads of it!

I've also been meaning to make a blouse up in this for ages, so I'm really going to try to do this before mid June eek!

I know this not everyone's cup of tea but it's fabulous in real life, the colour is more vibrant, goes great with my red hair and you know I'm a sucker for oriental prints!

And if I have time - unlikely eh? - I'm going to try to put something together with this!

I am nothing if not ambitious ha ha!

So tomorrow morning I'm off up North to my home town, it'll be a sad goodbye but Uncle Harold had a great full adventurous life, see you next week!

I really am back now!!

Wow that reorganising work and laptop stuff took some time!! You also get out of the habit of blogging which is weird since it is a habit.

Anyway I'm back and ready to roll again.

So what happened during my laptop absence, well honestly not a whole heap really. I kept forgetting to take photos of stuff cos I couldn't download them anyway, it's so weird how much of modern life is linked to being online or what is on our computer, I have now paid for a back up service, it's not expensive, but the loss of my livelihood is, and I ain't doing that again!!

Well one thing I did do when I didn't have a laptop is totally demoss the garden, oh yes people it was fun NOT!

This is before it's sooooo horrible!

It seemed to take days and I just couldn't see an end in sight and at the end of it, it looked like this, which anyone has to admit is pretty horrible, I was doing proper digging in the hot sun, not something I am accustomed to! Paul described it as looking like a World War 1 garden, I know he's weird!

Yep we have not one smidgen of grass left! It had all been moss and huge weeds, shameful, it's true to say I am not a gardener, and since we moved in we've concentrated on the inside rather than the outside and boy has it suffered!

So I dutifully sowed grass seed, I didn't have a lot of faith, after all I'm no gardener and I also couldn't imagine it would work, I thought I'd had to buy expensive turf, and we're so broke I was hoping against hope we wouldn't have to do that.

There were no results for ages, as we haven't had much rain, in fact mostly it's been hot in the UK lately, so hot the neighbourhood cats have been sheltering under our palm out the front of our house!

So cute eh?

Anyway a few days ago my hard work looked like it was finally starting to pay off, LOOK!

It actually looks better in person, although very patchy I'm rather proud! I thought it would cost a fortune to sort out but no, it just needed some initial back breaking work. We even sat out at our table for a mid afternoon espresso yesterday!

Talking of yesterday I could not resist this from a charity shop yesterday, it's fab, although I will be selling it on as I'm not a regular toast eater if I were I would have this on the breakfast table every day with it's selection of jams, it even has the original glass jam spoons in it, how fabulous eh?

It's so stylish for a combination toast rack and jam pot holder isn't it? We keep looking at it thinking should we keep it, and there dear friends is the reason I don't deal in only vintage stuff but repro because I would keep everything and be bankrupt!

Lastly I had some really sad news last night, my dear Uncle Harold passed away, he wasn't an Uncle by family but I called him Uncle he was a family friend but he was more like my grandad, he taught me to swim, play chess, encouraged me in studying and really encouraged my love of reading, he was an amazing man who had an amazing life but at 94 he'd live a long and happy life. I'm going to do a proper post on him after the funeral, not sure when it is yet so I may be MIA again for a few days but I am back in technical terms at least.

Nice to be back at least! Hope you are all well I have managed to catch up with some of your on your blogs, more exciting and interesting pictures and posts to come now I have got back in the swing!!

I'm back but only just...

Normal service will resume soon but I was without my laptop for 11 days, yes 11 days, blimey I was beside myself. I couldn't do much of my work, couldn't read blogs, and couldn't keep up with my online friends, it drove me mad!

Since I got it back on Tuesday night I've been putting it all back together again, well software wise anyway, I have learnt a valuable lesson back EVERYTHING UP constantly! I could have almost carried on as normal if I had and it wouldn't have taken anywhere like as long.

Anyway I'm back, I'm not back in the game yet but at least I can comment on your blogs and get on with my work!

Sorry there are no pretty pics, like I say I'll be back to normal service soon, just wanted to let you know I haven't fallen off the face of the earth!

Unexpectedly out of commission for a week!

My computer crashed on Thursday morning, just wouldn't start, apparently my hard drive is failing aaaargh. So my laptop is now in the shop to be fixed, worst time it could happen with a long weekend, which means that it will be the end of this coming week before I'm back in action :o(

So apologies for not commenting on blogs and lack of posts, I can use Paul's laptop but not all the time as he's busy too, so see you in a week!!

Looking forward to Easter!!

As you guessed I've been super busy still. Although it makes life all the better seeing the sunshine here in the UK, it's like a true summer day today! The windows are all open, there's no breeze, the sun is hot, aaaaah, it won't last though will it ha ha! Actually it is set to last this weekend and I'm very happy about that

So what the heck have I been up to apart from work work and more work.

Well here's a selection of photos.

We unexpectedly did a stall at the Cat's Meow club on Saturday, it was a last minute thing but we had fun, Paul also sold one of his paintings, so a good night was had by all!

Here's a picture of the artist himself, looking particularly cool and artistic like he he!

My stall with people looking, that's what traders like, people looking, well no actually we like people buying but looking is a good step! It looks strange as it was set up on a pool table, ah yes we adapt people!

Apart from working on Notorious Kitsch and Miss L Fire shoes - which is hardly a chore, talking about fabulous shoes!! - I have been doing the garden.

When I say doing the garden I mean, attempting to get the garden in some type of shape to eventually make it into a real garden. We've been here 5 years and in all that time we have done nothing to the garden apart from mow the lawn, no plants, nothing, poor neglected thing eh? Last year we finally got round to painting the fences but that was about it! This year when I looked at it in the first throes of Spring I though oh no this is the year for back breaking work! Half the lawn was covered in moss, weeds and all manner of horrible things that shouldn't have been there, so to prove my back breaking work this week, here's a pic!

It's grim isn't it? Well I have now cleared one bit, dug up the weeds and sown some seed, fingers crossed. I have soooo much more to do, but I can only manage a bit at a time, gardeners must have backs of steel!

However I did manage to get a little area to sit in sorted out, so at least when the garden starts to come together we can enjoy it! Soooo much more to do *sigh*

And I keep meaning to post this picture, some of our best friends live next door and this is the view from my back door into their garden, ah I wish it were mine!

Of course summer means fabulous salads again, this is one of my favourites, very healthy, that's creme fraiche not mayonnaise! And by the way I'm still on WW and doing ok thank you, 9lbs down :o) This salad is sweet potato and quorn sausage YUM oh and that's enough for 4 just in case you think I'm overindulging!

And last but not least, a little teaser of another project I have on the go - yes I know don't I have enough to do already.....

So there you go my last few days, I'm tired just thinking about it!

This weekend I am going to slightly overindulge in wine and gin, and I'm going to sleep and sew and sleep again, can't wait!

Knitters heads up!

Knitters just a quick post to let you know I have started to load my extensive knitting pattern collection on Etsy. It'll take me a while to get them all up but there are a few really cute ones on there already!

I've been collecting these for years, although I won't be sharing the ones I'm just about to have made by my mum!! At the moment it's mostly 40s sweaters and some 30s items, but there will be some 50s ones too, once I've decided on the ones I don't want to share!

You can get to them by clicking on my Etsy store in the left hand column. Meantime here's a few in there at the moment!! I love this one, despite listing it I still think I'll have my mum makes the sweater, not that or the mittens though, they're cute but not me!

This next one is stunning, it's complicated, but stunning, my mum made it for me years ago - I sold it on years ago too, it was so beautiful but took her ages!

That's all for now, back to juggling balls in the air!