A flea, some blocking and a battle!

This is a combined/random type of blog post as I've failed totally to manage to post them separately over the last few weeks.

First of all I've discovered a rather lovely, and very cheap, flea market near where my parents live.  We went to it a few weeks ago and I bought all of this:

There are 3 lovely 1950s Midwinter Cassandra dinner plates (I paid £8.00 for the three and they retail at about £20 each online).   The jug is holkham pottery and the Mrs Tiggly Winkle dish is wedgwood.
The bottle says King's Lynn Soda Water on it

All together I paid £30 for all the goodies in the photo (apart from the cat, she was just being nosey!).

Next, several people have asked my about why I block knitting.  Blocking turns a crumpled piece of finished knitting like this

into a defined, uncrumpled item.  I soak mine in water, roll it in a towel to dry it and them use wires and pins to pull it to the shape and size detailed in the pattern.

When it's dry it holds its shape and, it this case, retains the detail of the lace pattern.

This Henslowe shawl has turned out well, its a wool and silk mix yarn from Skein Queen.

Finally I went with Celia to a battle.  A reconstruction of the Battle of Assandun, between the Anglo Saxons led by Edmund Ironside and the Vikings led by Canute.

There was lots of charging about and a commentary telling the story (which was hard to hear), but it was fun and we had tea and cake too.

I'm off to London this weekend to see Kenneth Branagh in The Entertainer - can't wait!

SaveSave

A Weekend of Coracles and Vintage.

Have you ever seen a coracle?  I hadn't but on Saturday my parents came for lunch (they live in North Norfolk) and I wanted to find something for us to do in the afternoon.  Having dismissed the Sudbury Regatta (too far for my 80 year old Dad to walk to) I found out that there was a Coracle Regatta in the next village with close parking.  So off we set.

A coracle is a small, round boat found across both the UK and the world (click here for more information).  There were lots of different ones, all made from different materials, wood, willow, hide and plastic.

The professionals made steering and manoevering them look very easy, and when it came to racing them their competitive streaks came out big time!

They also showed us how they could harness the wind power by using a brolly as a sail!

It was a really enjoyable afternoon, the start of a lovely weekend, which concluded today with me heading over to Snape with a friend as there was a vintage market on.

Snape is a lovely place to visit on any day and the market just added a nice little extra something.  I love nothing better than a good rummage through second hand bric-a-brac and came home with this little lot for the grand total of £9.00 - a bargain I thought.

I also a  large enamel bowl that I plan to plant salad in on the patio.

I came home and picked MORE beans - I've never had so many beans before, I'm picking this amount most days!

I've been planting by the moon this year and I'm sure it's had a huge impact.  More about that another time though.

A Sunny Afternoon Trip

Boris and I went for a little trip this afternoon (Boris is my car in case you were wondering!).  We drove along roads like this

with views across the Box valley to the left and huge Suffolk skies to the right.

We drove through pretty villages

until we ended up here, in Dedham on the Suffolk/Essex border.

The sun was shining on the wisteria covered houses.

One of the houses has steps going down from the pavement to this lovely little door, I wonder what's behind it?

But I didn't really come to sight see, I came to the Handmaid & Vintage Fair.  I forgot to take any pictures inside the fair as I was too busy looking at all the lovely things but there was a nice mixture of things on sale, and I did treat myself to a few little bits.

An old bottle, 2 pretty napkins (which might end up being used for something else!) and a pottery "Be Happy" dove for the grand total of £9.00.  And a lovely tissue holder to put in my handbag made of linen and liberty fabric by Poshyarns.

But these were my best bargain

They're only silver plate, and I know they look manky here, but at £3.00 for all 6 there was no way I could resist them.  And after a little bit of cleaning they now look like this

Now all I need to do is make some cake to eat with them and then we can have a tea party - anyone want to come?