Having Fun

Dear daughter and I had a fun day on Saturday, firstly a trip to a local vintage fair, we found some lovely things that just had to come home with us, and being very good we resisted lots more!  It wouldn't have been hard to spend a huge amount as not only were there lots of vintage things but also lots of handmade goodies.  I couldn't resist these dainty 1920s Edwardian cake forks.

Yes, I do have another set of cake forks, but as they come in sixes, and sometimes there are more than six of us, and well, they do look so nice on the charity shop plates that I found last time I took some donations in.

On the same stall as the cake forks a pretty little cake stand caught my eye, and the kind lady offered me such a good deal that couldn't be resisited!

You see, I have used it already, and being small it is just perfect for little tea parties.

My last purchase was very, very useful, and as you may have gathered from the size of the above two items, I love small things, and well, these green drawers just begged to go into the new sewing room that is still a work in progress.  An added incentive to persevere with clearing out the room!

As if that wasn't enough fun for one day we then headed off to the nearby market town of Olney.  This was for daughter's textile homework.  Isn't she lucky to do textiles?  I would have loved to have done that at school.  Having thought ahead for once we took our sandwiches with us.  Well that was the plan and the lunch had been made and boxed ready, but, dear daughter managed to leave them at home!  There are lots of eateries in Olney so I knew we wouldn't starve but as we arrived at the Market Square we discovered there was a Food Festival.  A large marquee filled with tables and chairs was surrounded by stalls all selling different food and drinks.  We were spoiled for choice and had to walk round twice before we decided what to have.  Should we wait for the paella to finish cooking, or have an Indian meal, then the barbecuing meats did smell delicious, and so did the chicken kebabs. Actually knowing that we would have dinner in the evening we had the Mushroom and Spinach soup with black pepper croutons and a mini tin loaf from Beans Coffee Shop stall.  Delicious and very filling and whilst eating we watched the pancake flipping contests!  Olney is famous for it's Shrove Tuesday pancake races.

'Teapots' tea room always have yummy cakes.

Love the name of this Farm!

Anyway going back to the Textiles, her current work is partly inspired by lace so for primary research we visited The Cowper and Newton Museum where there is a good display and archive of Buckinghamshire lace.  At one time there was almost 1200 lace makers in this small town and even a lace making school.

These are just a few of the many photos taken!

The museum is named after the poet William Cowper whose house the museum is in, and his friend, the hymn writer Rev. John Newton who was a curate at Olney, and is probably best known for 'Amazing Grace'.



We didn't have a lot of spare time to look around the whole museum and it would be interesting to spend more time there.  Apparently William Cowper was an enthusiastic gardener, and we did have a quick look around the beautifully kept gardens and peeped into the summer house where we liked to do his writing.  He kept three hares as pets in the house and to avoid them escaping all visitors, however important, had to enter through the back door.

This is the summer house where Cowper did a lot of his writing.  I wonder if he was taller or shorter than my 5' 7" daughter?  I made her stand by the door so you could see just how small the summer house is.

This apple tree was half lying down yet still had a good crop of apples

I did take a lot more photos of the garden but Blogger and/or the computer seem to be doing their utmost to prevent me using them.  I click on one thumbnail image to put it into Blogger and something completely different appears.  Then when you do get the right one onto Blogger it won't go in the right place on this post!  Having tried everything I can think off I shall give up for today - especially since I started this yesterday!

"Here we go round the mulberry bush..."

Well it wasn't a cold and frosty morning today, actually it was the nicest weather of the week so far, but I did go round a mulberry bush!  Hands up who remembers this nursery rhyme and action song.  Does anyone else think of the rhyme when they see a mulberry bush?  Now for those of you who don't know this English rhyme, perhaps instead of "hands up" I should have said, "lets all join hands" (or pretend we are) and sing...

"Here we go round the mulberry bush,

the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush,

Here we go round the mulberry bush,

On a cold and frosty morning!"

I can just imagine us all dancing round our computers, well as mine is in a cupboard I shall be dancing around the dining table! 

Ready for the next verse...

"This is the way we 'brush our hair',

Brush our hair, brush our hair,

This is the way we 'brush our hair',

On a cold and frosty morning!"

We can alternate the chorus and verses as many times as you like, well until we are all worn out!  I recall, 'wash our face', 'put on our clothes' but anything with an action will do!

I have to say that I can't remember ever seeing a mulberry bush before today and you will never guess where it was.  You couldn't really say it was a bush, definitely a tree and as to where it was - in the grounds where I work!  I must have walked past it dozens of times before but never seen a fruit on it then when I happened to walk that way today there were lots of berries.

 

Mulberry bush popped into my head right away but having never seen one I wasn't totally sure.  Whilst still admiring it and discussing it with my friend another member of staff came out of the nearest building and confirmed it was a mulberry and that it had been fruiting for the last six weeks!  He also told us that when the ground around it had been sorted recently (it was very overgrown), they found part of an original plaque, this has been incorporated into a new plaque.  I thought I hadn't seen it before! Apparently there was a line of six mulberry trees but only the one left now which does seem rather sad.

The sun was shining right on the plaque but it says, "Planted for Shakespeare Commemoration Day 3rd May 1916".  The closest building was originally a school in 1916 so it must have been planted by them. I wonder if the children then danced and sang around their new trees?  I am not sure what ages they would have been at the school then.  Latterly it was a secondary school before the school became incorportated into another and the premises are now owned by the University. 

I have never heard of  'Shakespeare Day' and having had a quick look on Google the only things that come up are the 23rd April (being the date of his birth and death) and references to how things were in 'Shakespeare's day'. Perhaps it was just an event held at that school or maybe some of you can enlighten me?  Regretably I didn't learn any Shakespeare at school as there was a government initiative at the time for us to be taught modern English literature, I am glad that it didn't last and that my children are all familiar with at least some of his works. A search for 'Shakespeare and mulberry tree' reveals that apparently Shakespeare planted a mulberry tree in his garden at Stratford on Avon, one site even suggested that it was a cutting from a mulberry tree planted by James I.

I discovered there is even a special mulberry tree website showing the location of mulberry trees in the UK.  Our lucky American friends apparently have lots of mulberries, they grow wild and are considered a nusiance in places, so perhaps more like our blackberry bushes.

This tree instantly bought back childhood memories of mulberries, as when I was young my father worked for some years at a place where they had a mulberry bush and after eating his lunch would collect mulberries in his lunch box to bring home for us.  Today,  annoyingly and rather like blackberry picking, all the best fruit are always out of reach!  Only the very dark ones, almost black, are ripe. We did manage to pick a few though and they were delicious, very juicy.  I was seriously wondering about taking a step ladder there but a little bit more research reveals shaking the tree is the answer!  This should let ripe mulberries drop. Better make sure I take my tupperware!

Another little visitor!

Yesterday was an interesting day  and I couldn't decide what to call this blog entry. 'Another little visitor' was one option, or perhaps, 'Double trouble' or maybe 'It was one of those days'!  Any would have summed up yesterday morning!

How about this photo then, any ideas what this is?

 I'll give you a clue. It is woolly on the outside and fleecy in the middle.  Still guessing?  Well the next picture is easy.

Hmm, looking very cute, definitely a 'butter wouldn't melt in my mouth' one. I am talking about the cat by the way, she loves being carried around like this by eldest son.  However, we know better and are convinced that Suki, is really a baby tiger in disguise!

A mixture of stripes and spots, so perhaps a cross between a tiger and a leopard, although actually they are Bengals.

Anyway to get back to the story, Suki helped to peg out the washing as usual. Well she thinks she's helping by sitting on the garden table and watching me!  The next thing there's a streak of greased lightning and before I could barely turn around she was across the garden, over the fence and up next door's cherry tree, followed by screeching from the birds and a great flapping of wings.  The birds escaped - but only just!  Suki likes to collect feathers and brings them home. Fortunately for the birds they usually only lose the odd feather!

The birds obviously had young around as they continued to squawk very angrily and Suki would not leave them alone.  Not even the treat box could tempt her so in the end I turned the hose on!  She doesn't really mind water but does object to it being aimed directly at her!  All safe, or so I thought.

A little later younger son announced that there were a few feathers in his sister's bedroom and that both cats were staring intently.  Sure enough, having shut the cats out and after a spot of hide and seek, we knew there must be something, and we eventually found a juvenile sparrow hiding in the mystery object.  You could only just see the tail feathers.

Did you guess what this was?  You will when I show you the whole thing.

A lovely thick, soft mitten!

Now you might be thinking that with the bird contained it would be an easy job to release it.  And, yes, you would be right except that there was then two 'helpers'.  Now the cats are not supposed to go out the front of the house, so as my son carried the bird out the front door I was following and not paying full attention to what I was doing in my efforts to stop any followers.  Any guesses what happened next?  I managed to close the inside door (yale lock) shut instead of the porch door which has to have a key to shut it.  So there we were one bird rescued but now my son and I locked out!  Now we all know that teenagers are never without their phones but... he was still in pyjamas and the phone was inside the house!  You had to laugh really, and then to cap it all, although not injured, the bird was in shock so didn't fly away and who should appear having gone out the back door and over the fence? Samba, the other half of  my 'double trouble'!

Just in case you are wondering, I left my son and the cat in the porch, used a neighbour's phone to ask my friend to bring the spare key, and the neighbour took the bird into her garden.  It would be safe there as the cats stay well away from her dog and luckily the dog only chases four legged creatures!

A little visitor

We had a little visitor in the garden the other day.  Very cute, and quite small, still has some growing to do, but he was very welcome.  Hubby did put on gardening gloves to pick him up - just in case of fleas, although there didn't seem to be any sign of them.  However poor little chap did have two ticks on his side so we popped him into the now redundant guinea pig run, and then looked up what to do about them.  Apparently either oil or butter smeared over them is the answer and we decided that butter might stay in place longer.  Having been treated we tucked him under a bush with a saucer of oats, raisins and peanut butter! I know it sounds strange but I read that in the Sunday Times newspaper, so assume it is good. 

'Prickles' as he became known soon trundled away ignoring the cats who were extremely interested in him.  Once said cats were safely in for the evening, I put out a dish with some cat food on, and did so for a few days.  Dish is definitely empty in the mornings but I'm not sure who is eating it! I used the chicken dinner which is my cats least favourite, but there are other cats around.  My neighbour has been putting out food for hedgehogs for years and regularly sees some, and although we hadn't seen one for years hubby spotted a full grown one on the lawn a couple of weeks ago.  By the time he called me it had totally vanished.  I'm really hoping that 'Prickles' or some of his friends would like to stay not least as I have vast numbers of slugs still eating flowers, leaves and plants, and the current favourite delicacy seems to be...   courgettes!

On the subject of writing...

Now we bloggers rely on a computer keypad to communicate with each other and I must admit I am so glad that I was taught to touch type way back in the olden days - that is before computers were in every home. I even learned mainly on a manual typewriter although the college did have a few electric ones but they weren't commonplace then. Who remembers the font being on daisy wheels and golf balls?  The ink was on ribbons and no typist could be without her Tippex to correct the dreaded mistakes, but no more than 3 mistakes could be made on a letter before you had to start again!  Oh the joy when carbon ribbons came in as with them there was another ribbon, a bit like sellotape, that removed the mistakes.  The time they saved was immense.  I bet the typewriters I learnt on must have seemed very modern to people using early ones like this.

I popped into the local museum this week as they have an exhibition of writing.

I was surprised to find that the work was by a local group 'Northampton Scribes'. I had never heard of them before and yet they were formed in 1996.  There were all sorts of examples on the walls including this alphabet piece that had been worked by the whole group.  I like the way the cat's head sticks out, but not sure you can see it clearly in the photo.

This envelope was beautifully addressed, unfortunately in a glass display case so the photo doesn't do it full justice. Wouldn't it be lovely to receive post like this? I do try and decorate envelopes I send a little bit but perhaps I should be working on my calligraphy skills.  Have to admit that I cheat a bit with italic felt pens!

My favourite exhibit was this one by Erica Burt.  The use of different pens and the repetition of appropriate words to make up the surfaces must have taken hours of work.  

The exhibition reminded me to show you some of the lovely shop window displays in Venice.  They make you want to go back to old fashioned writing!

Look at these wonderful ink bottles.

There were whole shops devoted to the art of writing.

How about a glass pen? I think I would almost be afraid to use it in case it got broken.

Having had a little trip down the memory lane of writing, I have to say at least with a pen in your hand you choose your style of writing, unlike the typewriters that only had one font and Blogger that seems to make decisions for me! I do get rather exasperated with it at times!

Worn out and weary but had such a lovely day!

I have walked miles, stood for hours, my legs ache and I am totally worn out, but I feel very, very happy. I have had such a lovely day, out for a jolly to the Festival of Quilts at Birmingham.  Living in the middle of England I am only an hour's drive away and even more fortunately hubby works very close to the N.E.C. so I was chaffeur driven there and back!  This year I went on my own and it's amazing how many lovely people you meet and chat to. I never fail to be surprised by how far people have travelled to come to this show, including Mandy from Inverness who set up her own shop earlier this year, and a lady from Cornwall who got on the coach at 4 o'clock this morning!  Have to admit that I am a little jealous of those lucky ladies who get to spend more than one day at the Festival it is so big that it is impossible to see everything properly in a single day.  

As well as all the many fantastic quilts on display there are lots of trade stands.  So many fabrics to tempt as well as every accessory you can think of, ribbons, buttons, books, and threads, not to mention all the sewing and quilting machines.   It has to be said that my purse is somewhat lighter than when I went but everything in my bag definitely said "buy me"!  My head is buzzing with ideas and really when I think of them all I think I was quite restrained!  


I was so annoyed with myself though for not checking the camera last night, the battery lasts so long that I didn't think about charging it and regretably I didn't get anywhere near the number of photos I would have liked. Especially annoying as I didn't even realise it had a low battery until it totally ran out!  Never mind, I do have a few pictures to show you, although I realised I don't have all the exhibition numbers so can't tell you who they were by.

So many different blocks in this one.

The way the patterns interact really attracted me to this one.

This was so eye catching.

Very sculptural!

Loved the detail in these little smocked dresses.

How about this fella?

This one was all knitted!

The detail here was wonderful but the photo doesn't really do it justice.

One of the highlights for me was the exhibition 'The Tentmakers of Cairo'. Originally they were stitched for the inside of tents, intricate applique patterns in bright colours, now these highly talented men and boys stitch mainly for the tourist market.  

Boys start learning this work at age 8 and by 18 are at their peak, sadly by 41 most have to give up due to failing eyesight caused by poor light.  Two men had come over with the exhibition to demonstrate and they were truly amazing. I have never seen anyone sew so fast! The outlines of the design were drawn on the cloth and they would pick up small random shaped pieces, then roughly turn the edges under to fit as they stitched.  I have to say that when I applique I spend ages cutting the pieces carefully with just the right seam allowance and I think most of us probably do the same. Now I am thinking perhaps it isn't quite as important.