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.
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| 'Teapots' tea room always have yummy cakes. |
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| 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.
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| 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. |
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| This apple tree was half lying down yet still had a good crop of apples |
Wow - is that Cowper's hare house? I set a piece of his (about the hares) for my 13-year old students. They'd love these photos!
ReplyDeleteAnd the whole post is great - I really enjoyed reading about your finds and your travels. The lace in the museum is lovely.