I bought this lovely old desk from a lady in North London on Monday and did some upcycling in the sunshine on Tuesday (what a fab week to be on leave) - Farrow and Ball French Grey, a wonderful soft grey.
A very special welcome to visitors from Show off you cottage Monday over at one of my favourite blogs at House in the Roses.
It's been a weekend with a bit of everything. Glorious warm sunshine, and lots of spring cleaning in preparation for the photo shoot for Hertfordshire Life. Hoovering, polishing, and primping like Hyacinth Bouquet....visitors have had to sit upright for fear of squashing my plumped up cushions!
Meanwhile down at the village church there has been a film crew on location yet again, which only means one thing - someone in Eastenders is about to snuff it!
While the BBC soap opera is set in the urban grime of the east end of London it is in fact filmed out here in leafy Hertfordshire and our local church is the favourite location for all those soap characters that depart Albert Square in a wooden box.
Up bright and early Sunday morning for the local flea and I scooped lots of lovely booty for an absolute song! What a brilliant start to the day.
How do you top that? Well what about a flash mob? Rock Choir has 8000 members and this Sunday staged flash mobs all over the UK in aid of Sport Relief. My local choir had scooped an amazing venue to do our (and mine) first flash mob - the Eurostar terminal at St Pancras Station, London! Woohoo - what a blast!
Thank goodness I have the week off work to recover! I have another very very exciting Rock Choir performance on Saturday. It's absolutely huge. I'm getting goosebumps just thinking about it! I'll tell you all about it at the weekend......;-)
Yes it's that time of year again when Homes Counties ladies sharpen their elbows and come up to town for the Country Living magazine spring fair in Islington, London. It's always packed and those ladies take no prisoners when in comes to fighting the crowds to get to the best stalls. Putting personal risk aside I sallied forth with my iphone this afternoon and snapped some of the lovely things that caught my eye. Enjoy!
It was Spring Open Day at the Hertfordshire Craft Collective on Saturday. Spring flowers prettied up the vintage units ...
... And every visitor got a yummy homemade cupcake (thats 250 cakes!)
I also added these 50s canisters to my own shop. Aren't they fab?
They'd look great in a kitchen with the blue enamel bread bin.
I couldn't spend long at the event as I was driving up to Birmingham for another vintage event -a surprise 70th Birthday party for Gary Walker. Those of you who were around in the 60s may remember an American group called the Walker Brothers? They had some big UK chart hits with Make it Easy on Yourself and The Sun Aint Gonna Shine Anymore. That's drummer Gary in the middle - groovy!
I was a huge Walker Brothers fan back in the 60s and it was lovely after all these years to celebrate this special birthday with his family and friends. Here's Gary on Saturday being serenaded by the 'Walker Sisters'!
And here they are singing their greatest hit.
Spring is officially here at last and the sun is definitely shining this week!
As we've just had Mothers Day here in the UK I couldn't resist sharing this photo of my Mum taken during WW2 when she was a military nurse.
My son's been restoring a few more vintage family photos...
My dear departed Auntie Madeleine...she looks as cute as a little doll doesn't she?!
Top right, my grandfather (Mums Dad) in WW1. Love the informality of the photo!
Much more formal - Grandparents (Mums parents)
These last two I'd never seen until recently. My grandparents died when I was very young I have no memory of them so it's lovely to have these photos as a link to my past. Sadly I don't have photos from my Scottish Fathers side.
I just love Spring! It never fails to fill me with hope. The weather has been glorious and all the primroses I have by my front door have been bringing a smile to passers by. All around the garden bulbs are bursting into flower.
I've been preparing for Easter in my little shop - vintage egg cups filled with chocolate eggs and hand made egg cosies - the whole space has had a bit of a spring makeover.
Spring has brought some exciting news too. I was interviewed for Hertfordshire Life magazine this week. My cottage will be May's Home of the month! The photo shoot will be in 10 days time - can you imagine the amount of hoovering, tidying and primping I'm doing?! I'll tell you more about it in a future post.
Finally, and for no other reason than this cottage made me swoon when I clapped eyes on it (and I bet it will yours too) ...
