NORTHAMPTON EASTER VINTAGE & HOME MADE FAIR

After much cajoling from sellers and shall we, shan’t we Ann (Vintage At The Corner House) and I have decided that we will arrange another Vintage & Home Made Fair and we are looking to host one in around the end of March, more details will follow in due course so keep checking in.

Ann has been busy with the flyer sending me pictures to choose from and me sending them back with criticisms – damn being a Virgo. Mind you I see that she has also been busy out and about shopping, I am sure she will have lots of lovely goodies to sell come the fair.

I have not been too much of a slouch in that department either.  I have picked up some nice embroidered brooches which I love and a wonderful lucite crinoline lady.



A couple of new compacts and some tins.

Thats not all but just a small glimpse, a girl needs to keep some suprises.  To see more you will just have to come to the fair.

WICKED IS WICKED

I had a smashing time in London on Saturday. As part of my Christmas present hubby bought me tickets to see the musical Wicked.


This brilliant show is held at the Apollo Theatre in Victoria. Built in 1930 its original use was as a cinema. It is a most wonderful Art Deco building and the interior was designed to resemble an underwater fairy cavern with wonderful lights resembling stalactites and lots of wonderful chrome. A lot of the theatre has been restored to its former glory and it is now a Grade 2 listed building.   I tried to take some photos of the interior but unfortunatly my camera was not up to the job as the lighting in the auditorium was not that bright.

 
 

 

For all of you who love the story of the Wizard of Oz this is an absolute must. It tells the story of the friendship between two girls who attend the Wizard School – Glinda the popular blond and Elphaba the misunderstood green girl who becomes the Wicked Witch of the West. Suffice to say not all is at it seems in Oz, but I won’t tell you the story line as it would spoil it for those who want to see it....

The musical numbers are great, the scenery and costumes are awesome and all I can say is WICKED IS WICKED.

BILLY BLINCOW AND THE BIKE SHOP

One of my hobbies when I am not busy searching for vintage finds or creating is researching my family tree and genealogy. I have always loved history and I am a nosy devil by nature and love to know what happened back in the annals of time, one of the reasons why I love old houses. I put on my Sherlock Holmes deerstalker to play detective and I just had to start looking into the history of my new home especially as it appears that the bicycle business that was part of my house played so big a part in the village’s life.

First stop the internet, there is always something to find on there and I decided that I would see if there were any photographs of the business or shop, and low and behold I found this wonderful snap of William Blincow the owner for the shop outside what is now my lounge. What a find.

As you can see the bow window is still there I  might even ask Hubby to look under the tongue and groove cladding to see if the moulded detail originally on the bay is still there, I should be so lucky, as would be wonderful to have that displayed again.

In my dining room there is a little window peep hole which opens up and this was used by the owners to look through to see if anybody had come into the shop and needed serving . I love it as it one of the houses features and part of its quirky past.

Next stop is our little village museum and local history society as I expect they have more information to give me.  Then it is back to the internet to start looking at the census's to see who else may have lived in the house and maybe find out exactly how old it is.  I should have been a detective.....

NEW YEAR - NEW HOME

FIRSTLY MAY I START THIS BLOG BY WISHING EVERYBODY A REALLY HAPPY 2010.

Well we are finally in our new home we moved in on the 22nd December..... Yes we moved in all that snow and ice just three days before Christmas. I can hear you saying “they must be mad” and yes it did feel a little that way but we really wanted to be in before Christmas in order to have the holiday time to unpack our many boxes at leisure.


Luckily family were taking care of the festivities this year, a big thank you to my sister for Christmas Day dinner and my eldest daughter for our Boxing Day feast.

Our last house was three stories with 5 bedrooms to spread out into – this house is only two stories with three bedrooms, it has been a little bit like trying to squeeze a half pint into a quarter pint pot with hubby holding things up and saying where is this going and me just looking, putting my head in my hands and saying “I don’t know...” in a very high pitched hysterical way....

I have to say I think we have managed to break the back of it and have packed most of it away but we are going to purchase a VERY large shed for items that we don’t really need but want to put out of sight until we know what we want to do with them, and also to store so many of the bits I have accumulated over the past nine years we were in the old house.

The house used to be the old bike shop in the village and everybody knows it, when you say we are in the old bike shop everybody has a tale to tell, about when they used to get their bikes repaired there which means going shopping can take some time.
 
This is our new front door, which is actually at the back of the house, as you can see it is very solid
 
I hought you might also like to see the key that we have to carry around – no little Yale lock for us.... won't be losing that one in the bottom of my bag any time soon.