Floss tagged me!

Thank goodness it is quite an easy one this time. This is what I have to do ( straight quote from her blog, cos I am lazy, lol ) -

This one is charmingly different and easy:
1-Collect the book that you have most handy
2-Turn to page 161
3-Find the 5th complete sentence
4-Cite the sentence on your blog
5-Pass it on to five other blogger friends
Well, it did seem easy at first glance, but then I realised that my desk is in front of a bookshelf, with hundreds of paperbacks! The photo only shows the top three shelves, the middle shelf has all my soap business paperwork on it, and the bottom three shelves are full of sci-fi and fantasy books as well.

Hmmm, I decided that the shelf right behind the monitor was the one with nearest access to books, and the top of the pile sort of next to the monitor was probably the most handy. And that book was -
Terry Goodkind - Confessor. This is the concluding novel in the utterly fabulous and unmissable Sword of Truth series. I can't praise that series enough. Every time a new book came out, I re-read the whole series again right from the start

Right, lets turn to page 161 then.
and the fifth complete sentence is.......
" Rikka looked disappointed "
Waaahh, how disappointing is that? Such a boring, short sentence. Not fair, when there were lovely long, interesting sentences just before and just after. Well, humph.
Ah well, it doesn't really tease your imagination and it probably won't have made you rush out and buy the book, lol, but honestly, if you like very well written fantasy, get into this Sword of Truth series.
So now I need to nominate 5 others, right, hmmmm. Well
Sarah, from Red Gingham is my first choice, although the only book she is likely to pick up over the next month or so is the (probably very hefty) instruction manual for her new sewing machine
Joy, from Hippy News is next, come on Madame Cowpat, stop thinking about your new fella and do this little thing for me ( oh, before you all think the worst, her new fella is a gorgeous horse )
JJ, from The Diary of a Croaper, has no excuse not to do this, as the prodigal friend has finally returned from Portugal and has computer access again, yay.
Charlie, from Figs and Lemons might be able to find the time to pick up a book, unless she gets more invitations from strange men to sushi parties, in the middle of the night.
Amy, from During Quiet Time, she is busy busy busy all the time with all sorts of things, but I still think she is either Superwoman or has a time machine stashed away in the basement, so she will surely be able to find the time to pick up a book.....
There, all done, that wasn't too bad. Oh, no, not all done, now I have to tell them all they have been tagged, lol.
And now for something completely different. Last night my beloved little Sony digital camera, an ancient 2.1mb , but very handy little thing, starting dying on me after many years of very excellent service. Not good timing, because the standard lens on my Nikon D40 also bit the dust for some reason ( it locked up ), which left me with just the telephoto lens on the D40. I do love the Nikon, but its bulky, and sometimes I just need a little camera to take with me to fairs, on holiday etc, you know the sort of thing. So when I was in the shop this morning getting the lens sent off for repair, I also looked for a new little camera as backup and for general use. After much deliberation and pretty sound advice from the guy in the shop, I settled on a Fuji Finepix F60, which seems to be quite a nifty little thing and not too expensive either. I have only just unpacked it and taken a few pics indoors with it, but it seems to be coping well with close up text ( on the label ), which is important to me. What do you think of the pic quality? Passable for a dinky little cam? Don't judge them on the contents, lol, I couldn't be bothered to move, just snapped from my chair

I am going to have a play with it at the fair tomorrow, I think there will be loads of fab things to photograph.
Right, I am off now to tell all those lovely people above that they have been tagged!
xx

Of gazebos, tents and wake up calls

I had my first two-day outdoor event on the weekend. My son, who usually accompanies me to all the fairs and is my wonderful helper, was somewhat put off by the fact that I wanted to camp instead of driving back and forth every day, especially as we were setting up on Friday which meant TWO nights in a tent, with mum, shock horror. He perked up a little when I bribed him with a promised outing to his favourite oriental buffet restaurant next week, and came along more or less willingly.

We left Friday afternoon, and arrived at the venue after an hour's drive. There were quite a few people setting up already. First things first, we found ourselves a nice sheltered spot for the tent, and actually managed to get it set up without too much swearing. Aaaah, a tent, it brought back happy memories of our windsurfing days, when we used to load up my little Mini with a large tent, folding table and two chairs, windsurfing gear, clothes, food and a huge old windsurfer, mast, boom and sail on the roof rack, and drive all over England to the championship meetings. Those were the days, sigh, before the arrival of the kids. I am still amazed how that little car coped with all that.

So, once the tent was up, we found our plot and set up the gazebo. It was a doddle, probably because my darling son and husband had practiced the setting up beforehand, lol. Thank goodness for that, because I am not all that brilliant with things like that. The stock did stay in the boxes though, as there were storm warnings for the night, and we got quite inventive when it came to making the gazebo storm safe, lol! I am not going into details, lets just say it involved luggage straps, bungee cords and additional tent pegs. Hmm.

The organisers were really lovely, made sure we were happy and also told us about the two pubs in the nearby village, which cheered my son up enormously. We also had some very nice lads camping a little ways away from us, who were also off to the village pub, so really, we couldn't be antisocial and not go, right? Boy, did we get a surprise when we turned up at the pub! The pub itself was huge, lots of higgledypiggledy rooms and a huge pub garden, and it was all jam packed with people! Hundreds of people! We had no idea that there were huge celebrations going on. They had Morris dancers! Now I really do love watching Morris Dancers, it is such a wonderfully quirky tradition, and what made it even more special, apart from the local Morris Dancers they also had a group of Lady Morris dancers from OUR home town! The atmosphere was just fantastic, and when they started a singalong after the Morris Dancing, everybody joined in and got quite carried away with the old favourites. We left about 10.30 as we knew we would have an early start, but what a lovely evening that was. Such a shame that I didn't have my little camera with me.

The tent was, well, cosy, lol, but we slept surprisingly well, until about 4am that was, when the cockerels started to greet the day very noisily, only to be joined by the donkeys not much later. An alarm clock is nothing compared to a couple of donkeys, lol. We gave up at 6am and just got up, got ourselves ready and then wombled over to our gazebo, which had survived the night very well. We took it nice and easy, had a bit of breakfast, unpacked the boxes and then just enjoyed the sunshine for a little while.

The first day brought a steady stream of people past the stalls. I just love it when people enthuse about my products and I so enjoy chatting to them about it all. Thats why I love doing these fairs, the personal contact is so important to me. I might not make hundreds and hundreds of ££ profits when the stall fees are so high, but as long as all costs are covered and at least some proper profit is made, then its all worth it. I had taken a few of my antique and vintage fabricy things along as well, as I had the space in the gazebo, and that was definitely a good move. It was great sellling some of those things as well.



I didn't get a chance to look at anything else really during the first day, not any of the other 100+ stalls nor the animals, but we did have a womble past some of the animals after the craft fair closed for the day, visitors had all gone and most stall holders had also departed for the day. It was a beautiful evening again, very serene actually, when it was just my son and myself wandering about. We packed away the stock again ( didn't want to get it wet with the heavy morning dew ), secured the gazebo and relaxed by the tent. Actually, we were too pooped to do much, lol, we kinda looked at each other and decided we couldn't be bothered to go to the pub, we just munched on the stuff we had brought with us.

We had very much the same scenario with the animals waking us up very early, but I really didn't mind. It was a very misty morning, and all those marquees and gazebos looked slightly unreal in the mist, but it was magical in a way as well. There is something quite beautiful about walking about very early in the morning, when everything is deserted and the sun only just filters through the mist.


There were definitely more people walking about on Sunday, but business had definitely been better on the Saturday. Still, at least it gave me a chance to leave my son in charge for a few mins and have a look at a few other stalls. I couldn't get away long enough to watch the pig race though, but my son did manage to take a few pics. It must have been quite something, going by the laughter and shrieks I could hear from the crowds watching.


We got home tired and somewhat achy on Sunday night, and it did take me all day Monday to sort of recover from the weekend, but I loved it, and even my darling son had a good time, despite his occasional moans! I'll definitely do it again next year.

Mishmash post

It has been a beautiful morning here on the Sussex coast, warm and sunny, so it wasn't too much of a hardship to do yet another two hour town walk with a group of German school kids, over here on a school trip. I did get somewhat hot and bothered, phew, the road up to the castle hill is VERY steep, but the wonderful views from the top are so worth it! One of these days I will have to take my camera and do the walk on my own, there are so many lovely things to see in the Old Town.

It did mean, however, that my brain got a little fried in the sunshine and now refuses to co-operate with me, I will probably babble about all sorts of things, lol. Before it gets totally out of hand though, I want to thank Sarah, Red Gingham, for the lovely award she gave me, and the nice things she said about me in her post. Sarah, the package must be about half way by now, surely! See what I mean, these odd little thoughts creep into the post, hmmm, I hope it doesn't get any worse.

Remember I was making those hexagons for a little cushion for the cottage? Well, I got a little carried away with those hexagons, sigh, its just too addictive this crocheting lark, and I am going to end up with such a huuuuuuuge cushion, lol. But I have stopped now, done the half hexagons for the sides, and was just admiring my handiwork, when it dawned on me that not only will I have to sew in about a million bits of thread, I will also have to make a back for this enormous cushion! ARRGGGHHHHH, what on earth possessed me to make so many hexagons???


Right, on to the next thing. I have been making soaps again and it seems I am developing a bit of a cube mania at the moment. I have little tubs with different colours shreds and cubes sitting on my work table, and the temptation to sprinkle, sprinkle is just too great. Still, I really like the look at the moment, so thats alright.


Oooh, ooh, this reminds me, the little game I was playing yesterday. It seems Floss already knows me too well, lol, she guessed straight away that it had something to do with soap. You see, I had made this plain yellowy orangy soap, to shred and cube to put in other soaps ( see above ). But as I was cutting it, it looked so much like a really yummy cheddar to me, I just couldn't resist teasing you a little with it. It just looked too edible, and one could easily have sprinkled that on top of a salad and gotten away with it. Until whoever tucked into it starting foaming at the mouth, that is, lol. Anyway, Floss, email me your addy please, and I shall send you a little prize.

Grand, thats taken care of that, now what else was I going to say? Oh heck, I think I need a cup of tea first, brb, I am off to the kitchen!

Back again. Great, isn't it, how a cup of tea can revive you and put that little bit of sparkle back. And here is something else that adds sparkle to a girl's life - yay, costume jewellery, all sorts of things from Victorian to 1960s, just a few brooches and a couple of necklaces. Most of my other, sort of day-to-day necklaces are hanging up on a couple of coathangers, they don't make jewellery boxes big enough, lol. Hmm, I suppose I could use a suitcase, lol. Ah well, I like them hanging up like that, it makes it so easy to pick one. Anyhoo, back to the sparkly bits, here they are -


Here are a few more pics, first, a lovely little marcasite flower brooch


a leafy one


this is a lovely flowing shape with danglies


and a teeny clip on lapel brooch, not much bigger than my thumbnail


This is a gorgeous big old belt buckle, I love the delicate filigree design -


and a few precious little necklaces -


The next two bits are so beautiful, the top one is another clip on brooch, but really quite big, and below that is the most gorgeous belt buckle -


While I was upstairs in the bedroom, raiding the jewellery, I looked across to the mantelpiece, and this little corner of it, with the Japanese vases, the bridal tiara and the ostrich feathers struck me as so pretty, so here is a pic of that as well -


I am blogged out for today, and starving, and I really ought to get off the computer and do something housewifey. Would looking at my lovely lovely Sarah Smith dusters count as doing something housewifey??? I could put on an apron, I do have some, ermm, which I made when I was a little girl............

First day of the fair

I couldn't have asked for better weather for the garden and craft fair, and I would have been hard pressed to find a more beautiful setting. Just look at this, isn't it just gorgeous? You'll understand why I kept looking out of the window at the lake longingly, just wanting to dangle my feet in the water, soak up the rays and basically just laze about -


There were some very colourful garden stalls outside. I especially liked the one with these beautiful irises -


The craft fair was inside the visitors centre, and provided a surprisingly good mix. These stalls were amongst my favourites -

Bags, bags, bags in the most beautiful vintage fabrics, roses galore, sigh, and lots of sweet little bits and pieces with a vintage flavour. Suzanne makes all the bags herself, and they are perfectly sewn, I am so envious of her skills. I'll have to quiz her tomorrow whether she has a website where I can get myself a treat a bit later in the year


This stunning Venetian mask stopped me in my tracks. I am not normally a fan of red, but I would wear that mask, most definitely. Gimme a masked ball to go so that I have an excuse to buy it! Sigh, those feathers......


I spent quite some time looking at the lovely fabric collages etc on this stall as well. Beautiful workmanship -


And then there was Helen's stall, the Leaf Tradingpost. It was most definitely one of the more unusual stalls I have come across, but absolutely fabulous. Helen had some super soft, I-wanna-lie-on-it-and-never-get-up fleeces on her stall. They made me long for long evenings in front of a roaring fire, languishing on the fleece with a glass of wine. She also had some natural dyes on her stall, and some very fine, very unusual jewellery, horn and semi precious stones. I was a very happy bunny when she suggested a swap, she ended up with some of my soaps and I ended up with a very pretty horn and carnelian necklace, dainty and very much my colour


My stall was right opposite her and we had a grand time chatting away in between customers. Space was quite tight, so I couldn't spread out as much as I would have liked to, but my darling son Nick had the bright idea to put the little water tub and try-out soapies right in front, and customers had a ball messing around with it, especially with the floating soap!


It was a pretty good day all round really, lets hope tomorrow is a good day, too. I am pooped, I am just going to read a few blogs and then toddle off to bed. Enjoy your Sunday! xx

And now for something completely different

Instead of boot fair finds, sewing room treasures or crocheted stuff, I'll show you what we have been busy with over the last few days, designing labels for the new soaps I have made for the two day craft fair starting tomorrow. We have just finished wrapping 5 batches of the newly designed soaps and 3 batches of restocks. Phew, I am glad thats done now.


I am going to miss out on all the boot fairs this weekend, isn't that just terrible? Hopefully, the fair will be successful and kind of make up for it. Fingers crossed.

And because this is a totally non crochety, non boot fairy, non treasury kind of post, I'll continue with that and put up some pics of my doggies -


Oh, and for a wee bit of colour, here are a couple of flower pics -

The inside of the foxglove flower is soo pretty


the mock orange is flowering now, unfortunely only the blossom at the very top is open, the blossom lower down is still just in bud, but already the scent of the mock orange flowers is wafting through the garden, delicious -