Love in a cold climate ......

I am doing a craft fair at our local arts centre today.  It makes a lovely change not to have to get up in the dark, drive for miles to get to a venue, then walk a considerable distance to unpack the car.  This fair is an 8 minute drive, I can park right outside to unload and it starts at 11 o'clock - how civilised!

I'm going pale for this fair - lots of cream, fawn and beige .....

Irish crochet flower posies adorn the top of these fabric covered Ikea boxes (hot glue gun came in useful again!).

These lovely felt wreaths were bought at a boot in the summer, passed over by others because it was the wrong season.  I did think I might put one up on our front door this year but then I went to John Lewis and fell in love .....

I've never been good with sums .....

Yesterday I did a fair in Marlow and it was not good:  one of those not good fairs where it costs more to sit there for the day than it makes and everything you sell would fit into the large Cath Kidston mug you brought with you for your coffee but didn't use because you left the thermos flask sitting on the kitchen surface.  And I had such pretty things too ....

The stall looked attractive .....

Lots of not expensive things to buy ....

But no one came in to look!

It did give me time to muse on the buying process and I came to the conclusion that it comes down to arithmetic.   I think the sum is something like this ....

Cost of item x likely profit 

Weight/shape x ease of selling

Well, that is the theory.  Of course, it seldom works like mathematics.  Take this, for instance ....

If I had been following the rules, I would never have bought this magnificent, flamboyant, cloak-swinging figure.  It was fairly expensive (much lower profit margin), it is badly damaged (so difficult to sell), heavy and an awkward shape (hard to transport and store).  But I couldn't resist him:  Charles I with his head literally glued back on!

These little chaps do follow the buying formula ....

Cheap(ish) and easy to pack and carry and they will also look lovely on the stall, if I have them that long .....
 

Getting ready for Kempton Antiques Fair ....

Months ago, during May half term, I thought ahead and visited Kempton Antiques Fair.  I bought myself a ticket for 29th July - ticket no 1 so it shows how far-thinking I was being.   I have been looking forward to it ever since, buying, repairing, painting and improving.  This morning I decided to view the fruits of my labours and sort out the pretties that I will be taking with me. I started early;  in the current gloriously hot weather, if something doesn't get done by 12 noon, then it doesn't get done at all.

I've already shown you many of the things which will be coming with me but here are a few you haven't yet seen .....

Pretty boxes, fabric covered and painted ....

 Vintage tins ....

 and still more vintage tins ....

A very sad looking toy cat - the heat maybe a little too much for him.

If you are passing Kempton Park Racecourse on Tuesday, do pop in a say 'hello'!

The girls said 'What shall we get Dad for Father's Day?'....

..... and I said 'Jobs'.

Here is the latest knitted dog .....

It is a truth universally acknowledged .....

.... that a car boot sale is an excellent form of exercise.  I can confirm this because I know that this morning, at my two usual car boot sales, I took 19,425 steps, travelled 12.84 km and used 1,824 calories.  Who needs the gym, eh?   I know all this because Northern Man's well-publicised lack of a romantic side took over when it came to my birthday in January and he gave me a Fitbit.  Once, we had covered the 'does this mean you think I'm too fat' question, I became a little obsessed and now find myself making sure that I get my 10,000+ steps in every day.

Of course, the steps taken don't show the effort involved in carrying the goodies I buy, so car boot sales must be good exercise for the arms too!  Not that it took much effort to carry today's purchases ....

Vintage toy dogs ....

....a velvet table runner, and other must-have lovlies.

There's not a lot of weight in little bits of painted wood ...

.

.... or in an embroidered hanky holder, but I must have used up a few calories carrying this plant pot back to the car!

This morning I bought a what-is-it .....

Today was the first truly enjoyable boot of the season:  the sun shone, the ground was dry and I managed to buy some things which make me want to smile in a manner that would make a normal person think twice about getting into a confined space with me.

But first, the what-is-it?  I know that there are many types of what-is-it? and that they come in all shapes and sizes.  My what-is-it? has beading around the front and back, a curved decorative detail on the top together with a handle for carrying and a clip on the side to keep it closed ....

It is beautifully painted on the front ....

and on the back ....

It has shelving inside ....

And a reassuring label ....

So, what-is-it?  The padded lined section at the top (which could have been added later) would indicate a sewing box but it seems a very strange configuration of shelving and why would a sewing box need to be heat resisting?  If anyone has any ideas, I would be delighted to hear them.

I also bought ...

A vintage velvet donkey and another knitted one ....

A wonderful velvet covered chocolate box decorated with what seems to be part of a dead bird....

A glorious velvet covered doll's chair and a knitted sailor doll ...

Embroidered pictures and a box of filthy wooden building bricks and wooden jigsaw bricks.

What a wonderful morning!

Catching up ....

I have a job to do today:  I have to proof read Youngest Child's dissertation.  As my brain is unused to anything more challenging than a good thriller these days, I am finding the responsibility burdensome and am employing various avoidance tactics to get away from it.  It is amazing what you can find to do around a fairly cleanish house if you have to:   I have cleaned the front room windows, scrubbed out the cats' bowls and washed down the kitchen floor.  I still 79 more pages to go so the house will be immaculate by the time I get to the end!

So that is why I am sitting down to write a long overdue post.  Northern Man and I have not been sitting still for the last few months.  During October half term last year we went to Jordan.  I have never been anywhere where the kindness of strangers was so evident.  We lost count of the number of times we heard 'Hello, where are you from?  What is your name?  Welcome to Jordan!' .  This was, you understand, always from men and children - women were silent and covered from head to foot.  It is, however, amazing how they managed to reveal so much of their fine figures while wearing long, black, tailored coats!

We visited Petra and clambered around for hours over the huge site. 

We shunned the offers of donkey rides up to the Place of High Sacrifice and The Monastery ...

.... choosing the satisfaction of completing the climb on foot.  Many of the young sloe-eyed Bedouin men who make a living on the site offering donkey, horse or camel rides,  were made up as Captain Jack Sparrow.  I haven't yet been able to discover whether they were the inspiration for the Johnny Depp make-over or whether they have simply adopted the look from the film.

In February half-term we went to Dubai.  As we sat on the run way with the plane rocking from side to side in the in-coming storm, we wondered whether we should have spent some time putting the furniture up on bricks before we left and how Only Son would cope should the water start coming up through the floor.  As it was, we needn't have worried:  the building up of the banks at Maidenhead and the wonderful Jubilee River (I won't hear a word said against the Environment Agency) saved us from the Thames.  Although the house must have been almost floating, there was no ground water flooding and we stayed dry.

I found Dubai a strange place:  being English and used to cities, towns and villages which have developed organically for over a thousand years it was odd to go somewhere so very new.  The attention to detail and quality of the infra-structure are amazing:  there are block-paved pavements everywhere despite the fact that it is too hot to walk outside and the flyovers are painted or have decorative motifs on them.   Despite the huge number of road traffic accidents every month, many of them resulting in fatalities, we only saw one car that had a scrape on it.  The body repair shops must do a roaring trade!

It was nice to see some old there amongst all the bright, shiny, new ....

These beautiful wooden dhows load up on the creek against a back-drop of skyscrapers.  They carry everything and anything:  cars, air conditioning units, American-style fridge freezers and childrens' plastic chairs.

In between, I have, of course, been knitting.  I have mentioned before the lovely Osborne and Muir books of knitted dogs and cats.  In an idle moment I picked one of these up again and had another go at a dog and, once again, I was disappointed with the results.  I am very happy to believe it is me, but the patterns never seem to turn out as nicely as the photos in the book.  I thought about it for a while and decided that my main problem is the gusset that most of the patterns have so I set about producing a pattern which had no gusset.  It took me a while:  I knitted the tummy first, then joined in the simplified legs, knitted the tail as a piece of the body, cast off the back pieces together to make a nice clean join and then knitted the head, again without a gusset.

Now I have to wait for my next fair to see what people think of them.  Unfortunately, I will not be at The Vintage Bazaar in Hartley Wintney on Saturday 29th March (it is Only Son's birthday weekend) but, if you are in the neighbourhood I recommend a visit.  Good luck to Lizzie and all her stall holders for the event.