Having a break....

May the winds of love blow softly
And whisper so you'll hear,
We will always love and miss you
And wish that you were here.

What did I buy in England??

Hi treasure hunters near and far, hope this posts find you all well.

We didn't buy a lot during our travels to the UK, it was all too much trouble in the end. We did send a box home with a Georgian door knocker, a french plaque, a tiny dog and heaps of other things, but it is travelling by sea so I can't show you these yet.

Here are the little things that I carried back:



Bought at the Ardingly Antique Fair:
Bevelled glass French jewellery box with faded blue silk insert (I have wanted one for ages),
Ceramic Bulldog,
Victorian pink lustre teacup and saucer.

Found at the antique shop at Crewkerne:
doll head and pipe (in the bargain 1 pound box out the front of the shop),
2 small Victorian figurines,
wooden swallow.

Queen Victoria plaque was in a small antique shop at Avebury,
The Dresden girl (minus her finger tips) was bought at the Cheltenham Carboot,
and small three girl figurine was a birthday present from the kids :)



Victorian cherub plate (originally marked at 18 pounds) another item from the pound box at Crewkerne,
The sailing patch and postcard from Cheltenham Carboot,
Vintage character card set from Lyme Regis,
And the only Union Jack item that I bought was the egg cover at Dover Castle.



This guy was posted back and arrived safely after an inspection from Customs. We found him in a vintage shop at Chipping Norton, for only 10 pounds. We left the shop owner the frame, way too expensive and heavy to post.



On the way to Battle we passed an Antique store on the side of the road. I bought this Staffordshire flatback the first week and it travelled with us everywhere. It was quite inexpensive as the sheep at the front is repaired. I quite like the colours and the unusual scene.



After a trip to Blenheim castle we stopped in Woodstock to pick up some money. We wandered around the antique stores and I was admiring the chandeliers, although they were quite expensive. I popped into the charity shop next door and the lady had just put out 2 crystal dropped light shades/chandeliers. They had only come in that morning and were as black as pitch she said. The were prices at 12 pounds each. I was very happy.



Another purchase at the Lyme Regis antique shop. On the more expensive side, but I wanted to find a textile to bring home.

Below are the two things that we wanted to buy but had to leave behind.



The most fantastic cement gnome at Rye, way to heavy to sent.



I have wanted a French Wedding/Bridal stand (Globe de Mariée) for ages, but it was far too fragile to ship home. I am still on the lookout for one without the dome. This beauty was found at the Station Antiques, Appledore, Kent.

Thanks for the birthday wishes, yep, there's no turning back now! Here is my birthday present from the Micheal Kors Store in London. It is lightweight because of the clear acrylic band, and has crystal markers for the number, so pretty. I found a link which is offering them at a far cheaper price than we paid, here.



More to come whenever the postie arrives, hopefully before xmas. Talking about Christmas, can you believe it is soooo close?? Crikey!

England; Castles and Places of Grandeur

We were very lucky to visit some wonderful castles and beautiful places during our visit to England. Australia, being only a young country, has very few old buildings, so this was a real treat for us.

Warning! Its a long one!



Dover Castle


Battle Abbey and the Battle of Hastings



Nunney Castle (my favourite)



Wells Cathedral. When we came into town I saw a little spire, I thought it was the cathedral until we drove a little further and found the real thing. It was massive!



Farleigh Hungerford Castle (right on our doorstep from here)



Roman Baths at Bath


Bath Abbey. Can you see the angels climbing the ladders on the outside..amazing!




Corfe Castle. The view was stunning.




Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill. The First State Room was beautiful!


Warwick Castle, where Kade faced his fears and entered The Castle Dungeon...




Stokesay Castle, an amazing fortified medieval manor house. I turned 40 on this day. Not a bad way to spend a birthday hey?

Phew...did you make it to the end???

Back with another post of our English travels soon.

p.s. I might see the Queen next week, she is coming to town!

Green Green Grass.....

I'm all for the love of vintage and old but sometimes you need a little new in your life too. Our sparkling new ride-on mower arrived this morning. Even Tinkie seems happy, he wanted to be apart of the action too.

Hopefully now it will only take an hour to cut the grass instead of all weekend, that way we have more time to spend looking for vintage treasures. There are some things in life that are meant to be easy. Don't you agree?

It beats pushing one of these!



Have a good one, T x

England; Animals

All I wanted to see was a badger. We did see a few (3 stuffed and 6 road kill) but none alive. We were very excited to see a bumblebee up close. Aren't they cute? Everyone probably thought us mad taking photos of one. One question, do they sting? They must pack a punch if they do!

The eagle owls were huge at the South of England Rare Breeds Farm in Kent.

We saw the tiniest baby guinea pig at the farm too. The kids and I entered the farm animal pen straight after where two small kids (baby goats) had their heads stuck in the fence. Poppy set them free where upon they decided that our jeans were great to nibble on and bite us on the bum.

The rhino at the Port Lympne Safari Park sprayed Mr T and the kids as they got too close to the fence..hehe

We watched the squirrels at Chester for ages and saw one dig a little hole and bury his nut...awwww.

Thanks for the welcome back and your lovely comments. I will be visiting your blogs soon, pinky swear!

Hello! It's good to be home.

We are home at last, but not yet back to the land of the living. India is having a hard time adjusting to the timezone and is therefore keeping the rest of us out of sync. At least they are still on school holidays for another week so everything should be back to normal then. I am back to reality with my first day back at work today. We have a new starter who is really nice but I have a huge pile of work to get through..ugh.

We had such a wonderful time on our holiday, where to begin? It was jam packed each day with only one day to lounge around (the day before our flight home). Talking about our flight home, we did not encounter any problems on our entire trip until we landed back in Sydney. With the industrial action our 9:00 pm flight as cancelled as we had to take a 3 hour bus trip back to Canberra, followed by a taxi home. We made it home at 1:30am after 2 1/2 days travel...yuck. The kids are very happy to be home and don't won't to leave the house until they return to school next week.

We drove just over 1900 miles* in all over the 4 weeks, saw many castles, and historic places, got to go to a few carboot sales, and an antique fair, and had a great time at the Pleasure beach at Blackpool. We were also lucky enough to see The Wizard of Oz at the London Palladium with Micheal Crawford, it was incredible. I am sorry to say that I missed out on meeting up with Cate (A Vintage Mum) and never had the chance to visit Niki at the Nostalgia at the Stone House at Shepton Mallet either.

I am happy to be home to wide open spaces..some of the tiny roads we drove down were intense, not as intense as the tiny lane the GPS took us down in Crewkerne, where I could hardly talk as Mr T asked if he was clear on my side of the car...a tiny squeak is all that could leave my lips!

I nearly killed myself on the Red Double Decker Bus tour on my way up the top the the stairs the driver took off and I nearly fell to my death. The tour was o.k, but I would not recommend it to anyone. The underground was also difficult for a travelling family (especially carrying luggage) but would be great for a couple or with grown up children.

The towns and London were very clean. Tescos was fantastic and the pound shop was another favourite. I was also impressed that the trolleys were so easy to push around (I had to struggle with one yesterday) and that they have a lot of different trolley options for wheelchairs etc which I have not seen here. I know...its the little things that I noticed.

Back home to expensive food, petrol has gone up and the shops have changed some of the aisles around. We have only been away a few weeks and so much has changed. I did, however, see somebody in their pj's at the shopping centre on my way to work though..some things never change!

Overall it was a great experience and everyone was lovely (except for the publican at the Mousetrap Inn @ Bourton on the Water...would not recommend this place at all). We had great weather, although we were drenched in Bath, and at the Ardingly Antique Fair and Blackpool was pretty cold. We came home to freezing weather would you believe. Today at least it was nice.

I can happily recommend the following if you are planning a stay in the UK: Traffic Self Drive for car hire (fantastic), Brittons Hill Cottage (Kent), Farleigh Woods (Somerset/Wiltshire), Earby House Oddington (Cotswolds), Blackpool Wakepark (Blackpool, but only for a group of 4) and Kensington West Hotel (London) were all great places to stay.

I have lots of photos to show but don't want to bore you with the whole slide show snaps if you are not interested. Let me know if you would like to see some in the next post.

* we use metric measurement, so we had no idea how far a yard was and still don't know!