Inspired by the findings of our friends at Sparkle Vintage, Vivien and I took off to spend a day at Powburn. This village is pretty much in the middle of nowhere, well, out in the wilds of Northumberland but it's a lovely drive.
Bill often chooses this road to get to Edinburgh instead of the A-1 motorway which is probably quicker. The weather that day was hideous: wild winds and horizontal showers. I chose to drive to this out of the way place in order to have an excuse to be mostly indoors, well, in the car.
We went to the first place but discovered they had no loo for customers so we had an early lunch at the cafe in order to use theirs. There were also plenty of lovely hand made craft items to admire and vintage dishes, etc for sale. The food was better than Bill had led me to believe it would be.
Having taken advantage of the facilities we returned to the antiques warehouse.
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| A drink's cabinet. I'm always curious about interiors. |
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| This one distinctly smelled of alcohol! |
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| Pink feather hat! |
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| Edwardian butler's tray. |
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| Leather suitcases...don't think I've ever seen on in the flesh, as it were. |
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| The French corner |
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| Loved the ottoman - great storage! |
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| A huge cheval mirror...with a huge price tag. |
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| A long bench for in front of the fire. V. tempting. |
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| One sold on eBay for £5.50, but still interesting WWII memorabilia. |
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| Rington's tea mugs. |
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A William IV chair, with wheels and new upholstery. Small armchairs, I've read, are
quite cozy. That fire gave off NO heat, else I'd have parked myself! |
This enormous building had a tin roof that rattled and no heating whatsoever other than in a small office at the front. The lady in charge kept offering me a hot water bottle to carry around, but I figured if I just kept moving I'd be OK. I knew what I wanted to buy, I just needed to settle down and make some decisions. And it was very fun looking around, even if my hands and feet were numb. Touching really cold fabric with really cold hands is rather surreal: you can't tell what it is any more. All the cottons felt like silk. Perhaps some of them were. I'll not say what I went to buy, but I'll show you what I got:
I'd set myself a £10 limit.
I got these three remnants for £10.20.
After we'd had our fill we drove back towards home, stopping a a pub for more tea. I was hoping for and we found a roaring fire. I kicked off each of my shoes in turn to hold my frozen tootsies closer to the fire before sitting down to drink tea.
I drank even more tea at Vivien's house before travelling home. I'm getting to quite like the stuff.
4 comments:
Nice ottoman, and great prints. The middle one looks like a Liberty print. Glad you're getting to like tea, you living in England and all.
Beryl - They all claim to be Liberty; tough to chose which ones! It is useful to like tea, though coffee is always on offer. Living in the US I always drank my tea iced, with loads of lemon, no sugar. Hot tea, the few times I had it, was black with lemon, no sugar. Here everyone assumes you will have 'white' tea and the only question is whether you want sugar. I drink my coffee sweetened, so initially put sweetener in tea as well. It was OK, not great. When travelling on the continent I came to realise that I do not like their sort of coffee but I don't really have a view about tea and given that, I'm happy enough with it unsweetened. I think I would still prefer black with lemon, but that's not really widely available so I just go with the flow, as it were.
Looks like a fun outing. Some interesting pieces there. Your printed fabrics are nice. How will you use them?
Sanda - There is no telling what I'll do with the Liberty fabrics other than hoard them and take them out to stroke now and then. I had thought I might make some seam binding and dress up some plain t-shirts, but am undecided at the moment.
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