.....Bibliography!

Today is my day off work and I'm having a bit of a "me" day at home. The weather's miserable so have decided to spend the day catching up with my blogging, getting a bit creative with my sketchbook and spring cleaning my wardrobe.

First task is underway writing this post on my much neglected blog! 

I will happily admit I am a complete kindle convert since I received a Kindle Paper White for my birthday last year but I have always been a complete Bibliophile and have a particular passion for old and interesting books. I have the best of both worlds and can see the benefits with both options. 

I have a few select old books on display in our living room which are my particular favourites. 

I love anything to do with Fairies so these below had to be part of my collection.

One of my book wardens

  

An obvious favourite of mine are old Ladybird books and here are some of my faves. The 1st edition British Wild Flowers book from 1957 is a recent charity shop find and has pride of place on the shelf. The Little Mermaid was a favourite of mine when I was a child so this is a very treasured item. 

I love the inside cover illustrations in Ladybird books, so much so that I even have a tattoo on my ribs of a pixie line drawing that I found in one!

I have a bit of a secret passion for architectural drawings and in particular engravings and etchings. My recent prize charity shop find had to be these two Modern Masters of Etching books from the 1920s. They have some stunning plates and have given me great inspiration to combine this imagery with my love for machine embroidery. Today I'm going to be having a play in my sketch book with some ideas on how to take this further. 

To create a bit of balance on the bookcase I have a few shelves of more educational books (handy for me in my job as an Antiques Auction Assistant) about all things antique and collectable from vintage clothing & jewellery to furniture & pottery. I struggle to go into a bookshop without coming out with some sort of book on collectables but the shelves are jammed full now so no more for me!

I'm off now to tick off some more to do list tasks so see you again soon!

 

........New Year!

Firstly I need to apologise for my lack of posting recently. It's been a hectic few months. Now we're into 2014 I wanted to share some new things in my life. 

I've always been a keen but amateur photographer and so I wanted to expand my limited skills. Our automatic compact Canon camera didn't give me enough options so I started looking into the next step. I didn't want to go too crazy by going straight for a professional camera with changeable lenses so I settled on the brilliant Sony HX-50 which has all the manual settings plus some clever intelligent automatic settings. After settling on this model my lovely partner Tom decided I could have it as my Christmas present so I've been very spoilt. 

So far I've had great fun playing with all the different settings and effects so here are a few of my experimental shots.  

 

As always one of my New Years Resolutions (or as I like to call them Lifestyle Changes) is to get fitter, and hopefully thinner, so have taken up jogging and am keen to do more walking. Last weekend we took a trip to Gloucester Quays Designer Outlet where there is a great The North Face discount shop. I've been after a warmer walking jacket that wasn't too bulky and was very lucky to find a lovely summit series windtopper soft shell which was less than half price! As a good test we decided to head up The Malverns on Sunday with Toby. It turned out to be a very good test as it turned out to be the weekend we had up to 100mph winds battering the country! The jacket was a huge success thankfully and I'm now much more confident to get out there in any weather and enjoy the outdoors. I obviously took along my new toy and played with some more photo effects.

As everyone is aware Worcester is currently going through an awful time with the River Severn bursting its banks and flooding most of the City Centre. Water levels have exceeded those of the awful flooding of 2007 and it has caused chaos with roads and bridges being closed most of this week.

As nosy residents we couldn't let all this go on without going down to the river to see it for ourselves. Again I took my trusty new camera!

Bye for now!

.....Goodwood Revival 2013!

Hi!

A few weeks ago I had the great luck to be able to tag along again with Clare from Second Hand Rose to the wonderful vintage celebration that was The Goodwood Revival 2013. Ratty was packed, outfits were picked and canned cocktails were cooled. 

This was my 3rd year of going to the Revival and as usual we had amazing fun people watching. 

Odd socks without the socks!

There was also a great selection of classic cars in the car park over the road and it's always great fun having a walk around.

Funny bugs!

One of the perks of working on a stall was that we had to close at 7pm so we could hit the bar and enjoy some live entertainment. Most of the acts were the same as last year such as Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer and also The Black Elvis. It was also a bit like deja vu as we met a lot of the same people who we met for the first time last year!

Mr B Gentleman Rhymer

Old friends!

Our diet for the weekend....white wine spritzers and pretzels.

The Black Elvis

Clare & Wes winning a chicken dance competition!

Our fave food stall. What can beat melted cheese?!

Here's some photos of the stall. The best sellers this year were definitely fur, hats and gloves. The slightly cooler temperatures helped people shop for the more cosy items.

The weather was meant to take a turn for the worse on Sunday so it was a nice surprise to wake up to sunshine and blue skies! I had to have a wander about to take some nice pics before the skies opened, and blimey did they open with a vengeance about four hours later!

We had a lovely weekend of fun and frolics! Unfortunately we won't be going again next year but I'm sure I'll be revisiting the Revival at some point in the future.