Day tripper! yeah!

I told Daniel I wanted to leave London for the day and he arranged our day trip to Whitstable. We took the train, ate oysters, wandered along the beach, had fish and chips, collected shells, went charity shopping and got ice cream for the walk back to the station. It was such a beautiful day. See the blue sky!

Near the harbour I saw a sign 'Save our harbour. Shipping not shopping.' I could see their point.
'Hello new house'. I wish.

A patriotic mural outside a really good charity shop where I bought a sweet suitcase, a cute umrella and some measuring spoons.

I managed to find a lot more treasure than just this!

The beach

Me with the sweet suitcase.

On the train home the sunset was really nice.

Pretty Fry

Daniel and I had a nice fry up one morning. I'm getting back into two good habits; laying the table out nicely and eating fry ups.

Day trip in London

My friend Laura and I met up to visit the Royal Horticultural Society Flower Show. It was in this really nice RHS 1930s building.

A London house had been built in the middle of the room.

There was a section which was just species of garden plants which are dying out. Gardeners from around Britain showed off ones they have been trying to keep alive. Lots of plants on show were from Buckingham Palace, which I liked.

Afterwards we got on the tube to go to one of my favourite chippies in London. It's called The Fryer's Delight near Holborn.

Laura.

Laura's chips.

I bought these flowers at the show and took this picture when I got home. They were my favourite flowers of the day. I love the way they look like they're drawn with biro.

Thanks for a fun day trip Laura.

Out and about

I've had a week off work and I got up to some nice things. I'm going to post about the different things I did including my day trip with Laura and my day trip with Daniel. My week off started nicely with these pretty flowers from Daniel. They reminded me off that photo by Tim Walker.

Biscuit anyone?

Yesterday I was given a small publication about a reminiscence project by Coleman Project Space. The book tells me all about Peek Frean's Biscuit Factory in Bermondsey, South London. The factory was the centre of that community and the project has brought together people who used to work there. It takes me to another world, where people didn't lock their doors and everybody knew each others business. Well worth a look.

Lets make furniture.

I'm moving house soon and I'm becoming pretty obsessed with looking at interiors. I always love interiors though. Making furniture from scraps like these people would be my ideal. They make it look so easy!

via fine little day

Did you know...

...That Queen Elizabeth I's coffin was carried down the Thames River by a barge lit with torches. Since I found out a few months ago I keep thinking about it and wanting to paint a picture of it.

Also, due to my new job, I've been finding out a lot about Tudors. Its fascinating stuff.

Cosy.......

I'd like to make birds nests. I've collected lots of materials to make them but I've only made one. Maybe I'll post a picture of it soon. These pictures of birds nests are wonderful.

Via Cup of Jo

Glasgow! again!

I really want these. Thanks to Judith for letting me know about all this. Glasgow again! These plates are from Narrative which used to be Hitherto in Glasgow. Look, it's a shop which is a shed. I want to go! So, so very fun.

Stop frame beauty

Taller Than Trees from Joseph Mann on Vimeo.

I just discovered Joseph Mann's work through the brilliant blog it's nice that. His work is so wonderful! He's in his final year at Glasgow School of Art and once again I'm left thinking about Glasgow and the way creativity pours from its grey sky. What a wonderful city and what beautiful work. Fills me with joy.

How to be a young woman in 1964

Got this brilliant book from a charity shop for 50p. Thought it looked funny. Was so surprised and happy when I discovered it was illustrated by Quentin Blake.

'The object of every woman should be to do the work with the lowest amount of effort, in the minimum of time.' Ha! Love the early Blake illustrations, though.

I always wanted to know the correct way to lay out my fridge.

And I was genuinely pleased to know how to lay the table correctly. Those of you who read this blog often, know my new years resolution was to 'set tables and trays nicely'. And I'm obsessed with keeping them.

Old photos

This is the wall which inspired my wanting to collect old family photos. Taken at Daniel's friend, Damian's family home in Ireland. Such brilliant decor in that big house. I loved visiting last summer. (I'll post some pictures soon).

I love my Grandparents

I decided I want to have a wall of  black and white photographs. My Grandad has three suitcases of them. I went to visit him and we went through one of the suitcases. I picked out about twenty pictures I'm going to get copied. Here are a few: 

My Gran when she was about 14. She passed away in December so I can't stop looking at this picture. She's so beautiful. 

My Grandad. I knew he was cool, but not this cool. 

My Grandad's parents. 

Patch it up

I love these drawings by patch nyc which I saw on this post.

Pretty snow

I keep looking at this image from the mociun website. I think it's beautiful.

It's snowing!

It hardly ever snows in London. But today it was so heavy I got the day off work, went the park with friends, had homemade soup, cookies and chocolate. What a brilliant day!Everyone was building snowmen in the park .

Gingerbread Church

Daniel was about to throw a snowball at me.

icicles!

two shoppers carrying their giant snowballs home!

A book or two...

Joseph gave me this brilliant 1946 Hat book for Christmas. I love the way it tells me in capital letters to 'START YOUR OWN SCRAPBOOK OF HAT STYLES'. erm, ok. Apparently Miss Vee is quite the hat lady and wrote another book called 'How to make and trim your own hats'.