Saturday, 17 October 2009

The Hourglass Inn





The dreaded flu has kept me away from our usual Friday night date with the best pub in England- it has however been redolent of childhood illnesses; being tucked up in bed, smelling my Mum's Chanel perfume (now mine) through a blocked nose, eating my favourite dinners for strength and finding enough energy to indulge in my all time favourite computer game, Simcity. Tom never knew he was seeing a computer geek in disguise! Sorry to have missed you Hourglass Inn, there is always next week.

Sunday, 11 October 2009

Each Autumn begins like this, with stunning horoscopes reching beyond the expectations of a single season.







The beginning of autumn calls for a squash supper and inspires a wintry landscape to finally be painted onto the screen we have been meaning to decorate for an age. An annoying space in the kitchen has been given a new lease of life with a perfect fold out table onto which we have a selection of our favourite recent finds.

Wednesday, 7 October 2009

Bicycle Luggage Special

Lately all the things I seem to find or ideas I have had have seemed to point in the same direction, that direction is towards bicycle luggage. It might seem like a slightly odd axiom to the threads of my spare time but that is how it is.

To begin with some of the ways in which the theme has been seeping into my consciousness I will post the below pictures from a couple of magazines I won on e-bay. They are from 1913 and have wonderful cover images (the chap on a punt is an example of this). Note the stylish luggage featured in the bike snippits...




Some of you reading may have spotted the early Brooks advert on the corner of the page above, so did I. I was reminded of my lovely brooks Glenbrook saddle bag which I love terribly but don't use very often because in Exeter it would probably be stolen and my Mother bought it for me Christmas just gone. I needed something less precious.

This book has some great passages about luggage. This was a present from a local junk dealer and was very well received. I remembered having seen it somewhere before but couldn't think where, then I remembered it was on the Tweed Cycling club's website. Found it? Somehow, although I can't quite see why now looking back at their pictures, I thought that perhaps a good satchel would be a possible solution. So the next weekend I happened to be looking through a couple of barn's belonging to an antique dealer and found this...


A good, heavy canvas fishing bag with a nice wide strap and lots of pockets. It really does the job nicely and it stays with me when I lock the bike up making it much harder to steal.

That said though I have started working on a leather bag made from some old folios I have cut up. The sewing machine just about goes through the leather if turned by hand. I am just waiting for the buckles to arrive in to-morrows post and then it can be finished. If I remember I will put a picture of it on here. It doesn't look as scruffy in real life.

Tuesday, 29 September 2009

Autumn Boots.


Every girl needs a new pair of boots for autumn; I have already written about my lust for riding boots, and am yet to find any in my financial realm, but these Kurt Geiger beauties, a steal off of eBay have that horsey look to them and are officially my autumn boots. They will be pounding the pavements of New York city in November- too exciting! Until then, the conkers are starting to fall and leaves are gathering in kickable quantities.

Sunday, 27 September 2009

Goodwood Revival.





There is not a lot I need to say about Goodwood Revival apart from that it is a perfect day out! Cars, planes and sharp suits for Tom, and vintage clothes stalls and the chance to spend a day as dressed up as I would like to be every day (though I am certainly not disinterested in the beautiful machines on show). Thanks to the wonderful April whom I bought my perfect plaid skirt off of, I had so many compliments!

Wednesday, 23 September 2009

Christian Union Tablecloth


I got a present today, I usually do when Tom has been working in Otto. Today it was a large Christian Union table cloth. It is perfect for the top of my wooden chest; for some time now I have worried about my plants wreaking all sorts of water damage to it, now I don't!

Goodwood revival happened last weekend, unfortunately I have to wait until my Dad sends me some pictures to be able to share the experience. It was a wonderful weekend, I am quite sure we were the best dressed there.

Monday, 7 September 2009

Pin Curls


Me and Tom are going to Goodwood Revival in a couple of weeks and I thought I better get some hair-do practice in. I want to attend the event in a 1930's style, I haven't decided what to wear exactly, I think that will have to be a future blog post, but I tried pin curling my hair. I am lucky enough to have hair that more or less falls into waves anyway, I would imagine trying to pin curl straight hair is quite an art! I basically followed the lines of my natural curls and whilst holding them down with my fingers, pinned them with long bobby pins to keep them in place, then dried my hair and sprayed a lot of hairspray and then took out the pins and this was the result. Not bad, but I am going t have to learn how to do it at the back of my head, which is really difficult!