Ticking Stripes

Hope all is going well at the Handmade and Vintage Fair. I had thought to drive down but given the weather warnings decided against it. Its just as well as I had a man banging on the back door at 9am telling me a section had snapped off one of my trees and was hanging dangerously over the pavement. He invited me to look - in socks dressing gown and sans makeup - not a good look - and he was right - a large chunk was hovering suspended only by a wisteria tangle with the main body of the trunk also split. Less than an hour later he was £300 richer and I was treeless. It could have been worse - if it had fallen right over it would have come through the roof and killed us both. So that's another of my lives gone, (cats get nine, how many do we get?) Anyway I'm coming back as a tree surgeon next time! It's not a bad hourly rate is it?



On Thursday I was in London for meetings for work but once they had finished I hot footed it over to Islington to the Country Living Fair. When I arrived at 3 it was packed and difficult to see but by 4 it was thinning out and became easier to move. There were lots of the usual country style stalls as you'd expect but also some new names.



I hadn't come across "Bombki" before. Michael Peterson is the mind behind this company and he designs and makes these Christmas baubles some with traditional themes and some very contemporary.



He sells either in collections as you can see on the pedestals - French, London, American or as individual pieces. I liked the London Eye...



and the car collection.



I particularly liked the French seed packet labels from "Burgundy Brocante" and bought some of these to play with. They are apparently copyright free so you can do what you like with them - I checked!





There were some stalls for the vintage lovers amongst us...





and I did like the old Christmas baubles on this stand. But at £39.50 they seemed very expensive. I know that people are asking that price on E-bay



but I had struck lucky at the car boot last weekend and picked up this little lot for 50p! I also picked up some wooden coat hangers which included these lovely advertising hangers in amongst them.



I think they are great - just look at the address on the top one - 54 Mumps, Oldham. Poor little hanger - starting out life living with a high class "tailor" and ending up living with a rather shabby round the edges former "Taylor"!



I also spotted another Vernon Ward picture which came home with me. To be added to the flickr group. Now can you help me girls - there is a blogger who has recently shown us her "Wall of Flowers" pictures. Does anyone know who she is? I've tried to track back to find her as I'm convinced she must have at least one Vernon on her walls but no luck so far. If anyone has any ideas do let me know...

Have a good weekend

Wend