A Jubilant Weekend...

Wishing every one a wonderful Jubilee weekend!Whether it is a street party or a vintage fair, or just enjoying a cream tea with family and taking time to slow down for the bank holiday...

I've had a busy bee kind of week in the little vintage shop where I work, we have been selling bunting and union jacks galoure!

It's good to see folks getting into the spirit of things really...

I can remember so clearly the Silver Jubilee and have quite a bit of keepsakes from this too.

We had a street party held in our local school and being of a certain young age, I can remember thinking,"whats all the fuss about".

I  can now safely say, I am of a certain age and am looking forwards to the weekend and our local vintage fair, that is being held in The Railway Terrace fields complete with swing boats, a brass band and marquees selling vintage wares!

aww and of course cream teas..

I can't wait!

I will perhaps be wearing a little red, white and blue too!

A little nostalgic picture or two here.

This is my my man's junior school picture for the silver jubilee ,he's the one back row left hand side three from the end, looking rather shy,with a cute bob hair style!haha..

He doesn't know I am showing his photo on here, but my picture of the Jubilee isn't nearly as sweet, as I am in my secandary school years with a little more attitude and am a lot less happy to smile for the piccy!

Yep I have a toy boy!

I love all the streamers and colours on the photo.

The lovely vintage glass here is again from my keepsakes and has the Coronation date of  june 2nd 1953 on it..

Local news papers of advertisments from 1977!

Still in tact, I loved the old pictures on these..

I know I will be having a Pimms or two, this weekend!

As I have been soo lucky to win  a give away on the lovely http://ooohbetty.blogspot.co.uk/ 

I have never won any thing before, that I can recall, soo Thank you once again Mrs Betty!

I will close with this little bunch of wild flowers, hand picked for you!

Have a Jubilant weekend!

Love Maria x

Memories......

I am an old soul at heart and some times feel as though I have been before...after reading the honest and  and inspiring post from Fliss -Joshy and Belle, I felt compelled to answer a question that came to my mind, who are the lovely people behind the blogs I read and what are our reasons, if any for blogging?

(I wonder who I get my love of cats from)

My blog perhaps stems from grief and loss, I am afraid..

You may have noticed I often mention Mum a little and often here on my blog!

Well the truth is I nursed Mum through 7 years of an incredibly long and cruel illness, yep Alzheimer's is a long, long journey to take...

Some of your blogs certainly lifted and inspired me at this time..

I loved reading how others lived there days, such as Lynn (Sea angels), Niki (Nostalgia at the stone house), Gena (These foolish things) and Karen's beautiful Moonlight and hares, to name but a few. I never left a comment as I was just happy to be, rather than do...

I could lose myself in blog land and I never really thought I would have a blog myself one day
as my days were certainly filled up with caring. But nothing, however difficult, lasts for ever dear friends and I certainly feel we all have times in our lives that are difficult and test us to our best and worst. I can truthfully say I feel my mum shouldn't have suffered the way she did and in this day and age, we should have a choice!

I now own a suit case of memories from mum and my Grand-mother which I would like to show you!

My Grand parents and mum as a baby 1932, would be the year...
(notice the cute dolly)
Soo loved this era, although Mum's Dad passed at 47 with TB so, like most, they didn't have a lot of money...

.

I was brought up on the stories of my great Grand-mother, Mary, who was a medium and took the stage at the local spiritual church each Sunday..
Mum used to say she was incredibly spooky and would dress for the part with her fur stole and pearls..
After her readings she would "take to her bed" to rest, as she had given so much and was very often exhausted.... She was said to be amazingly accurate too with her messages....

She is the one on the back row left hand side...
I wish you could see the cloche hats on this photo.
My Grand-mothers holding mum and the era is so apparent in the clothes they are wearing...
I know mediums and this type of thing is not every bodies 'cup of tea', but I was always taken as a young person along to our local "Spooks" as mum called it! haha
So now I own all the memories and keep sakes and really my blog kind of keeps these memories alive, as Mum gradually forgot her love of animals and flowers and her home and sometimes me, I now keep her memory alive a little on here..
Thanks for staying with me on here, I may have gone off a little Ronnie Corbett ramblings style! he he.

Which leads me to the tell you I am excited as I have tickets to see Mr Colin Fry (the medium) in June...

I am excited and keeping fingers and toes crossed for a message, to let me know mum has arrived safe and sound!

I will leave you with this view of my moggies all enjoying a' purfect ' morning blogging along with me !
Thank you for listening, you are very lovely!
Love Mariax

Homeward bound....

I am a little excited this week as my first born is home for a few days....
I know I will be doing  a lot of this.......

Cooking that is!

I eat to live I'm afraid, rather than live to eat..

So I am not the greatest of cooks...

Unlike a lot of you clever blogging ladies!

There will be lots and lots of ironing....

Such is life!

But boy, I can't wait to see him.

The last time Dean was home was Christmas so there's lots of catching up to do!
He is also here to do a talk to all the young folks at the John Ruskin school here in Cumbria.
I may have mentioned that Dean works in Brum and trains with the UK athletics disability team.
The John Ruskin school, I believe, have been doing research work on Dean and hopefully, this will include his Olympic debut....
Dean will talk them through his extensive training scheme and possibly do a training session with them.
Pretty good going!

It's all about the forth coming Olympics and the young athletes that have been training for this like Dean for many many years!!
Paula Radcliffe has been training with Deano and pals also....
Yep I am blowing trumpets on this dear friends!

I do hope the sun has his hat on for you, as he certainly does here!
Maria x

Scent of a Woman...

I am wondering if our perfumes can perhaps define the type of lady we are? After all the lovely comments from my last post, I felt a little reminiscent, to say the least....

I know I would feel undressed without my perfume on......

"Smells are surer than sounds and sights to make heart strings crack" said: - Rudyard Kipling.I am thinking he was certainly right!

My mum wore this perfume throughout all my childhood: Grossmiths White fire.( the original bottle, sits pride of place on my dressing table) it still has the most lovely scent after all these years!

Throughout the late seventies, big sister of mine wore this, soo I would steal a few sprays,as I was much to young to wear ladies perfumes...

Smitty did it for me! As the slogan would say....

My hey day was the eighties, soo I was a poison by Christian Dior  type of girl then...Heavily into saving seals and reading the Plague Dogs by Richard Adams.

My Olivia now steals a spray of my Poison as she starts to get ready to go out, "Hey!" I say "That's vintage, go easy and please just wear for special occasions". I am thinking that you only understand vintage when you become vintage your self! ha ha.

Now a days I prefer gentler type perfumes such as Arran Aromatics: After the rain, it really smells like the morning after the rain...Or Penhaligons lily of the valley, soo lovely!

I have a small confession I still wear my Black cherry lipstick from my eighties days, only when the mood is called for though!

Wondering what your perfume is sayng about you!

Have a lovely little weekend dear readers......x

May all your weeds be wild flowers.....

The flower of May, my favourite flower: Lily of the valley is at long last in bloom in my garden...

I had taken a small cutting from my Mum's garden some years before and it seemed to be happy in pots living with me now.....It evokes soo many memories for me.....

The legend of the Lily of the valley is that it came from the tears of Eve, as she was cast out off the garden Eden...



It's also believed to protect gardens from evil spirits....

My! After all the rains, hasn't the garden done us proud!

I've been a busy bee this week doing corsages for weddings, I love using flowers from my small cottage garden...

I also have a great love of Stocks as they scent the room soo wonderfully even if all you have to do all day is snooze!

Have a happy weekend! x

"Fashion fades, only style remains"....Coco Chanel.

Don't you just love a train journey? Especially as the sun was shining and I had a 'bee in my bonnet' about not having any thing at all to wear to a family wedding; which is getting incredibly close now...
So on Saturday myself and the lovely Claire of Thriftwood ( http://thriftwood114.blogspot.co.uk/) and my Olivia hopped on a train to hit the shops and do what I do best...... shop!! I decided that we both can't look good; it was either me or the house-work! A day out shopping won with fying colours!

It's maybe not the best idea to take ones lovely young daughter with you on a shopping trip as you can sometimes feel like a faded rose in contrast, when trying on clothes...hehe x

We had tea and cake here at this fabulous coffee shop... ( just lovely)

I had a little deja-vu and felt like I had been here before, although I hadn't, it still felt familiar in some way.....Do you ever feel like this, as soo you have perhaps been as though in a former life?

Claire advised us very accurately about a lovely little boutique called "Miss Matildas"...Soo a little spending was enjoyed here....

Had to be really careful and smuggle my wares home and when my man asks I am well prepared...."Aww this dress, I've had it for ages" I will say!!

I will leave you with these words by- Kennedy Fraser..........
'"I haven't got a thing to wear" does not, of course, mean that we must resort to nakedness or seclusion; it means that our wardrobes contain nothing that might match our mood or offer a just reflection of our lives.'

Well if the mood fits...

Hope your May day is full of spring blossoms....xx

Stone The Crows.....

Can it really be May already?

My Favourite Month.

We have been treating our selves to a vintage bookcase recently to house my many books.

I painted it at work and fell in love with it! Soo home it had to come with me to live.

The best part is the puttering or displaying of pretty things on it...

I aways seem to have two or three books on the go at one time, but I am loving this one soo much!

It's The Source by Ursula James. It's very witchy and works along side the moon phrases or cycles...

It tells the story of a 16th century witch or healer as she would now be known, called Mother Shipton...She foretold of many events in  history to come, such as aeroplane's and mobile phones and also the internet.

Sadly as was so in those days she was burnt at the stake for witch craft, but her spirit is believed to live on in a cave in Knaresborough in north Yorkshire....

Do you ever feel different during the cycles of the moon?

I fall in love just looking at our three dimensional skies at night. It's an ever changing scene and the moon is so intriguing...

My man says with my bottles and herbs and many moggies I could have been a witch in a former life....HeHe...

Don't know about you, but I think there is a little Witch in all of us!

Wishing you a enchanting week my friends!