We’ve had a cracking couple of weeks at our house. Aidan seems to have had a reasonable amount of time off work so we’ve been away to Ludlow, we’ve sorted a few things out around the house, been to Vintage Village and I finally passed my driving test. Hurray!

Ludlow was my belated birthday present. I can’t remember if I mentioned the debaucle of our last attempt to get there which resulted in us being towed home… Anywho, we made it this time and had a wonderful couple of days away.

Corliss enjoyed being introduced to some ducks and sitting with her dad by the river:

Part of my birthday present was a ‘voucher’ for an hour off in the local book shop. Unfortunately, the bookshop in question, ‘Red Balloon Bookshop’ is closing down; luckily for me, it meant that my chosen book was 40% off. After much happy deliberation, I decided to go for ‘Island’ by Aldous Huxley. I’m halfway through ‘Brave New World‘ so this seemed a good one to continue with after I’ve finished reading that.

I think the pink and white striped bag makes it all the more fancy and exciting.

We had a really good walk around Ludlow and, despite the bizarre and very changeable weather, had a beautiful day. The day after we went to Leominster and spent most of the time avoiding the rain and looking round some of the many antiques shops there. We found a Louis Shabner print we’ve not seen before; actually, we found two but one was really faded and the colours looked strange. I wish I could remember the name of the antiques shop we bought our print from as it was really good, filled to the brim with interesting bits and bobs. We had quite a funny incident in one of the cafes when Aidan took Corliss to change her nappy in the toilet. In the stillness of the very quiet cafe, the three other patrons, cafe owner and I suddenly heard Aidan singing at the top of his voice, “I can see your bum-bum, your bum-bum, your bum-bum!” The lady who had entered the cafe after Aidan and Corliss had gone into the toilet… let’s just say her face was a picture. I just gave her a sheepish smile and muttered something about trying to distract our daughter from rolling over during a change. They certainly got some smiles when they reappeared.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the last couple of weeks knitting. We’ve got some friends who are expecting in September and October, then Corliss and her friend all start turning one around October and November. I’ve got grand plans for various things I want to knit for them all, so with my current speed, I need to get cracking, I’m trying to teach myself how to make pictures. This is what I’ve managed so far:

I used the Anouk dress pattern from Ravelry.com, with a few modifications; mainly because I couldn’t figure out the instructions for the shoulders! I started knitting this months ago, so it’s far too small to be a dress for Corliss now. Never mind! She can wear it as some kind of top. The main thing was to try knitting the pictures, and I’m quite pleased by how they turned out. There was a bit of unpicking but for a first try, I’m happy. Now that I’ve learned how to knit and passed my driving test, I’ve realised this means I’ve achieved my New Year resolutions of the last two years. I’ll have to think of a new one now. Any suggestions will be gratefully received!

Last weekend we went to the Vintage Village at Stockport’s Historic Market. We’ve been a couple of times before, and with nothing planned for Sunday, we decided to go at the last minute. I’m so glad we did! We took along a couple of pieces of West German pottery that we’d sold to our friends Alex and Alison. They have a fantastic stall there called snyggstyle – it’s made up of virtually everything we would want for ourselves! Alison has been learning how to make lampshades to fit the vintage bases and they look brilliant. I bought a couple of fabric remnants from her to use to make bibs from. I forgot to take a picture of their stall, but you can visit their Facebook group and see pictures from previous stalls they’ve done.

Apart from that, we bought a few vintage magazines: two ‘Woman’ magazines from the 1960s and a supplement from Homes and Garden about Finnish design. Now that is an interesting little booklet. I’ll scan a few pictures in from that at some point to show off as it features designers such as Marimekko and Ittala.

Right, my daughter is currently causing havoc so I’d better wrap this up pretty sharpish. We’re waiting on what looks like a whole crop of teeth to appear at the bottom (she’s still not cut any…) combined with frustration of not quite being able to crawl yet. Currently, she’s playing with her changing mat. All the toys in the world and the changing mat is what she wants. Well, what she really wants is my laptop cable and I can see she’s just about rolled her away across the room to get to it, so… until next time!