A week away from blogging - and those tins!

Thanks for your encouraging comments about my new blog header and background, and also about my blogging break. I don't know if you ever find that you feel a bit out-of-sorts, and that the internet is becoming a prop which attempts (and fails) to improve how you feel? When I get like that, I know it's time for a week's break. Here is the story of this last week:

Shortly after I signed off, Son 1 and I decided to pop into the Troc Shop on our way past. They are usually pretty short of vintage stuff, normally veering between useful modern stuff, modern tat and antiques, so I was stunned to see this wonderful set of canisters there for 25€.

Far more than I would usually pay to add to my collection, but far more beautiful (and also more complete) than anything else I own. I was given 25€ for my birthday, so the canisters are now mine, and have inspired my first ever change of blog design, too!

On Saturday night we had an unexpected gift – the boys were invited to sleep over with a friend, so I booked (by executive decision) a table at the best restaurant in our town. As Ben loves good food and I usually book cheaper places, I knew this would be well received!

He and I spent the afternoon doing coupley-type things, choosing new glasses for him, buying some kit for our forthcoming camping trip, and trying on, but failing to buy, sandals. We dashed back from the optician’s to get changed and walked out, through the Coulée Verte, to the restaurant. Having been warned there was a wedding party I was anxious that we might not get a seat outside, in the old open barn, but the wedding party had checked the forecast and decided to go indoors! Ben and I therefore celebrated both my birthday (late) and our 22nd wedding anniversary (early) by eating a fantastic meal, drinking velvety wine, and not getting wet despite the flash thunder-storm. The wedding party was small and very sweet – an older man (very dashing) was marrying a woman a little younger (extremely tasteful lace dress) and their children and a few grandchildren made up the party. Other diners included one of Ben’s bosses!

After we’d finished our leisurely meal we strolled back through the town, as the Coulée Verte was too wet underfoot for a return journey in decent shoes. This gave us the opportunity of passing through the town’s youth music festival, which was actually well-attended by adults too. We spent most of our time (in the light rain) looking at le train d’enfer, a wonderfully old-fashioned fairground side-attraction, the aim being to push the skeletal train model up a steep track into the flaming mouth of hell… This and a few other old-French-style attractions were presented by exquisite young adults in black and white stripes, berets, skull carnival masks and other stunningly stylish accoutrements. Their every move was like something from a silent film, and the overall presentation was so different to a modern fairground. One game was a variation on what the Brits call ‘Bash the Rat’, but this time, children had to stab a speeding saucisse with a fork as it came down the tube! We watched one child win his saucisse, and then decided to head for home.

Sunday was quite a different day, with Ben heading off to the Netherlands with the aforementioned boss, and the boys coming home rather on the tired and ratty side… I did pop out to the weekly Vide Grenier that calls itself a Marché de Puces, and came home with some lovely bargains – usually, prices are quite steep there, but everyone seemed to be clearing out granny’s attic this week! I’ll post pictures when I’ve taken them… but immediately after coming home, I lost the camera! I know I only put it down briefly, but can we find it...?

Brocante - the finds

I've loved reading your comments on my brocante post yesterday!If you'd been there with me, my brocanteuse could have sold a rocking cot, a water pump, garden tables and chairs, bed ends a couple of times over and that red shutter. In fact, Sarah's suggestion, that: "The shutter would be hung on a wall by the bed like a picture. A pretty quilt on the bed. Roses on the bedside table..." nearly had me rushing back and snapping it up!
But I resisted the big stuff (good thing too, now we've had the garage bill...) and instead picked up more vintage china:

It's the pink polka-dots that are new, but I couldn't resist a photo of them on last month's blue stencilled roses. And the red plates, above (seven of them, 1€ each) have already been put into good use for Son 1's courgette and feta fritters. He is a Hairy Bikers-obsessed cook this summer! I'm building up a really nice mixed collection of French stencilled china this year. Last year it was just stuff I saw in magazines, but now I'm finding it myself. It's mainly from the '50s and therefore still in good condition, and dishwasher safe...

The rest has gone into my blog shop. (With a few sighs, I have to tell you, especially for the little lotus tin, above.)Pop over if you want to see what I found in that pastilles tin!Sweet...And oh, so French.

Vintage Tins - but what's inside???

So, I had a bit of a failing for vintage tins before... ... and then I was looking for new storage containers for the Ugly Black Shelves and found a load more tins in the Troc Shop...

... and then I lost the list of what was where, in which tin, and the Ugly Black Shelves got a bit Uglier for a while, until I remembered, that inside one of the tins was:

Second Hand Magnetic Tape!!! One of those buys I KNEW was going to come in handy one day - and reduced from three pounds (silly price for a charity shop) to two! Unfortunately it was a bit old and less sticky than before, but perfectly magnetic, so out of the same tin came:

Double Sided Sticky-tape!
j
So very quickly, everything was back in the right tin and this time we can find it!

Gosh, I feel like a mixture of Angela and the Thrifty Mrs here, getting all organised in a low-cost way... And now I feel like Sarah, because I said 'gosh'! There'll be a 'golly' before you know where you are...

But what's inside? Well, glue, who cares? But I'm crazy about the rusty old Christmas tin, which is peopled with French santons, like the figures on a traditional French nativity scene.

Wouldn't you like a peep inside this one? You can see it all in my blog shop, here. But here are one or two of the items I've been very tempted to remove from stock and start using myself!

j

How French...

Lace, of course... (rather battered)...

A Coronation table cloth - very British!

THE peg bag.

And, bien évidemment, MOP buttons...

Do pop over for a browse if you have some Christmas money to spend - I'm buying something from Silverpebble's shop with mine!

Golly!...

I'm bored, Jerry, B-O-R-D bored...

And if you recognise THAT quote, then you and I have an awful lot in common!..
j
Yesterday afternoon it wasn't just the boys who were complaining of boredom, but me too. They'd invited some friends round, and all the plans we had for the afternoon were due to begin when the friends arrived, not before... and the friends were late... I couldn't undercoat my shelves, as I'd remembered Ben had offered to fix a handly little plate-holding strip of wood onto them before I painted them. I couldn't go to the shop to buy the wood treatment I'd promised to get him because we were waiting for friends...

So I got out the rusty, cobwebby patio lights we'd taken down from the outside of the house. Not terribly tasteful, but a bird in the hand...

Good old Leroy Merlin, French DIY chain extraordinaire, had sold us this 'aged metal' paint - a good compromise for Ben and me - he had wanted glossy black and I had quite fancied leaving them rusty!

So now I think they looked appropriately aged but not actually rusty/falling apart! Shame about the yellow glass in two of them, but a cliché in the hand etc...
j
I also took photos of this incredibly pristine gamelle (lunch box), and popped it into my blog shop. It was hard to put such a good one up for sale, but I am resolved to collect only the blue.

And the quotation? It's from Jimmy Gourd (of course!). If you don't know VeggieTales but are looking for a stylish way to give young children a basic Christian education along with lots of giggles, I cannot recommend them too highly.I would never have thought that the Bible and general moral education could be presented so funnily. They get it right every time...

On my line...

On Flossie's washing line there is... A flutter of embroidered linens, carefully checked in advance by the dog.

On Flossie's washing line there was:

j

a sadly battered peg bag, with lots of fond memories of school in England.

But since I put this pretty vintage peg bag in my blog shop, the terrible state of the peg bag on my own line has been niggling at me.

I gave it a good wash and a mend, and here it is in its mended glory!On Flossie's washing line there is:

j

This giant, handmade, vintage peg, bought in Edinburgh - do you think it was made by a gypsy and sold at the door? I do hope so.

On Flossie's washing line there is:

j

A glimpse of vintage leg, amongst the more practical day-to-day washing.

I washed these huge vintage French undershorts the other day.

They are party mind-boggling, and partly delightful!

Buying and Soaking and Washing and Drying...

I've loved reading your comments about the collection of match box covers I found - thanks so much for all your suggestions and memories! I've now finished the washing, drying and ironing of my Vide Greniers linens, and have scheduled this post for my travelling day tomorrow (or today, or Wednesday, anyway...). So, what did I find? Two of those French stencilled rose plates you ladies were suggesting I collect... OK, I've started! A lovely enamel bowl (Chinese again) to balance the other one - same link as before...

This charming, although destoyed box, dating from 1876.

And a tangled heap of linens, including grubby collars sold 'as seen' by the descendant of their wearer.

Some are for adults and others for children.

It all came up very well after a 12-hour soak in Vanish!

But oh, still a tangled, cleaner mess once they came off the line...

But the iron did the trick!

This is a square cloth.

This is a long, oval-ended one.

I took the opportunity of soaking the doilies I'd condemned as no more than 'curious' the other day, and they came up brilliantly, too! Well done those who spotted their potential.

This Irish crochet came up sparkling white. It irons like cotton, but I'm not sure it is... could it be viscose, perhaps?

This one is marked and damaged (white paint, somehow!) but it's only chemical lace anyway, even though it's so pretty. So less valuable, in that it wasn't hand made like the rest.

And to cap it all, the last piece of ironing (one of my lovely big tablecloths) was straight back into the Vanish when the cut on my finger from a broken bowl re-opened. Is this how I'm repaid for being so very, very good about the laundry? Well, so it seems!
j

So, ash cloud allowing (and I think it will), I am leaving Ben and the boys behind in advance of a Bank Holiday weekend, and flying off to Edinburgh. My mum is not at all well, but we are very much looking forward to having some family time together. I don't know how much I'll post whilst there, but I hope to point my camera in the direction of her vintage sewing boxes at some point...