On Dahlias Like These

 

Like all Sunday mornings lately, we drove down to the clearance charity shop with a bag of donations, had a 45-minute rummage, and returned with our newly-emptied bag full again.

Finds included a 1970s dagger collar Debenhams tunic; a 1960s suede fronted St Michael cardi; a vintage wool shawl; some 1970s C&A braces; a linen boating blazer by Skopes; two stripey Fred Perry tee-shirts; a Double Two floral shirt; a Dr Martens tee shirt from their 2016 limited edition museum collection featuring the Rennaisance painting, The Triumph of Camillus by Di Antonio and a few books (naturally!)

The paint on our metal garden bench was looking a bit faded & tatty and, as luck would have it, a search of their website before heading into town revealed that Wilko had a near-identical colour in their range of exterior metal paint "Summer Rain" and, even better, it was on sale. 

I was so keen to get cracking before the forecasted rain arrived that I changed into my workwear before posing for a photo in my shopping finery. As you can see I was supervised throughout.

The weather played nice and I was able to get all the new stock laundered and line-dried and the bench finished before the rain started.

The plants we bought from Pipers were thriving after Saturday's rain.

And the crops were doing well. I harvested more patty pans, courgettes and strawberries before the slugs got them.

Tea was a feta & spinach parcel with salad, olives and stuffed vine leaves. Later, we started on the second series of The Man in the High Castle.

On Monday, after my Wii Fit session, I swept the rugs in the lounge before wrapping my eBay sales parcels. After breakfast, Jon whizzed them around the post office before doing the supermarket shop and popping round to Tony's.

In just over a fortnight's time, we'll be trading at End of the Road, our first festival in almost two years. The video above is how our stall looked the last time we set up shop. We've got a list as long as your arm to work through so I started on the stock mending & ironing mountain but was interrupted by a surprise visit from my brother. We sat and chatted for a while and he left me with a dress of his girlfriend's which needed repairing. When Jon got back we had lunch and whilst he rummaged in the shed for the trade tent I continued with the mending. 

I was wearing another skirt but it's just too big around the waist so when I spotted a couple of holes in this 1970s satin acetate maxi I decided to do a swap, donate my vintage Indian block printed midi to the stockroom and keep this maxi instead, meaning one less repair. Luckily the recycled sari top and clogs I was already wearing matched.

Tea was a vegeburger and a bottle of Singha beer from Jon's birthday stash. We watched more Man in the High Castle and I finished the wonderful Virgin Earth.

On Tuesday after wrapping my eBay sales and doing my Wii Fit workout, I wandered around the garden and marvelled at my newly blooming sunflower, she's got so many heads I've named her Hydra. Both lads were booked into the vets for their boosters and we wrangled them into their boxes, drove over to the surgery and were back within 40 minutes.

It was distinctly chilly so I decided it was time to give my wool Liberty print Anna Belinda pinafore dress, found in a charity shop a couple of months ago, its first outing. I'm quite high-waisted and the waistline was slightly too low and was annoying me when we were out so, when we got home, I stripped off, unpicked the shoulder seams and shortened them by an inch so the bodice sat in the right place.

(More about Anna Belinda HERE)

After lunch, we drove over to B&Q as we needed some plyboard for a crucial part of the festival shop and were horrified to discover that it had doubled in price since we'd last bought any. To ease the pain, the gardening department had just marked down all the potted dahlias to £1 so I wrestled the grannies to get a few.

The postman had been while we were out and this gorgeous top was waiting for me, something my lovely pals Olds Cool Traders had spotted on their travels and thought of me. Shame it's too chilly to wear it at the moment - come back, sunshine!

Wednesday is brown bin (garden waste) collection day so, after we'd potted up the dahlias, we raked the gravel and filled the bin with the debris from the lime tree then sat outside with a posh coffee until a sharp shower had us scuttling back indoors.

I made the Greek-style kolokithokefedes again for tea while Jon roasted the patty pan with harissa paste, peppers and onions. Our culinary masterpieces were accompanied by the rest of the Plaka Gigantes from Jon's birthday hamper as well as a couple of bottles of Mythos (it would have been rude not to). 

We watched another three back-to-back episodes of The Man in the High Castle (it's that good) and later I started on my next book, a gripping Scandi-Noir.

We've been charity shopping this morning and found so much that I might have to dedicate an entire blog post to our finds. Here's a sneak preview of a divine dress of dreams which is most definitely a keeper!

See you soon!