Lincoln Antiques Fair

Nothing could prepare us for the enormity of the Arthur Swallow Fair at Lincoln Show Ground.  Having visited the small and intimate one at Loseley, I imagined something similar, and actually went to see some of the same sellers as I wanted more fabulous French finds.

This show is humungous.  We got caught in traffic so arrived a few hours later than planned, which meant the pressure was on to get all around the fair.  Upon arrival we were utterly gobsmacked, I think myself and Tamsyn must have said "oh my God" about fifty times before we decided to sit and have a bacon butty to calm us down.  

So prepare yourself if you visit, make a day of it and expect to do a lot of walking. One could easily make it a two day visit.  

Whatever you are looking for there will not just be one or two of that unusual thing, but tens and twenties of them.  Some sellers having travelled from France and Germany just had a van full of one type of antique.  It was simply overwhelming.

Take a friend and lots of spare bags to carry all your goodies, the prices are so good you won't be able to resist. It's good to have in your mind the price you would normally pay for vintage items so that you recognise a bargain, but just expect that the sellers here are very reasonable as they sell to trade.  

While I would suggest having a list of what you are trying to find, so that you can stay focused, I will also contradict myself by saying, 'keep an open mind' as you simply cannot predict what you will come across.  And then, just when you think that you have covered the enormous field, you find another one at the end! I nearly collapsed!

My photos here are a bit random, and taken last minute as I was totally distracted but I hope will at least give you a taste of the size and quality of this fair. 

This weekend I was staying in a Canopy & Stars Yurt in Norfolk, near to where Tamsyn Morgans lives, so she hopped on board for the trip. I was so pleased she could make it, sometimes you need a girlfriend to help you decide.  Having said that, my Other Half found a vintage piece of musical equipment which he bought for under 15 and is worth 250, so he was a bit smug there.

The next Lincoln show is in October, and we decided to treat this as a preliminary reccy, so we could save up and return with a plan. 

My reason for going was to track down the wonderful Gaelle of GZ Badboys (thats her dogs), and pick up some more french linens.  I will be doing a totally separate post about these and the other decorative items I found.  I'm sure Tamsyn will also be posting her pics of the lovely glass kilner jars, galvanized dolly tub and victorian tile, styled to perfection I expect.  

For more fairs like this simply check the Arthur Swallow website, they seem to have built a very good list of dealers from all over Europe.  Happy hunting.  

Antiques at Loseley Park

When Arthur Swallow Fairs asked if I would like to go to the fair at Loseley Park I just jumped at the chance, firstly to rummage at beautiful old battered and gnarled treasures, secondly it was another excuse to make a weekend of exploring with my step-daughter.

This fair had a lot of French influence, the traders having come from across the water, like Gaelle who specialises in dyed linen. She has brought together two things, the skill of finding really old French monogrammed linen and her art of dyeing.  Gaelle is in the process of moving her showroom and setting up new websites etc. Look out for the name GZ Bad Boys.

These fairs are called "Decorative Home and Salvage" and can also be found at Ripley Castle and Cheshire Showground, for me the perfect combination as I love distressed, battered and chippy things. I found some lovely shutters which I will just use as a wall decoration, they are weather beaten with green paint peeling off and they will stay just that way.  I look at them and wonder what building they came from, imagining a cute little farm house in Provence, with chickens outside the door.

If I had a bigger house I would collect glass domes, you can put anything under a glass dome and it looks brilliant.  The creepier the better !

Gaelle also sells china from all different periods, so beautiful you would have to put it on show on shelves or dressers.

Here is a photo of the linens, I bought a bed sheet in pink which will either be a table cloth or a throw.  My step-daughter also got some gorgeous shepherds smocks to wear as dresses. 

Many styles of vintage and antiques are sold here, farmhouse rustic, faded chateaux chic and reclamation from buildings, all displayed with much love and effort. Arthur Swallow have curated a really lovely collection of sellers, many of whom I had a good laugh with, they were such a great bunch.  

I picked up cards from the following, if you can't make it along to the fair itself.

Gavin at Aspire Antiques, Lucy Vintage Lifestyle, Grown By Design, Brocante_Antique, brocantedecorative.com, Simon from Antiques & Inspiration Chester, The Old Yard, Jane from French Vintage & Country (Leek market most saturdays). Sawmillvintage Macclesfield, Violetgreydecorative (Violetgrey.co.uk), Insitu_mcr, Bridgemontvintage, 

Have a look on Instagram #asfairs and you will track down many more.
Here is Meg wearing one of her linen smocks from Gaelle. 

We stayed in the best Air bnb I have ever come across and it deserves it's own blog post, so expect to see that soon.

Happy hunting good people. 

This blog has been shortlisted for an #IBA16 award, please vote for me by clicking on this link 

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Swedish Air and Antiques

As you may know, I pop to Sweden quite a lot to see my best mates, my god-daughters and to photograph for the Van Asch catalogue. On this last trip I also had the opportunity to meet again, a group of business women and chatted to them about expanding their network with the use of a hashtag, so when this little plan comes together, they will be looking for brand representatives in the blogging world and for other Scandinavian women to join in with that community.  I will be spreading the word to all you Scandophiles (is that a word) as soon as the plan comes to fruition.  

I really fancied a bit of a country jaunt to somewhere unexplored for myself and my friends, somewhere not too far from Stockholm as we had the girls in the car, affordable and fun, so we got onto Air bnb and found some great places.

We most fancied exploring around Uppsala, and I always love to pop to Sigtuna, so we plumped for this little cottage, in the garden of the Air bnb owners, near to a castle called Vik.  

Nothing says Sweden more than these little red houses with the green and white around the windows.

Our little dolls house of a cottage was absolutely adorable, it did seem to need a bit of an airing to our towney noses however, but as it was only one night we treated it as an adventure more than a luxury.  After much driving around in circles, we finally found it, directions could have been  a bit better, luckily though we kept phoning the owners and telling them where we were, eventually we found the road between the big red barns that led to the cottage in the woods.

Inside there were some super cute rooms.  On route we visited many Loppis and as the weather had taken a sharp cold turn, we bought some extra layers and dress up clothes for a night of watching Eurovision in our play house.

I have written before about Loppis, but if you aren't familiar with that term let me explain.  A Loppis is a kind of junk shop, garage sale, carboot, kinda thing. Anyone can put a sign up outside their house with "Loppis" written on it and you just go and have a good old rummage.  They vary enormously, some are just a small garage of unwanted items, some are a thriving cornucopia of antiques and collectables run in a professional manner.  Some are a dusty old mess and others beautifully laid out and displayed.

The great thing about Loppis is that there is something for everyone, so you can give the youngsters some money and they go off and find all kinds of toys, jewellery, dress up clothes, while mum is swooning over old tins, kitchenalia and furniture.

I found lots of lovely wooden things, chopping boards, the big scoop, pastry cutters, cake tins, enamel ware and so on.

And a trip to visit Van Asch wouldn't be complete without the collecting of mad props for photos, this time we hired some taxidermy from a tattoo shop in Stockholm.  We checked that the taxidermy was all ethically sourced and came away with a swan and a crow.  I also managed to pick up these cute little antlers (antlers - why am I so obsessed with them?) as I'm working on my logo of antlers and flowers.  If any illustrators out there could draw and paint me a really detailed one I would love that. During the break down of the set we built I also managed to drop a heavy backdrop on my foot and chipped the bone in my toe - pain like no other I have ever experienced and the first time I've ever broken a bone!

I would definitely do the Air bnb in Sweden again for a one night road trip with the girls, they are very reasonably priced too and a very authentic experience.

Until next week then - hey da, vi ses.

Amsterdam (Part II ) for Urban Jungle Bloggers

Our theme this month for Urban Jungle Bloggers is 'botanical zoom' looking at the details in our house plants, and so, as I bought many new plants in Amsterdam, I thought I would continue to talk about shopping in that city and show you what I came home with.

Something I haven't talked about so far is my latest tattoo, I have waited for some time to be able to book with the legendary Angelique Houtkamp of Salon Serpent and finally I managed to see her.  I will be revealing the tattoo when it's healed over on Instagram, alongside my new wood watch.

Angelique sells her artwork, limited edition prints like this below of wolf girl.  I bought these two plants in Wildernis which is just along the road from Salon Serpent.  I find the spotted one really fascinating, it looks like someone has painted the spots on!

We can't talk about plants without talking about planters and pots, this for me is all part of the fun, finding the right pot for the plant, allowing enough space for it to grow and allowing it fit with the decor.  This year's story for plant pots is natural baskets, seagrass, wicker and woven.  The above two came from a man on a street market (Lindengracht on saturdays).    

this is the orange tree blossom from a mini tree I have in my house, the smell is absolutely amazing

Jeska Hearne who blogs at Lobster & Swan has recently got hold of a lovely and delicate plant called sophora prostrata.  I was lucky enough to find some sitting outside a wonderful florist shop called Fleur Monde on Haarlemerdijk, an enormous shop full to the brim of wonderful specimens. That was the first time I had ever seen one other than in Jeska's photos, it had quite a journey home in my hand luggage, Im still hoping it can get established nicely.

The good people at Urban Jungle Bloggers have also found some great colouring illustrations for us this month, I only had a small set of coloured pencils which came out of a Christmas cracker, so my palette was somewhat limited!  Still it was pretty relaxing to do even so. Also in the photo above you can see one of the little mother of pearl spoons I bought in Zenza. 

These two hands came from de Weldaad which I featured in the last post.  The victorian tile is actually English, I intended to buy some antique Delft Tiles, even beaten or battered ones just as a souvenir, but boy were they expensive!!  The tile above came from a man specialising in tiles, mostly Delft, on Noordmarkt and his prices were much better than in any shops.  It seems that the cheapest you can find old Delft tiles for is around 20 Euros, but frequently they are up to 60 Euros and more, so you would need to be a pretty serious collector to buy these.  I stuck with the English one because it has the same colour tones as those set into my new cupboard.

This is the old Indigo scarf with tassles I bought on Noordmarkt from Stern Africa. It feels like a light denim and the tassles are a status symbol for men in certain parts of Africa. Birgit really knows her stuff and can give you so much information about the things you buy from her. This type of cloth is from the Mossi people of Berkina Fasso, it is thin strips of fabric sewn together to form a whole cloth and then Indigo dyed. The prices from Birgit are about a third of what you will pay elsewhere, so well worth finding her.

My yoga teacher was talking to us this week about being 'present' in all things you do, she had been away and while everyone was madly dashing down the Ski slopes she was stopping and appreciating the weather and nature.  I can honestly say that this approach of slow living, is well worth practising.  I have visited Amsterdam many times, but all too frequently when on business dashing from one place to another. This time I took it slow, appreciated the details, walked instead of dashing and enjoyed the city so much more for it. 

Have a lovely week everyone while we are getting ready for some time off over Easter. J x

A child's Christmas in Wales

When Dorian invited me to stay at his cottages in Wales I couldn't wait.  In my life as an international promotions manager I visited countries around the world, continually on the road traveling with artists, in all those years I was hardly ever home in my London flat, I was in Japan, South America, Hungary, Mexico ... you name it, I went there. 

Two things happened as a result, when it finally stopped I wanted to be at home as much as possible and the thought of getting on an airplane was about as exciting as getting on a hopper bus. The second thing was a longing to explore the UK more. Also now bored to death of hotel rooms, I find myself a rather curmudgeonly guest if the service isn't brilliant and the decor is drab.

For me now the absolute ideal is to have a beautifully decorated, tastefully and sensitively adorned, home from home, why would I want to stay somewhere that wasn't as nice as my own house? Well, at times it's necessity so cost and surroundings reach a compromise, but then that is just a place to sleep. What I really yearn for is an experience. I want to be impressed, I want to be romanced by my surroundings. I want the possibility to explore a new area, to take photographs and be educated by the history, this to me is the only sort of 'holiday' that makes sense.  Hell for me would be to be on a sunbed in a resort full of English people. 

I knew, I just knew, that the Welsh House would be perfect, I could see that it ticked all the boxes and I wasn't wrong. I had the idea to do some Christmas styling so packed up a few decorations and off we trotted.  

I don't know a great deal about Dylan Thomas and this is something I intend to rectify, so when Dorian produced the most beautiful edition of "A child's Christmas in Wales" the last piece of the puzzle fell into place.  Influenced by that idea I bring you these photos and some quotes from Dylan Thomas 

I found some beautiful music to accompany this post ...

"One Christmas was so much like another, in those years around the sea-town corner now and out of all sound except the distant speaking of the voices I sometimes hear a moment before sleep, that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six ..."

one of my hand knitted socks, my favourite thing is to knit socks

"All the Christmases roll down toward the two-tongued sea, like a cold and headlong moon bundling down the sky that was our street; and they stop at the rim of the ice-edged, fish-freezing waves, and I plunge my hands in the snow and bring out whatever I can find"

don't forget to leave out mince pies and milk for Father Christmas

then off to bed you go and try to sleep

"Looking through my bedroom window, out into the moonlight and the unending smoke-colored snow, I could see the lights in the windows of all the other houses on our hill and hear the music rising from them up the long, steadily falling night. I turned the gas down, I got into bed. I said some words to the close and holy darkness, and then I slept."

“I think, that if I touched the earth,
It would crumble;
It is so sad and beautiful,
So tremulously like a dream.” 

And I rose
In rainy autumn
And walked abroad in a shower of all my days...”

outside the fairies live, dancing in the moss and lichen, vibrant greens and leaf strewn paths invite you to a magical world

There is magic inside this place, it feels other worldly. It is a place where your mind can be free to dream, like a child waiting for Santa.

I'm not going to write here about Dorian's work here because you should go for yourself, sit and read the cuttings from papers in his folders of information.  Photos from a re-enactment where dressed in traditional Welsh costume, Dorian and surrounding neighbours built a traditional house in one day.  It is a work of brilliance and no words or photos can do it full justice. 


Quotes by Dylan Thomas. Photos by Janice Issitt. Location - The Welsh House, blankets from Holy Cow Home