August Be Home Free Winners

As every week goes by the BeHomeFree gallery fills up with more and more incredible images. The task of whittling it down becomes harder with the passing days and that is a good thing.  Thank you to everyone who uses the hashtag, it is growing into a really lovely gallery.  

These four remind me of the my outdoor adventures this month, the natural colours and sense of fresh air and sunshine. 

@melindajk @sigridsminde @niki.at.the.cottage @christinagreve

Our sponsors for this month have been One World Trading who are gifting a vase, and the winner for this prize is @justjane17 whose washing blowing on the line says all there is about summer days.

Southwood Stores have also offered to be a sponsor with their glitzy sequined basket. And the winner of this will be Dorte of @lewesmap for this quiet and still image in a church, with lovely soft light and a sense of calm.  I really love exploring inside churches and around the graveyards, this photo speaks of the cool air and special smells of old churches. Perhaps it is also a reminder that children don't always need plastic entertainment.

Can Jane and Dorte please message me through instagram to arrange delivery of your gift from Be Home Free, One World Trading and Southwood Stores. 

Next month's sponsors will be announced at the beginning of September when I will also be unveiling the work I've been doing to change my bedroom around, which during this mini heatwave has been quite a task as the paint is drying really fast.

Please continue to join with the hashtag with a chance to win. Many thanks to each and everyone who has contributed so far. 

Love and peas ... Janice

canopy and shooting stars

My first ever experience of camping, or should we say, glamping, has got me hooked. I said to the Other Half as we left, 'let's do this every weekend', and before we knew it, I have booked us to stay in a Shepherds Hut in a couple of weeks time.   

It was my birthday recently and I always book for us to go somewhere for a little explore.  I haven't been along the Norfolk coastline before and I yearn for the seaside all summer long, as we are so far inland in Bucks. Just recently my blogging pals have been going away with Canopy And Stars, their photos are always fabulous and atmospheric so I decided to check it out for myself. This company hand picks special places, with an Eco ethos and only certain kinds of accommodation.  If you look at the website you will be spoilt for choice, and if, like me, you have never really loved the idea of conventional camping, this could be for you.

Our Yurt at Burlingham was super cute, a proper bed, carpet,sofa, a wood burner inside, and all the cutlery and crockery you would need. They even supplied his and hers crocs for wandering around outside. The Yurt is solar powered and has lights and a chandelier. At night we lit it up with tea lights and listened to the radio. We lit fires in the pit, cooked on the little barbecue and made tea with an old fashioned whistling kettle.  We did cheat a little and bought some ready made salad bits from M&S to go with our grilled haloumi and sausages.

Situated at the bottom of a long garden, in woods where you could forage for your own fuel, we even had some visitors like squirrels and pheasants. It is also quite common for deer to come and have a nosey around. The loo/shower is in a little red shepherds hut, with hot water and a composting toilet, although we were encouraged to pee outside (as these composting loos don't like too much liquid) which we embraced whole heartedly!

My birthday always falls at the time of the Perseides meteor shower, and I desperately wanted to go somewhere with no light pollution to watch it ever night. When we went to bed on the first night there was cloud cover but something woke me at 3am so I went outside and the sky was clear and full of stars, after a few minutes I saw a shooting star so I woke up the OH (who wasn't too pleased) and we sat and watched the sky counting all the shooting stars we saw. It was truly magical. 

Our host Chris has left us a map of how to find a beach where there is a seal colony. Horsey was incredible, dunes and empty sands stretched for miles and as we walked along the dune path we could see the seals heads bobbing in the surf. 

As wildlife rescuers we are always most interested in seeing different animals in their natural habitat. I had never seen Seals before and didn't even realise we had them in the UK (other than in zoos).  I believe that sometimes they come to the shoreline but we were happy watching them play on a sand bank not far away. The year of wild was truly notching up some beautiful memories. 

Keen to get back to our yurt with some food for the bbq we did pop along to Hemsby and Great Yarmouth just to see what it was like. Not for me I'm afraid with it's amusement arcades and fun fair rides.

We relaxed during the evenings by the fireside, I took my crochet so I could make more blankets for the '60 Million Trebles' charity project. I styled our table with some of the lovely things I had bought the day before at Lincoln Antiques Fair. My new linen smock, Ian's jumper and the loaned crocs were pulled into my Yurt outfit for camp fire and foraging.

I can't wait to do this again, I took to it like a duck to water, or should I say a seal to water. Now looking forward to the Shepherds Hut in Sussex later this month.  Variety is the spice of life, so unless you live in a Yurt I would say to give it a go, it is quite romantic.  If you find it hard to sit still for too long then maybe take some knitting or other activity.  My OH wished he had taken his drum sticks and practice pad as he was missing having something to do with his hands.  Such a shame he forgot them ...

The link for this yurt is 

http://www.canopyandstars.co.uk/britain/england/norfolk/burlingham-hall/burlingham-yurt 

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.  

60 Million Trebles

60 Million Trebles is a charity project where crochet blankets are made for refugees.  A treble is the name of a stitch in crochet and as there will be 60 Million refugees worldwide this year, each stitch represents a person, so please think about joining with us and breaking a record.

I've had a refresher in what a treble stitch is having been taught as a child by mum and nanny (we called my grandmother nanny, I didn't have a Mary Poppins type nanny honestly). It didn't take long, and I was off, and so far I've made a start of several, these are just chain stitch and treble stitch.  The project needs to be big and they need thousands of people to join.

Each person will be making blankets 36inches square and these will be joined together to make one record breaking huge one.  The world record breaking blanket will become a yarn bomb in London by September 2017.

I am using up all my odds and ends stash, which is actually pretty large, so I hope to make many blankets.  To learn to do this stitch and to make a blanket you only need to know how to do two stitches, which can easily be learnt on You Tube.

For technical information and, further down the line, drop off points for your blankets, there is a facebook group but in the mean time perhaps you can just get together with some friends, learn to make crochet squares and start on some 36 inch blankets.

I will be trying to organise a small get together myself, in Northampton in September so watch out on my Facebook and Instagram for information. 

This blog has been shortlisted for an #IBA16 award, please vote for me by clicking on this link 
http://www.interiorblogawards.com/vote/janice-issitt-life-style/