Patch For The Heart

There's been a lot if busy busyness in the last week. Ol' England has been digging out thick woolly socks and 'seen better days' slippers to cope with the Autumn chill that has descended, and the rains came. My hearth is crying out for the glow of coals on the fire, but the chimney sweep is super busy, and can't make it our way for a month! I thought I'd chance it, but the rain has encouraged a couple of little soot falls, which in the past has led to a black avalanche which saw my entire family, The Moo included, with black faces and utter shock, when we were covered in soot quite unexpectedly whilst tucking into fish and chips one Friday tea time last year. So I've closed up the chimney, and cranked up the antique overworked boiler....

Last Saturday brought a trip to Peterborough Fair. I ended up with a nightshift to do as well, but it left plenty of time for a saunter and a rummage, and a marvellous day with my marvellously wonderful friend S. I spied this incredible chair which called my name, but I didn't enquire after its price tag, as I positively cannot fit one more chair in my overstuffed house. Compulsively chair buying has led to the demise of two Lloyd Loom beauties which got left outside and didn't survive.

I did bring home these Le Creuset pans, which were a belated 'Welcome To Your 30's' gift to myself! I've hankered after a bit of Volcanic orange for an age. These weren't the easiest thing to cart back to the car, I can tell you!

This little trio came home with me too. At £1 a pop, I wish I'd bought the whole blooming farmyard, but maybe they were destined for different homes. The hen keeps falling over......I'm going to start locking the drinks cabinet.

This beautiful £4 curtain is most perfect for the kitchen door. I love love love it! A lining is definitely needed first, our nest is positively freezing from about now until April. The combatting of drafts is an ongoing battle I'm not sure we'll ever win....and our second floor bedroom still collects a sparkly layer of ice crystals on the inside come mid winter mornings.

I picked up a giant remnant for a couple of pound too, which I thought was beautifully ugly.

And this is simply the worlds absolute best basket I'm sure! I love it's collapsibleness, and the genius mechanics. 

These two crazy gals popped back for tea, and got on like a house on fire. They've been nattering face cream, hair treatments and possible husbands non stop since their visit. They seem to have settled and look set to stay.

It was a great day to be out in the sunshine with a sunny like minded friend....pootling and rummaging through objects of another era. Do you think there were two things there, perhaps at opposite ends of the field, that had once shared a time together in the same place? Maybe a fire poker and a mixing bowl that had once resided in a farmhouse in the 40's? All the things and stuff that have bore witness to a million different lives and stories, and had found themselves once again, looking for a home. They soak up the history and the experiences and the energy of the past, like no Ikea mug can. And that's why I love them. There's a beauty and a sadness in each. 

My tiny house exudes a past, rich and secret, and I can only feel the echoes of all that has been. I live with the draughts, because there can be no history without the scars. There can be no roaring fire without the dust and the dirt and the soot avalanches. Just as there can be no me without the heartbreaks and the wounds. 

One of my favourite little nooks of our house is a little cupboard, that is just deep enough for shoes and coats. It is housed by two little old pine doors, which shrunk in the paint stripping process, and no longer close to. 

It's a bit damp, and seems to be a popular hang out for creatures of the eight legged variety. 

I set about a little revamp yesterday....and gathered together a collection of wallpaper I've been hoarding. I couldn't bear to use the vintage paper I had, I'm saving that for our bedroom, but the pile of new was calling me.  

I got out the PVA glue. The girls watched back to back soaps on the sofa after a terribly hard week at school, and they moaned about the whiff of glue.

                  I started to stick.....

And after a couple of gluey hours, I stood back and thought I'd done rather a marvellous job!!

I did suggest doing away with the shoes and leaving the doors off, as it seems a massive shame to hide this patchwork away, but alas, a tiny house needs its storage, and unless we take a vow of barefoot through all seasons, we will have to keep the shoe cupboard. I've started on my plans of wallpaper stock replenishing, and fear I may patch the whole blooming house!!

Hope you've had a wonderful weekend!! Xx