First Indoor Boot of the Year

First indoor boot sale of the year at Memorial court this morning. A few bargains including Dusty Bin money box with attaching nose, ears, hands, feet etc. An ancient and battered Hoopla game, plastic car kits, tons of postcards and a tin of metal gizmos. Then to Lidl to get some bits and bobs. Made some vege soup for lunch and had pretzels to dip in it. Yum!

Congleton Antiques and Junk

Pleasant wander around Congleton today with old chums Tony and Pene just back from OZ and NZ where they managed to avoid any fires thankfully. Not many bargains at the antique emporium but did get a big heavy book about John Peel's Sessions for the BBC which I look forward to perusing at my leisure. Lunch in the cafe on the top floor of Victoria Mill. Cheese and onion toastie and side salad. Toasted tea cake later after a wander round the charity shops in the drizzle.

Doodle Club

Having fun doing a doodle a day in my sketch book for a FB group. I've tried in the past to do more drawings and like blog posts they fall by the wayside. Hopefully this will carry on for a while. I bought a new sketch book today for when the one I'm using now runs out of blank pages - so that's a good sign of intent! The WILL HAY sketch is from the DVD cover of a boxed set I bought recently. "Oh Mr. Porter" is in it and I watched again the other morning. Always a treat. I think it must be the trains because the jokes are all mostly pretty awful! Period charm - it has that in spades! The other sketches/doodles are various things I've spotted round the house.

Photo Bomb On Bargain Hunt

Last Autumn when we went along to the antique fair in Oswestry.

Chester

Neglected to take any photos whilst in Chester today so this collage no way reflects on the nice fish 'n' chips we had for lunch we took over to Beth and Simons. Went round the usual charity shops and market etc. Dind't find much just a couple of DVD's and some bread rolls. Hazel found some toggles and some woggles ( that's not what they are called!) and some chocs. The Chinese lady in the chippy was very jolly and wished everyone who came in a "Happy Afternoon!" in a high pitched squeaky voice. This will be our mantra for the rest of the week one feels.

Timberlog Lane

Got all nostalgic when I saw this photo on the Pitsea FB group this morning. Childhood memories came flooding back of the greasy cafe with a juke box blaring out The Everly Brothers at the end of Luncies Road where we lived in the late 50's - you can just see the end of it where the second group of figures stand in the middle distance. Opposite was an old convenience store that sold everhting from sherbet dabs to packets of OMO ( a washing powder ) parafin, baked beans, shoe laces, penny chews etc. A dirt track by the side of it went up the shallow hill to the centre of town. Somewhere along there wasa hut that used to have a youth club I joined for a while. You could buy fizzy pop and play records - old battered 78's - of Elvis and Cliff etc. One game was having to find tiny objects to fit in a match box - the one who got the most won a prize. I forgot how leafy and tree lined it was. Now all gone of course. You can just see some of the bungalows and decrepid houses that were around at the time - many were empty and due for demolition - perfect places for children to play and fall down wells and go scrumping in the huge fruit tree filled back gardens. Housing estates followed and the whole area changed completely.

Marbury Woods

Pleasant wander round the lake at Marbury this morning distributing sunflower seeds and wedging peanuts behind creepers and on tree stumps. The woods were busy with walkers and mad dogs in their new year outfits - terriers in waistcoats, greyhounds in aprons, jack russells in tabbards etc.

Only a short walk as we had to go and take down the Xmas decorations and lights at Granma's place afterwards. Stuffing tinsel into bags isn't my idea of fun but it was soon done and we had a cup of tea a chat.

New Year's Eve

Hazel lit many lamps and candles in the back garden as she does every year. At midnight we enjoyed the fireworks and some sparklers that Hazel had bought plus some from mail artist Julian Beere that he kindly gave us when he visited the Curious Things exhibition in Manchester recently. Also Hazel burned some old rotten logs in the Mexican stove that had been piled up for many a year.I watched a bit of Jools Hootenanny but it wasn't as good as previous years offerings.

Waggy New Year!

Alonfg with John Hegley's Xmas greetings came this "waggy new year" card with moving tail.