Hello summer, I thought you'd never arrive! What a difference a little sunshine makes to the soul, suddenly things that seemed to loom heavy and ominous seem lighter and manageable! I love the evenings up on our little hill after a really hot day, the city all stretched out below us, I can feel myself relax and de-stress as I stand and look.

I can potter happily for half and hour or so, watering my plans in the cooling air, usually with Stella following me.

I can check on my experimental fanned fruit trees, that are temporarily residing in pots until the hedge can be taken out and a proper fruit frame for them to grow long can be put up.

I can fight back our Sweet Peas that are bent on world domination!

I can swear to myself that I will definitely cut that grass tomorrow...

...and I will also definitely buy some slug pellets to try and save whats left of my veg!

Our garden on a summer evening reminds me how lucky we are, very lucky to have the wonderful chaps at Victoriana Nursery supplying us with 90% of these great plants (and replacements when I either kill them or the slugs eat them!) ...

...and endlessly lucky to live here, in a beautiful city we love, in a wonderful quite little corner surrounded by great neighbours and friend. It is so easy to take things for-granted, to forget about the good stuff and waste so much time stressing about the crap stuff. Summer evenings in our ramshackle cottage garden remind me why I love this place.

What is the perfect thing to go and do on a beautiful hot and sunny sunday (it feels like the first in months!),  car booting of course and because Rich was away I dragged the lovely Lucy along with me (but not the very sensible Caroline who stayed in bed like a normal person!). Poor Luc, 'hold this', 'grab that', 'just hang on to these a minute' this is why I don't go on my own, I simply run out of hands!

So having established that the equally junk loving Lucy seemed to be very good luck, I managed to bag some total bargains this week...

The little yellow plate is a 60s danish design for £1, the blue and orange ones where 50p for the pair (one does have a rather huge chip out of it!), all of which will go with our cool 50s kitchen when we eventually get it sorted (plans abound for the completion date on this so bare with us!) and lastly another tin globe to go with the one Rich bought me for christmas. I spotted this as we walked up to the stall and casually asked the nice lady how much she wanted (preparing as always to haggle like hell to get it), then nearly had a stroke when she said 20p...'OK' I pretty much screamed at her. I ran off hurriedly stuffing it into my hunting sack, incase the nice lady suddenly decided to look up how much tin globes go for on ebay!

So now my little globe has a friend!

We wondered on a few more rows then stumbled across yet more china, (it never rains but it pours...pretty patterned kitchen ware apparently), I had to have a little walk around and a think (mostly about whether I have any more cupboard space) but the call of the 1950s patterns drew me back  and I got this nearly complete (missing one saucer) tea set for £6 down from £8

Mmmm makes me want to throw a tea party right now!

Oh and as Rich was absent I picked him up a little token...

...nothing says 'I love you' like an inspection lamp...no really.

So while I strolled around in the sun looking at old crap, Rich did pretty much the same thing 100 miles away...

...I however did not get an inspection lamp...I don't think this marriage will last (!)

OH MY ACTUAL GOD! I have just discovered that I have won a lush swimsuit over on this lovely blog! How totally amazing, I never win anything! I was so totally shocked that I have just scared Rich half to death by screaming (I think he thought the plumming was leaking or someone was stealing his car!) so excited in fact that I had to tell someone (other than Rich) and as my Mums not in right now its going to be you lot!

This fab little beauty is by Hepburn and Leigh, who do amazing retro inspired swim wear and lingeir (Rich is quite happy about this!). Yep I'm going to look just like that girl...(if you snigger while reading this Rich, things will not go well for you!)

Thanks so much Pretty Shabby and Hepburn and Leigh!

I am very much of the school of thought that when you see something that you feel is special you should grab it, even if you don't have a) anywhere to keep it b) any particular need for it right now   and c) people will think you are an idiot for not listening to a) and b).

Many of the things in our house where brought at odd moment, usually when we weren't even looking for something like that (the classic example of course being me buying our 50s kitchen of eBay BEFORE I had the house to put it in...yep thats high level crazy, I blame it all on eBay!). The major problem with furnishing your house from flea markets and car-boot sales is you never know when you will find what you are looking for, of course I now have an internal list which I care around in my head of things we would like, some things have been on the list for quite a number of years (because as soon as I decide I really like something, everyone else also seem to suddenly decide they want exactly the same stuff for their home, sending prices rocketing and out of my meagre range!)

Anyway what was I talking about...oh yes, Rich and I decided when we brought the house nearly 2 years ago that we would like a 1950s kitchen dresser/storage unit to go in our minuscule hallway, just off the kitchen. Unfortunately this was about the time everyone else suddenly wanted 50s kitchen units too, suddenly the reasonable prices we'd seen on eBay went mad! The other major problem being as mentioned the tininess of our hallway, most of the units we looked at simple wouldn't fit, we had resined ourselves to either buying something else or getting Rich to build something at some unknown point in the distant future...until we spotted this beauty...

(Image courtesy of Indigo Moon)

This was found in a little shop up in Montgomery in Shropshire called Indigo Moon (a wonderful shop full of the most excellent nick nacks and stuff, if your ever in the area GO!), we went for a day out with Rich's parents and hall furnishings were totally the last thing on my mind that day. Anyway we spotted this tiny little unit tucked away in the corner of the shop for a pretty reasonable £110. But didn't we buy it then and there, no! For once I ignored my hoarders instinct and left it, of course the minute we got back to Bath we regretted it ( we had only just finished paying for all  the electric work, I was in money worry overdrive which seemed to have blinded me temporarily!). 
No problem we thought, we'll ring them up and ask them to hold it for us, one slight problem was I couldn't remember the name of the shop! Anyway after much searching on the net and google maps we managed to find the shop and a picture of the unit and even a phone number!

You don't want to hear about the hassle of us trying to organise going up to Shropshire, sorting out cars big enough to fit it in, needless to say I'm sure nipping to Ikea is marginally less stressful!

So success at last, we finally after two years have the baby sized unit we where looking for...

The hall is a very hard space to photograph well as its so small, trust me its not a austere as it look in the pic (and yes we are still patching up after doing the electrics!). 

On the subject of late arrivals, while I was home my Mum passed along one of my christmas presents which she had forgotten about. This is a standard thing in our house, theres always at least one present for either me, my sister or Rich that Mum had squirrelled away months before then forgotten about. It usually come to light around summer and one of us lucky buggers gets a late surprise...so this year it was me!

A vintage glass cloche to go at the other end of our mantelpiece from my glass dome! Love it, thanks Mum!

Oh and before I go Rich got his late arrival back to Bath eventually (on the second attempt), I wonder if this will make me a classic car widow?!

So as I mentioned a couple of posts ago I treated myself to a can of Annie Sloan paint in a lovely Duck Egg Blue,  this is the paint that claims you need no sanding or priming, will paint over vanish, old paint, metal, brick etc.. needless to say Rich was a tad sceptical about this but as I am a girl with very little patience at the best of times I was dying to have a crack at one of our larger bits of furniture.

I have been meaning to paint this pine corner dresser that we've had for about 3 years (apologise, I totally forgot to take a 'before' shot, the only one I have is this one taken as we were decorating the christmas tree last year!), the dresser is a nice shape and really useful as storage but was a very orangey pine which I have never liked.

I gave up waiting for it to stop raining and just put a dust sheet down in the living room, I also waited until my Mum was staying so she could give me a hand (these jobs are more fun with company!).

Of course the minuet I got it painted and it stared to dry the rain stopped and the sun came out...love British weather! Anyway the paint was amazing, it goes one lovely and thick, hardly smells and drys very fast. I believe you can get a wax that you can paint on over the top if you want to give it a more sealed finish but I love the chalky effect without.

I love the finished dresser, the colour has really lifted what was quite a dark corner, am now going to fill the top with my various treasures! So after giving the whole thing 2 coats I was still left with 3/4 of a tin! Amazing consider the can cost £17 and Farrow and Ball for the same size would be around £30. Am now casting about for more things to paint, might try it on our inner front door (again its a nice shape but a horrid colour, we'll see...) I would definitely use the paint again!