When is a chair not just a chair?

A couple of months ago, these lovelies came to Nottingham for a day of chatter, laughter and second hand shopping. It went well. We chatted a lot, laughed a lot and bought plenty.

Our normal fare is vintage clothing. We ticked that box, but when we walked into Sue Ryder in Sherwood, we entered new blogging-get-together territory. I bought a chair!

I'm a bit of a sucker for chairs and this one had just been reduced from £25 to £10, which seemed a bargain. I'm also a bit of a sucker for a bargain, so the deal was done and we carried on.

When I got it home on the Monday, I did a bit of investigating. The back cane was broken and needed fixing and the seat pad needed updating. When I unzipped the cover to see what the pad was like, I squealed with excitement. There right in front of me was a CC41 label. As I'm sure a lot of you will know, that label dates the cushion to the 1940s, during and just after WWII, when most commodities including food, clothing and furniture, were rationed.

I love this postcard of my dad surrounded by his parents in 1941. His father, George, was a Desert Rat and so was away in North Africa for much of the war. This postcard was sent home from Egypt, hence the pyramids.

For me that has a lot of resonance. My father was born in August 1941, in London, in the middle of the war, a few months after the end of the Blitz. I grew up listening to tales from my grandmother who spent the entire war in London. Immediately I saw the CC41 label, I started imagining somebody sat in the chair, by the fireplace, listening to Winston Churchill making all those historic, rousing speeches. That chair went up in my estimation!

Anyway, now the chair was intertwined with my father who was born at the same time as the label. It so happens that he died 20 years ago yesterday, two days after his 54th birthday, so as you can imagine, he has been a lot in my thoughts. So when I started re-caning the chair, I went and changed into a pair of shorts belonging to him.

I used this great video to learn how to cane the chair. Isn't youtube an amazing resource?

Here's a picture of him wearing them, standing on top of a landrover, in the bush on his way down to Juba, which then was part of the Sudan and now is the capital of South Sudan. At the time we were living in Khartoum, the capital, in the North. He was a Diplomat, and during that posting, he was responsible for infrastructure; bridges and roads, and also the physical reality of tourism, so he would go and visit little complexes of huts being built with swimming pools, which apparently always ended up with cracks in them! He loved Africa and he loved that role, because he got to work with the local people for whom he had a lot of respect.

There we are in Switzerland circa 1972, at some friends' house for dinner. That's him on the left, Lambert, David George MBE, and that's me; 3d 1966!

He was a really good man, a dad to be proud of. I often ponder how things might have been for our family had he lived longer, and I often wish he were still here so I could know him as an adult, ask him for advice or listen to his stories. But that's life. We're here, it's now and we've got to make the best of it. So when I look at the chair, I intend to think of him and remember the good times.

I have covered the pad in some 1940s barkcloth from France. That fireplace is the next project. We've got some fab tiles to go in there. 

I'm pleased with how it turned out.

Eyam, the plague village

Have you ever heard of Eyam? It's a village in Derbyshire, known as the plague village, because in the year 1665, the villagers made the conscious decision to isolate themselves so that they wouldn't spread the bubonic plague to anyone else in England.

It arrived innocently enough, in a bale of cloth ordered by George Vicars, the local tailor. The cloth was damp, so he spread it out in front of the fire to dry, allowing the fleas within to be released. They were carriers of the plague, and soon, inevitably it claimed its victims. Within a year, hundreds of people in this small village died.

You would think such a tragedy would permeate everything and that you'd be able to feel the pain in the air and in the brickwork, but you can't. You only feel it in the stark words you read. You imagine it, sitting in the church and passing the cottages of the doomed villagers.

Looks idyllic doesn't it, the romantically named Rose Cottage? Don't be fooled. Nine members of the Thorpe family lived here. They all died. And look, here's what happened to their next door neighbours.

It feels somewhat ghoulish to be posting this, but it's such a memorable part of our history. Who doesn't know about the bubonic plague? Even children's nursery rhymes commemorate what happened.

Mexican embroidered dress accessorised with bags from Em and Krista, because I couldn't decide

And actually for their courage and fortitude in such appalling circumstances, the villagers of Eyam deserve to be remembered forever more.

The villagers who succumbed to the plague weren't buried in the graveyard, instead each family was responsible for its own. The women dragged their husbands and children out into the fields surrounding the village and laid them to rest. Even when life is at its toughest for me, it's never THAT bad. I really want to do one of the walks to pay my respects.

Eyam hall and gardens

Sorry this is such a depressing post. It wasn't meant to be. Eyam is the prettiest little village and Eyam Hall is a lovely Jacobean building filled with treasures from eleven generations of the same family, which means it has that lovely higgledy piggledy patchwork eclectic feel. The family lived there up until really quite recently and left all their stuff there, although they did have the good grace to take their Ikea furniture with them. I can't imagine a Billy CD rack would be quite the thing with all those beautiful flagstone floors and amazing wide floor boards.

Anyway, we had fun, mooching around and finishing up with a picnic. I hope there will be more to come this summer. It's more than half way through July and I feel like I'm only just getting started. Life has been like a juggernaut crashing down a mountain these last few months. I do apologise for neglecting you all. It's not my intention, I just think I need a pause button every now and again.

The village stocks. It wasn't me! Or was it?

I have to finish up with this classic photo of the family pets from Eyam Hall. What song do you reckon they're singing? Answers on a postcard blog comment, please!

Turned out nice again

Sunday was forecast to be raining all day. I was secretly pleased because it would mean I could shirk my gardening duties. My working week now ends at 8.30pm on a Saturday, so more than ever I want the day of rest to be exactly that.

However it turned out bright and beautiful.

So after skulking in bed until mid-morning, I was ousted. I need help, he said.

Once I dragged my reluctant carcass out there, I decided to do some tidying. Sort the paths out, pick up all the endless debris from next door's Weeping Willow, do some weeding and put the pots full of seedlings all in their rightful place rather than where I can trip over them when I'm hanging out the washing.

Oh, but then it started raining. Damn. *big wink*

So, after doing a bit of deadheading of flowers for vases, I skipped inside and took up my needle.

First job: make a cushion and a curtain for the porch from some really pretty 1950s barkcloth I scored for top dollar on ebay.

Now, we all know the laws of the universe; of course there wasn't enough fabric, there never is.

So what do we do?

That's right. Jiggery pokery. That's why the curtain has pink trim top and bottom. By Jove, I think it works.

That curtain is the final touch for our newly decorated porch. Those stained glass windows are one of the few remaining original features, and I love them.

Second up, make a curtain for this little baby blue meat safe. There's the cushion from the barkcloth on the gold chair.

Then there was job number three. I found this gold brocade cocktail chair for £4 a few years ago, at the carbooty, but the grubby seat always bothered me. So last year, after months of sniffing around, I managed to find a piece of fabric on ebay which was a near perfect match, and recovered the seat pad. 

That's a dress I got from Second to None. When I wear it, he always asks me if I've lost my sheep. (Little Bo Peep)

Not easy. Jiggery pokery.

(I feel like I'm writing this blog post in the voice of Micky Flannigan).

Anyway, yesterday I decided to change the pompoms. Those pink ones were looking a bit faded and they didn't go all the way round, so I replaced them with some red trim. Looks very plush now!

So that's it, the house is styled to within an inch of its life tidy, which is good because I wanted to make a positive first impression on her. She only arrived this morning. She's Tehura by our Walter (Walter Lambert). 

Isn't she a beauty?

How about you, anything to report from this weekend?

Mini-me, mamma style

Who doesn't love flicking through the family photo album? Laughing at haircuts, reminiscing and taking the mickey out of siblings.

That's one of life's great pleasures, isn't it?

I also love to look at the clothes. One of my style heroes is my mum, who as far as I'm concerned was a fox. She loved clothes and absolutely adored shopping for them. When we came home to the UK on leave, she would shop up a storm, and when we lived in Paris, she had a walk in wardrobe, which she filled. She would have bags to match each outfit and when she found shoes she liked, she'd buy several pairs in different colours.

1968/9, my mum sporting an amazing updo and green shades in the fab trouser suit, which inspired me to copy. The little bruiser in front of her with the pink cheeks and tragic haircut is me

Anyway, there are quite a few outfits from the old days which I covet pretty hard, one of which was a trouser suit belonging to my mum. Orange with stripes, worn with green shades. She was one cool cat. 

So when I spied a pair of orange curtains in the chazza for £2.99, I knew I wanted to play Cool Cat Copycat. Mini-Me Snap.

There she is with the hairdo again

So, I finally got around to doing some sewing. It's a version of this 1969 Simplicity pattern. 

I find you always have to keep your wits about you. There's never enough fabric and the pattern doesn't ever fit properly, but if you keep your calm and persevere, with a bit of jiggery pokery, it usually works out in the end.

That's the braid I bought on our day out to Burton, from Vix's mate. 

I think I'll get a lot of wear out of this trouser suit. In fact, I'd like one in every colour. My mum would be proud of me!

A train to Jerusalem

Towards the end of the holiday, we took a train to Jerusalem for the day. There are plenty of coach tours, where everything is laid on, but we thought it would be more exciting to be a bit more intrepid.

The Wailing Wall, where Jews go to pray. They write messages on small pieces of paper and insert them into the holes between the stones. Men and women are segregated. The last time I visited was nearly 20 years ago, on a Friday evening, which is the Sabbath. It was mesmerising and I remember it as being just magical.

I loved seeing all the different tribes of people. Hasidic Jews, Ethiopians, Arabs, Christian nuns, soldiers. Some brought there by faith, others for work, and then others still, like us, brought there to experience history and culture.

The old city can be entered via various different gates. There is an Arab quarter, a Jewish quarter, a Christian quarter and an Armenian quarter. Once inside the gates, you find yourself in a warren of enclosed walkways, filled with all the sights and sounds of the bazaar.

A typical meal. Houmous, arab salad, pickled vegetables and pitta bread. I'll eat toasted pine nuts with anything.

This is on the rooftop of the Austrian Hospice on the Via Dolorosa, the street which Jesus walked, carrying his cross, towards the place of his crucifixion. You have the most amazing view over the whole city. Behind me you can see the gold dome of the Temple Mount.

The Armenian church of St James was the most breathtakingly beautiful church, which we happened on quite by accident. A service was just about to take place, so I blindly followed a few people through a heavy curtain and found myself in this exquisite interior. There are dozens of chandeliers and incense burners in all the colours of the rainbow hanging from the ceiling, kilims on the floor and blue and white tiles on the walls. The ceilings have decorative plasterwork roses. It was perfection and I loved just sitting there and absorbing the beauty.

I'd love those blue and white tiles in my fireplace

I felt like Alice in Wonderland knocking on that door. I'm only 5 foot tall, so whoever's on the other side must be fairytale tiny. That's a 1960's psychedelic maxi dress there, with a shawl over the top to cover up my head in the Arab quarter and the churches.

So that's my tour of Israel done. Must be time to book another holiday soon, surely? :)

The ancient port of Jaffa

A couple of days into our holiday, our friend had arranged for us to have a holiday within a holiday. Before dropping us off at our accommodation, he drove us round Jaffa, and I fell in love.

 

Imagine an ancient harbour surrounded by crumbling old buildings, cafes and restaurants, a flea market that winds through street after street and photographic opportunities on every corner. A stunning patchwork of colour, noise, smells and bustle. You would all love it!

Her hair is fabulous. And her eyelashes.

We spent three days exploring the old city, the flea market, the harbour, the sea front and then venturing further into the modern city of Tel Aviv. 

Each day, we would walk down different streets. I love to get a feel for where and how people really live.

You walk up those steps to get into the old city. It's particularly lovely at night when the temperature is all mellow, the lights are twinkling and in the background a jazz band is playing. 

Here I am in a Kinky Melon dress recreating a scene from the bible, Rachel at the well. That 1960s tourist souvenir came from the flea market. It's been waiting 50 years for someone to take it home in their suitcase.

Well, it is the Holy Land!

Next up, we go on a train adventure to another holy place. Coming along for the ride?