City by the Sea

Our weekend

Saturday we visited Chichester, about 20 miles from where we live. Mr B spends all week there as it's where he works (lucky him!) but today was a just for fun visit.

We began by visiting 

I loved it and came away with a few purchases!

I could have bought more!!

Next, was a visit to Cath Kidston, where I finally used some vouchers I've had for a while. I wanted to spend them on something I really wanted and not fritter them away.

This is my gorgeous new bag.

I also did a bit of hinting to Mr B about a red spotty purse and umbrella for my up coming birthday. I'm not hopeful though!

Then it was off to

 Chichester Cathedral
where we had lunch in the Cloisters Cafe and a walk around the sculpture exhibition by Philip Jackson.

On the way out we noticed these for the first time

 (we've visited quite a few times before)

Great, aren't they?

The final visit before making our way home was to my all time favourite fabric shop, The Eternal Maker

I had no intention of buying any more fabric for dressmaking, but I fell in love with this blue fabric and couldn't resist. I'll probably make myself a top with it. The cross stitch design fabric will be incorporated into a quilt I'm planning to make.

I just loved the bunting fabric, the small scale of it appealed to me.

I also bought some ribbons (for Christmas presents so I can't share!) and some felt offcuts.

We had a lovely day strolling around the city in the sunshine.
In the evening we walked to a bridleway close to where we live and made our way onto the South Downs (we know how to live it up on a Saturday night!)

A lovely day.

Sunday (today) Youngest Boy has gone off to the Chilli Festival at nearby West Dean Gardens, and Mr B and myself are pottering and doing chores.

(Eldest Boy is still in bed!)

Thanks for visiting.

I hope you've all had (are still having) a super weekend.

xXx

A Revelation

It seems I am not a Domestic Goddess!

This will not come as a surprise to those who know me well.

Today, to celebrate myself and my two lovely colleagues working together (normally, only two of us work together at one time) and the evening session of Meet and Make, I decided to make some biscuits.

My recipe of choice was chocolate chunk pecan cookies, chosen from the BBC Good Food website.

This is how they were supposed to look

BBC

This is how mine turned out

I've renamed it chocolate and pecan goo!

Obviously, these (this?) cannot leave the house, they taste lovely and will be consumed but don't look pretty.

Although I had the ingredients to try again I did not want to be left with the equivalent of 24 biscuits waiting to be eaten if it went wrong again!

I sort of made the next recipe up, a basic biscuit dough with hazelnuts, cranberries and chocolate chips. They look better and don't fall apart (I can't face eating one at the moment!)

Here they are in the tins waiting to be eaten by

1. Home - the broken, overcooked ones

2. Work - 2 each for my colleagues and one for me

3. Meet and Makers

Fingers crossed they taste OK!

Can any of you clever people tell me what I did wrong? I wondered if maybe the butter was too soft?

Before I go I must show you the gorgeous bag I'm using to take my bits to work at the moment.

(click on the pic to see it in more detail)

It was a 'just because' gift from the lovely Lunch Lady Jan. Look at the beautiful fabric, lining and pink spotty buttons! I love it and this weather is perfect for using it as the colours are so bright and summery.

Thankyou very much XXX

As always, thanks for visiting.

xXx

The sun is out, the sky is blue

...and fortunately it's not raining in my heart.

And this is why...

At last!

I'm planning to spend some time

here

a quiet, shady spot

and here

the sunny spot.

Yesterday the 'boys' had a trip to Amberley Museum near Arundel to go and look at classic cars and 'things'!

Mrs B (that's me, you know!!) stayed at home and pottered in the garden and read her book, which was lovely.

We may well go to the museum next weekend as there will be filming by the BBC for 'The Handmade Revolution'. The Bramble family will be staying well away from any cameras as we are a shy bunch, but it seems like fun. Entrance is free if you take along something you have made, Mr B is threatening to take his coracle and if that is the case he will be going alone!

Details are here if you are interested.

I've been waiting in for a parcel that has just arrived,

new (half price) shoes...

I have a thing about brightly coloured shoes!

Off to the garden now...

I hope you have got sunshine and blue skies where you are.

Thanks for visiting

xXx

Bookish

I have a birthday coming up so I've been doing a bit of Amazon browsing, something I always love to do. I've found some books that look great and  you may be interested in.

and because it's never too early to start thinking about Christmas in my world... 

Sadly, none of these will be published before my birthday but I've had fun looking and have pre ordered one or two.

Can you guess which ones?!

What would you choose?

Thanks for visiting.

xXx

18

PaperBowStudio
18? Surely not!

My eldest boy has 'come of age'.

Born with a head of dark brown hair, he soon turned blonde

He loved dressing up and especially hats, and would become more chatty and confident when wearing a hat!

I won't embarrass him by showing more recent photos, but just say

Love you lots

xXx

ArtByJaneane

So true!!

xXx

Re Found Treasures

Mr Bramble and myself have spent a bit of time trying to find an alternative title for my bric a brac posts. 'Thrifty Finds' offended some of my readers and Mr B too! Several suggestions were made by Mr B including Deceptive Trash (charming!). I think I'm happy with the above title, what do you think?

Here are some of my recent treasures...

A suitcase given to me by a friend. She brought it round to me on the way to the tip just in case I wanted it, I'm so pleased she did.

It belonged to her grandfather.

I love the way it's been repaired with a mis-matching hinge and still has her grandfather's address label on . When I thanked her my friend said "It's horrible, isn't it?" I can't agree, I'm afraid!

Here is a picture of it with my other vintage suitcases

Love it!

I've not posted about my finds recently (or anything, really!) so here are a few new-to-me things

Lots of glass. I collect custard, jelly, syllabub and sweetmeat glasses (as in first pic). I discovered them by accident a year or so ago when I was looking for something for Mr B and myself to have our Christmas mulled wine in (we are rather partial!). They weren't really suitable as they are too small and Mr B decided he'd rather have a larger glass - half pint was mentioned! So, we didn't use them for mulled wine but I did fall in love with them, they are so cute, only about 3" tall. I have quite a few now, I've never paid huge amounts for them and several only cost 50p. Sadly, they are all in storage at the moment as I need some shelves to display them on.

 The aubergine coloured candlestick in the second photo is also a bottle. Bizarre! I've wanted an Eiffel tower bottle for a while so I was chuffed to find that.

I am rather keen on these table top bookshelves. I already have three, one in storage because I don't have anywhere for it. This one had to come home with me though because the others slope towards the back and this one doesn't! You don't think that's a good reason? Oh well, I have it now...

I am really pleased with this. It wasn't a bargain but is just what I was looking for, I plan to make it into a advent calender. It needs painting so I'll add it to my pile of other things that I'm waiting for good weather to paint.

Love this basket too.

Hello and welcome to my new followers, and  hello and thanks to everyone who visits.

xXx

NORMAL SERVICE RESUMED (probably)!

I'd like to say a big SORRY for being a bad bloggy friend/follower.

Last week, which should have been a lovely week, with time off work and gorgeous weather, turned out to be really grotty and I was a bit of a misery guts...

Firstly, I had a throat infection. Then I had some money stolen from me. I came home one day to find the landlords of the property next door had cut back the ivy on their garage that adjoins our garden. They were perfectly within their rights, but if only they'd asked I could have cut it back without causing soooo much damage to my plants.

The worst was still to come though. They creosoted OUR fence (their side) with a sprayer! The fence is completely on our property and doesn't even touch the boundary. This caused a lot of damage to our plants and I think we will lose them all - many mature and some slow growing, plants.

As it is the old oil based creosote it has also contaminated the soil.

To say I was devastated is an understatement!!

We've contacted the landlord and had no respsonse...

After days of gloom and worry (I have two dogs) I now realise that at least it's only plants (and paving), and much as I love them it could have been people or pets that I lost.

So, sorry for being a poor blogger and swap partner and for a miserable post today. I shall return with more cheerful posts very soon.

I am enjoying catching up with your blogs today.

Thanks for visiting

(and 'listening' to my woes.)

xXx