Elegancemaison

Friday, 9 July 2010

Break the silence, buy radios for Burma « Protect The Human

Thursday, 1 July 2010

Catch Up Miscellany

Decorative entrance to venue of Clerkenwell Vintage Fashion Fair

Charming Ukelele Lady in the Tearoom

Helpful and talented seamstresses do alterations

Beautiful Japanese visitor to my stand

Beautiful Japanese visitor's hat

Nice Chelsea Shop!

Even Nicer Chelsea Shop!!!

Silk animal print rose headband

Tracey@ The Vintage Bothy at Newbury Racecourse

More luscious goodies from Tracey

Tracey's vintage fashion rail

Did I buy? Yes I did!

Happy Shopper! (Having stashed bargains in car)

Back to The Oval this weekend

We are off to London tomorrow to enjoy our last flat minding weekend for daughter and boyfriend as they return from their wonderful World Cup holiday in South Africa next week. Pity about those footballers, but it hasn't affected the great time they've had with their old and new SA friends.

The roof terrace overlooking The Oval cricket ground

I had a very successful Antiques Fair at Chelsea Town Hall where I showed my old Durham and French quilts, Uzbekistan coats, and other old textiles. Afterwards our son joined us in Kennington to be 'chef' and cook up a tremendous roast chicken following Jamie Oliver's recipe. We were fascinated at the array of ingredients required as for us a French roast chicken needs a lemon and some butter under the breast skin. We also loved his recipe 'book' - aka his laptop! We sat out to eat on the fourth floor terrace as dusk fell and continued to chat as the stars came out. We overlooked the darkened and world famous, Kennington Oval cricket ground. Because of its proximity and the low lights we were able to see something of the night sky and stars above London. Son's girlfriend amazingly is an astronomer. I proudly earned my astronomer badge while in the Girl Guides and as a family we are all fascinated by the stars and space travel which enlivened a lovely evening, accompanied by Australian wines.

How many veg are in that pan?

World Cup winning dinner is served!

Tuesday, 29 June 2010

Young at Heart and Out of Africa

We're going to be a grandmother again!

Our lovely Australian daughter has confirmed that she is expecting her second child, due in early January 2011. We are so excited and have started saving for our airline tickets.

And look who's going to be a great-grandmother for the sixth time:

Home and recovering well from her op

Today my mother was looking cool and channeling safari style from "Out of Africa" - quite topical in more ways than one. Her linen dress is from M&S and she accessorised it with a wonderful chunky blue and silver bead necklace. (Sorry that I forgot to remove her Aid-call pendant for the photo.) She is happy to be home and very much enjoying the tennis from Wimbledon. She also followed the football and has a lot to say about Wayne Rooney.

In case you have been missing me (!) I haven't been able to blog or comment on others for a few days, partly because I've been away in London but mostly because my Internet connection suddenly became very erratic. Happily I think I may have discovered the cause. It seems that I had somehow become attached to the unsecure BT Openworld instead of my usual connection. Quite disturbing and I'm trying to find out how this happened.

I now have some catching up to do - especially about Clerkenwell vintage fashion fair, Chelsea antiques fair, and most recently, Newbury Racecourse fair where I met the lovely Tracey of The Vintage Bothy .

I leave you with this Thought of The Day from the London Underground at The Oval last Tuesday.

Monday, 21 June 2010

Duty, Honour, Sacrifice or cheating millionaire footballers

The RAF ensign

21st June is usually the longest day in the northern hemisphere. It precedes Midsummer's day which is celebrated around 24th June. But for me it is the night my father was shot down from his aircraft when returning from a bombing raid on Germany in 1943. He survived thanks to his ingenuity and the help of brave young Dutch resistance heroes. I wrote about this last year and you can read it here.

He survived, married the young woman who became my mother, and served as an RAF career officer travelling his young family around the world including Australia. He died aged 73 suffering from Parkinson's disease. My mother was the love of his life as he was hers. My loyal followers will know from reading my blog recently, that she is now 90 and currently in hospital and recovering well from her second hernia op. The white rose is flowering beautifully and we shall take it to my father's grave as soon as she is sufficiently recovered.

And as for spoilt cheating millionaires pretending to play for the honour of representing our country and not the £150K per week they earn for running around a field being outsmarted by third world teams paid peanuts but who love the game ( and the honour etc).

"Football is a gentleman's game played by ruffians, and rugby is a ruffian's game played by gentlemen."

The England football team is a disgrace, especially to hundreds of fans like my own daughter and friends who have saved and spent thousands of £pounds to fly to SA to support the home team only to watch a laughing stock. Thank goodness SA offers more to enjoy as a holiday destination than the p**s poor showing of most of the leading national teams in the World Cup.

Watch the cricket and the rugby say I! No falling over in agony because an opponent player breezed close by. It's unbearable. Watched Brazil and their dirty players against the Ivory Coast and theirs, this evening. Brazil should be ashamed at their tactics, Ivory Coast - I shall be buying your bananas! You did well and could probably beat "Engerland" who have yet to score in this dismal contest.

Saturday, 19 June 2010

All Well!

Not out of hospital yet!

Happy to report that my mother is recovering well from her op this morning. She was propped up on pillows and despite the oxygen nose thingy and countless tubes, she had a huge smile on her face when we visited this afternoon. I had brought flowers and other bits and bobs, but when I asked if she would like me to get anything else she grinned like a naughty schoolgirl and said, "Chocolate!" I put an order in with my brother to bring this evening, although I'm not sure she is allowed to eat it so soon. She is still pretty high on morphine at the moment, so not feeling the pain thank goodness. She has a lovely young surgeon too - actually all the medical team there look as if straight out of central casting. So she's happy, and I'm relieved. She'll be in good hands there for three or so days while I'm away in London at various Fairs and my siblings will visit until I return and take over again. Thank you for all your kind wishes yesterday:)

Off now to London to be ready for this Vintage Fashion Fair tomorrow.

Clerkenwell Vintage Fashion Fair, London

I've been wanting to do this Fair for a while but had too many clashing dates. Now is my first chance so I'm hoping for a good day meeting lots of new enthusiastic vintage fashionistas.

Friday, 18 June 2010

90 Not Out

Lovely mummy last week

My mother aged 90 who is also a great-grandmother, has always been a terrific fashionista. She's channeling Chanel here. Slightly arthritic (two replaced hips) and a minor stroke and a daily drug mix of seven tablets at different times. She copes so well with the (to me) bewildering mix of tabs, sorting out the 'before food' from the 'after food', and the 'dilute in water' from the rest. So well in fact that she recently caught out the Boots dispensary with two separate mistakes. (We go elsewhere now).

But tonight she is in the local hospital awaiting surgery tomorrow morning after a sudden recurrence of a hernia which was operated on last October. She had been distressed for a couple of days then suddenly experienced considerable pain, as I tried to ease her symptoms. Luckily the GP, who eventually made a house call, immediately called an ambulance and referred her back to the surgical unit at the hospital.

She is so brave and so sweet. I will visit tomorrow lunchtime-ish as soon as I am advised after her surgery.