Car boot roaming in spirit!

Have you ever felt you are missing out on the something extraordinary you should be creating???
I have this restlessness on me !!!!
sigh!!......

How to obtain UK market and car boot sales china????
Tell ones sister frequently that one misses the car boot sales and markets we used to go to together lots and lots .... and lo and behold when said sister and sisters come on a surprise visit (read about it here) one acquires fantastic presents like these:


from Reesvby Village ,Lincolnshire, car boot sale sometime end of May

Village cottages and the market is held on the Green in front of these cottages. Lovely village! As I recall it is just down the road from my sister's cottage but from a Whats app message received today my sister says it is 10 miles away. That is a long just down the road distance!!! 



France 1930s Cheese dish. There is a mark inside but I can't quite make it out. No matter I love it!

I have looked and looked here for a china cheese dish and not found one. I am thrilled with this one!!!! Nice and big too.


Midwinter Burslem Jug and sugar bowl

Have I ever told you I collect china jugs? Strange!!! you haven't heard?  I thought I had told everyone by now!!!

Royal Doulton Gravy Boat

 Shame I didn't take a photo as my sister B was handing this beautiful piece over to me. You would have noticed great reluctance reflected on her face as she liked it very much herself!!!! :-)

 Art Deco Roslyn China Marigold Hand painted Tea plates x 6

These beauties are very fine...wafer thin too.
These were all the car boot sale finds for me ......... I had a glorious time unwrapping them all and today I had a great time again, washing them all and drying them and admiring them and.......Have you seen Oliver Twist??? Do you remember Fagin and the way he would rub his hands grinning and drooling over his booty. If you can remember that scene then you can visualize what I do as I contemplate my hoard of china!!!

BUT I haven't finished yet!!!   This was my birthday present which I was so delighted with. You see  I have to build up my Portmerion collection little by little. It is difficult to find here and very expensive so I have to bring it piece by piece from the UK .  Every time I go home I bring a few bits more with me. I love it when I have another new piece!

Portmerion Botanic Garden Butter Dish

contented sigh!!!!

********************************************

Hello and welcome to my latest follower. Thank you for visiting :-)

That is it for the moment peeps. I'm off to block my latest make and it is big so it is going to take me awhile.

Amanda :-)

When cleaning is a pleasure!

 Hello and welcome to my new followers Shirley at Colours of a Butterfly and Tracy at Mad about Bags  
 Shirley is a newbie to blogging with only nine followers at present. She says herself she is happiest when creating something and also her really friendly approach is so inviting......well worth a visit.   Tracy is well known in blogland and has quite a following. She was also the hostess of the super Christmas cracker swap which was really a delight to participate in.
  Thank you both for visiting and for following my blog.

                                                      ok so its a spoon but a Lladro spoon!


Dear Blogger friends
Big sigh!..... I have so little to show you craft-wise as I am trying to finish the zillion thread ends wip that I must complete by the end of the month and get it off to my sister.  Another big sigh too because I've been itching to get on here all week and post, although I haven't got much to say except perhaps the following which I saved for a time like this.

I collect china and porcelain as I know many of you do ( I have seen some really beautiful pieces displayed on some of your blogs),a couple of months ago I thought  I'd enjoy getting out my bits of china and washing them. Its the only sort of cleaning I really like doing the other sort are cleaning obligations which are a dead bore but a necessity. Washing my china is a pleasure! Well I thought to take a photo or two to display on my blog and show off my collection but up to now I had other things to say and display and didn't get around to posting them. This post seems right for these photos now. All the same I'm not going to bore you too much with this so I've only added one of my china bits ....another piece at another time....on another I don't know what to say post.

 This is the smallest piece in my  Lladro collection. It is part of a collection of four spoons ...I'm still waiting for the other three spoons!
I'm lucky in that Manises the town where Lladro is made is in Valencia which isn't too far from us so occasionally I get to visit the factory shop.

Lladro Museum and Shop, Manises Valencia

Now then how about this for a horror story every time I tell people I cringe to think of it and yes I have to admit I also get a little angry.

About two years ago we had all the apartment painted and there was quite a bit of cleaning to do afterwards ... you know as there usually is after these sort of things. As we both worked I enlisted my husband to help me clean the lounge and furniture and that included my glass cabinet where I house a part of my china collection. My husband as usual does his interpretation of Speedy Gonzalez and whizzes around cleaning everything at top speed. He washed and dried the glass shelves in the cabinet replaced them in the cabinet and came to pick up the china I had washed to return them to the cabinet......when I then heard an almighty crash of glass falling and smashing. Well I thought he had fallen over the cabinet so I ran into the lounge to find china and glass everywhere. He hadn't fallen over the cabinet but forgot to place the top glass shelf in the cabinet and went to put two figures on the top shelf at the same time and being as the shelf wasn't there the figures fell down hitting the second shelf which then hit the third shelf and that hit the last shelf knocking off all the rest of my china.
Needless to say I was furious as I lost two large pieces of Lladro, a piece of Delft,two pieces of Capidimonte and some Dresden. What really really upset me most was my Grandmother's Wedgewood jewel pot which was over 60 years old was smashed to smithereens.
Grrr! Sr P is not allowed to touch my china ever,since then!!!

Have a great weekend

Amanda :-)

Finding stuff among stuff!

First of all I'd like to apologize I've been rather lax lately and not welcomed new followers nor have I been commenting on blogs as much as I would like. My excuse is LIFE and the things that pop up unexpectedly and also at present my time is very much not my own....a 15 hour working day is no joke!  I've just started several new courses, one starts at 8am in the morning, a 150 mins slot twice a week for Red Cross social workers and Teleassistance operators. Lovely bunch of people but...... groan....who wants to learn English at 8am in the morning!

sigh!!!......

WELCOME and hello to my new followers Lynette at Sweet Posy Dreams and Sarajan at Fleachic thanks for visiting my blog and hope you'll visit often.

 Its been a very long time since I last visited the Reto a la Esperanza warehouse probably a couple of years ago now.  I've only occasionally found anything there of interest and the majority of the things they sell are so used that it has all become unusable junk. I don't like to criticize the organisation because they do a very good job rehabilitating drug addicts and depend on donations and what they can earn from selling second hand goods. They get very little government aid. They mainly obtain funds from going around Alicante and the province picking up unwanted furniture and other household goods which they give a face lift to and sell in this warehouse situated on the Madrid road leading out of Alicante.

As I mentioned previously they have a great deal of junk there and you have to rifle through the stuff but occasionally one can be lucky and find something and I found these:

They remind me of wild roses!

There were five but there were two which were supposedly repaired.....that is they were just stuck together with sellotape! I thought just the three could come away with me!   I paid 3.50€ for each plate I thought it was a bit more than what I should have paid but I really felt it would be mean and nasty quibbling over that price considering where the money goes.

I don't recall seeing Royal Kent china before so I don't know much about it....but from the  very little information that I got from Google they are from a set of 12 plates,; a limited edition.

If anyone knows about Royal Kent china I'd love to find out  more. At  least I have an objective now which is to find the other 9 plates to make up the set!   These could be copies though...not sure how to check that out.

Google image

It started with a gentle pitter patter and now its coming down full blast!

Its glorious and the streets are being washed clean at last!

IT is RAINING!

Enjoy your weekend!!!!!

Amanda :-)