Lazing On a Sunny Afternoon.

I spent last weekend catching up with old uni friends in Nottingham. My ex- housemate drove and we managed to give ourselves minor whiplash in trying to follow the sat nav/keep it from falling off her dashboard (Ford may have thought it unique and quirky to design it in a curved shape but it’s majorly inconvenient!) It was my second visit to Orla and Marty’s new house, the first being on Halloween when we transformed ourselves into a raven in a flapper dress (she looked fab), a bat and a black widow, complete with a spider covered burlesque hat. I spent a whole day spray painting plastic spiders silver in order for them to stand out against the black of my hat and then unsuccessfully attempted to turn some into brooches. This time was a much less gothic affair. Marty has gone away for the weekend and us girls spent most of the day sitting in the sunshine drinking Schloer and eating galaxy, lemon slices and Haribo, all rounded off with mash potato and fish fingers. Yum.

After some more galaxy and a bit of Grand Designs I had a re-tour of Orla’s house, checking out all the new amazing carboot sale finds she’d had since my last visit. Her vintage bird collection had grown and she’d bough the most beautiful freestanding kitchen units in baby blue from an end of line sale. She’d even dismantled most of the kitchen herself while her boyfriend was at work, having already sanded and repainted the floorboards in the study and repainted the banisters ... is there no end to this woman’s DIY skills? Although she did admit, in a rather irritated tone, that they’d have to get someone in to do the re-plastering. I’m not so sure to be honest. I can see her attempting it herself and somehow pulling it off.

While admiring one of her new kitchen cabinets I spotted a gorgeous vintage tea set amongst the other curios and me being me, whipped it out on to the side, positioned the set in trios and pretended to be drinking tea from one of the cups (yes I’m a child) while saying how much I looooved the bright colours and art deco design. Apparently Orla had discovered it in the loft of her old house and didn’t like it, so after protests from me and her insisting it needed to be somewhere where it was loved, it was packed into a shoe box for me to take home and add to my ever growing vintage crockery collection. I’m now in search of a matching tea pot for the set so that I can use it to serve afternoon tea rather than keep it cooped up in my china cabinet (once I’ve finally moved house and everything can come out of newspaper!)....oooh, I think I’ve spied a matching tea pot having ended with no bids on Ebay...I’m off to message the seller.