a few days away....

 

having spent the week packing up the ground floor of my flat in anticipation of building work next week...i decided to take a few days to visit my folks in Hampshire.  on the way to the station i spotted 2 bed bases (no mattress) and a sofa on Leghorn Road, NW10...to send me on my way.  i spent most of my time relaxing chez famile...and my dad delighted in showing me his new (vintage) Velocette bike (a 1955 model) with beautiful chrome wheel guards and the fab "naked lady" motif on the tool box.

 

this makes SEVEN that he has bought, taken apart and put back together...he needs to open a museum!  he loves to potter in the garage and while i was there he kindly stripped and re-painted this lovely american-style matchbox holder i bought on etsy a few weeks ago..it will look lovely in my bathroom - which my parents couldn't understand, until i explained about the old trick learnt in Thailand for getting rid of nasty niffs in the toilet...just light a match and hey presto!

 before

after

also got to spend a lovely day in Bournemouth with my Aunty Jennie, cousin Sarah and her two children Renee & Freddy - who i really don't get to see enough, but always enjoy their company as we share a love of beach-combing and doodling in the sand.

 

my aunt and cousin also share my love of charity shop trawling and we were in heaven with the NINE shops we managed to visit in Parkstone, a suburb of Bournemouth - where my dad and aunt used to go to the cinema as kids, and my dad got banned from the local church of St John's (his namesake!) for trying to "blow the place up"...as he and his tearaway mates used to set off bangers of a sunday morning...he was always a naughty (tho angel-voiced) choirboy!  anyway i managed to pick up some real beauties..including a fab 1960s Poole Pottery  soup pot with mushrooms on the lid, a few plates & glasses and also went mad on three fab Arthur Wood vases.

i also got to visit the fab Le Creuset factory shop in Andover (one of the only good things about the place) to salivate over the beautiful kitchenware, and managed to nab myself a gorgeous red iron handled pot - a sample from the US, not for sale in the UK, which had made it onto the sale shelf!

 

my mum said i could have removed my dad's socks from the Aga 

before i took the photo but i think it all adds to the ambience!

i came home to my empty flat and was greeted by a message from a friend in West London with a photo of mattresses outside her door on Acklam Road...nice!