Brolly Good Fun!

Hello!

Well, it's been a while...

I actually have several unfinished posts, about loads of stuff, including recent vintage bargains and gender stereotypes, that I really want to post but they will be as-and-when I can.

This post is photo-based, to show off Aurora's wonderful new vintage umbrellas. Yep, plural. She now has three new vintage brollies.

I was lucky enough to be checking Twitter when @retonthenet posted a couple of photos of the umbrellas. It was love at first sight. 

I messaged to find out if they were for sale... they were!

The postman handed them to a very excited 33-year-old a few days later. It was like Christmas. And at this age, Christmas is no longer like Christmas. I was very excited.

Tuesdays are usually when we go to Jo Jingles, but as it's half-term, we have had a free day; so off we went to Belfairs Wood, in Leigh on Sea, via the Prittle Brook Greenway: there's nothing better than woods in the autumn, The smell cannot be beaten.

After a coffee in the Woodland Centre (listening to some golfers discuss their bladder habits *face*), Aurora and I headed off into the woods to find a suitable place to take some photos of the brollies.

And here they are: I'm pretty impressed with the photos, if I do say so myself. All taken on my iPhone and using Instagram.

It was quite busy at Belfairs today,so I probably got a few odd looks when I was hanging vintage kids brollies from trees. 

For now though, they will be safely stashed away until Aurora is old enough to use them.

Aurora's Busy Weekend

This weekend was a busy one! It was Aurora's first music festival on the Saturday and we went to the Basildon Tractor Plant open day on Sunday.

The Village Green Festival is a one-day, family-friendly event held at Chalkwell Park in Southend. The festival has been free up until this year, when adults were charged £10 each: worth EVERY penny!

There was some grumbling about the introduction of charging an entrance fee, which included an utter plank being quoted in the local paper about dropping a bomb on the organisers!? But if charging a tenner is enough to keep arseholes nuggets like him out, I am 100% for it.

The value for money is superb, this is taken from the Metal website:

600 arts, crafts, vintage and food traders 900 artists performing on 11 stages 140 volunteers 100 production crew

The fantastic line up of artists and musicians included Beth Orton, Eddi Reader (Fairground Attraction); Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip; New York ska band, The Slackers; from London Man Like Me; Youth Club, Shlomo; Danny and the Champions of the Worlds; Kathryn Williams; Eight Rounds Rapid; and hot tips to go global in the very near future, The Hosts!

There was also cabaret, comedy, literature and LOADS more... for £10! How can anyone grumble about that?!

The only thing I would say is that there should have been more vegetarian food stands, or at least more vegetarian options provided. From what I saw, the only choice veggies had was a cheese and onion crepe (there may have been more options but no exclusive veggy stand).

Anyway, I didn't get as many photos as I would have liked, they're mainly of Aurora, but here are a few.

 

 

 

We made it!

So that was Saturday. On Sunday we visited a tractor plant. Yep...

For toddlers and children, and for adults with a love of vehicles, this was a fantastic. It was a free event to mark the factory's 50th anniversary: activities included bouncy castles, mini golf, tractor rides and processions, live music and tours of the production line.

As someone not even faintly interested in the production of tractors, I think they should make it a yearly event: it was really good. 

Knackered from the day before (or just bored) Aurora spent the whole time asleep.

 

And there we have two excellent days out in Essex.