Tuesday, July 17, 2012

The boy loves Brocantes …

This summer we’ve been visiting lots of brocantes in France. A brocante is the French version of a car boot or outdoor jumble sale & you never know what you might find there to bargain for and buy for just a few euros!  Gavin is convinced that he is going to discover something truly marvelous at the NEXT brocante hence the many early morning trips through fields of tat and treasures! It’s a lot of fun! Here’s some of our purchases from this summer….

Lorna has finally found an old Polaroid camera (she’s been looking for a while!)
 
And I picked up two other old cameras another brocante yesterday to add to her collection! I really love the look of this one ….
I think the corrugated finish on the case is just fab, It may or may not work but I think it looks pretty cool! All of the above cameras cost 5 euros each …. It would have been just rude not to buy them for that!!

Next up two of my favourite purchases so far…….

 
a big metal washing basin (which we’ve planted up in the garden & a cool vintage style leather bag both a snip at 10 euros (I’m telling you ! what’s not to love about Brocantes!!!)

Some Brocante finds for the kitchen ;a cute coffee pot I really love and what has to be simply the purchase of the summer so far, Gavins vintage radio; Gavin has spent about 6 hours fiddling, tweeking, soldering and mending until he finally got it working. It clips open displaying its insides making access to the working parts really easy and I think he would agree its the best 2 euros he ever spent! When we were driving home from that particular Brocante the discussion in the back of the car went something like this
“Imagine if you actually managed to fix this radio and then when you tuned it in, you could only hear radio broadcasts from the past…”
“Yeah!...Wow!...Imagine…..”

Some more of my other (un-photographed) Brocante purchases included some jam jars and a new copper jam pot !Hiding behind the coffee pot you may have notice some jam. Not just any old jam its my world famous super-de-dooper Apricot breakfast jam. I’ve made two batches so far; I took loads of photos of the jam making process and will post them as a tutorial as soon as my disjointed internet access will allow, I promise!


For the rest of the post I’m just going to share some of Lornas Brocante photographs from yesterday…..
 





& finally
YESTERDAY evening the Brocante loving boy fell off his bicycle and cut his shoulder, wrist, knees, elbow, both hands, chin and chest.
TODAY I discovered the photo below on Lorna’s camera that may explain the prelude to the damage inflicted on our unsuspecting hero! Boys eh ?!
 


Thank you for visiting & please do come back soon !

 Siubhan x x x



By the way, big, big thank you to Lorna for use of her camera and some of her photos for my holiday blog posts.


Monday, July 9, 2012

Le Blog on Holidays in France !

The CraftLee house is on Holidays !

I haven’t been able to Blog much lately because I have had no access to the internet but I’ve been itching to share my holiday adventures with you so it’s off to the local supermarket cafĂ© (with free WiFi!) for lunch.

Last Saturday we found our sea legs, took to the high seas and left Cork in Ireland for Roscoff in France.


Leaving Cork harbour you pass the beautiful colourful town of Cobh.



Lorna took this moody shot of a little boat zooming around against the background of the town.


Even Cooper managed to find her sea-legs ! Those Brittany Ferries people are so nice, dog’s have their own kennels & private running around area onboard !


We are going to be in France for 7 weeks ( I know ! We are truly blessed!) So first thing Monday morning its off to Saintes for a BIG food shopping & we stumble across a BIG street market ! What a great way to spend a few hours!


Beautifully presented aromatic salts …. Irresistible!


New shoes anyone ?! I love the look of these old French vehicles & what a lovely shoe shop it makes !!


Yummy fabrics ! I bought some … but not enough! (It’s never enough!)


I know this has been a long & picture heavy post but I just had to post some of the hollyhocks , they are everywhere ! When you go for a walk you can find them strewn on the roads, victims of speedy French cars !



Lorna gathered some up for me yesterday & I popped them on the mantelpiece with some donated roses from the neighbours to make a happy holiday posy !!



Thank you for visiting & hope to see you back here again soon !

Siubhan x x x


P.S. I love getting messages but at present my access to the internet is limited so if you leave me a message I may not be able to respond immediately but I will respond as soon as I can !
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