Friends, Family and Shopping.

So far November is belting along at the same exhausting fun filled pace of October.

I've seen my family loads after hardly seeing them at all for the last month or two, it's been lovely to catch up.
It was my Dad's birthday at the weekend and we all went out for lunch. It was one of those wonderful long pub lunches after which you think you will never be hungry again, ever.

That's of course until you get to your parents house and your Mum cracks open one of the Christmas tins of Quality Street......oh boy.

Himself and I also headed out on Friday night for a get together with friends and ex-colleagues in memory of our mate Murray who died earlier this year.
I can honestly say I haven't laughed so much in a long time, it was a great night out, the kind that does your soul good.

That was followed by a day of shopping with Soo. We decided to give Chipping Norton a go and it was certainly worth it despite the hideous weather.

Chippy is a beautiful Cotswold town with a high street heavily tipped towards independent shops which was a joy to see.

Talking of joys to see, the high street had be wool bombed with a distinctly Remembrance Sunday theme, it was absolutely fantastic, sadly I didn't get many pictures due to the torrential rain.

There were some of wonderful quirky shops to browse,

How cool is this oil can lamp?

A handful of interesting chazzas

                                                       Seriously sinister cat!

We also found a fantastic craft fair in the town hall. I shamelessly bought myself 2 brooches when I wasn't meant to be spending money on myself.

Having said that, priced at £4 and £3 respectively it would have been rude not too.

I also bought a large pressed glass party snack dish for the princely sum of 75p!
It has 5 compartments and is exactly what I was looking for to hold some of my ever expanding brooch collection.
No that's not all of them

there's these ones too

yup I think I may have a bit of a brooch addiction.

on the subject of things being exactly what you were looking for I also bought this afternoon tea stand.

apologies for the weird angle of the photo, it's not as long or as narrow as it looks in this shot!
I spotted it in one of the first shops we went into and couldn't get it out of my head so we called in on the way back to the car.
I don't think it's particularly old and it needs a damn good clean, then I think I will paint it matt black.
The plan is to use it to display some of my vintage bags, it's going to be absolutely perfect for it. I'm a happy bunny.

Once back in the car we decided to head to Woodstock to check out the shops.

For those not in the know Woodstock is a very beautiful and fuck off expensive village on the outskirts of Oxford.

They even still have stocks for the peasants.

We shamelessly earwigged a surreal conversation in a high end furniture store, where the assistant was actually trying to persuade a couple NOT to buy the £20,000 table they had set their hearts on (because it would be too difficult to get it through the kitchen and into their house.) Whilst they were determined to make it their own. Bizarre!

We tried a few shops, got booted out of a chazza that was closing at 4pm just because they felt like it and came to the conclusion Woodstock was not for us.

Soo then kindly drove me to the station with my bags and tea stand. Thankfully the rain stopped long enough for me to get home without incident and collapse in front of Strictly with a huge mug of tea.

Finally I also bit the bullet and had my hair cut. After seeing the various photos from the blog meet in Walsall I could no longer ignore the fact my hair was in shocking need of a cut.

I toyed with going for the usual trim, but in the end decided to go with the urge that had overcome me to have the whole damn lot chopped off!

After the initial wake up next morning having forgotten new haircut WTF??? in the bathroom mirror I love it.

Outfit = 1970's sundress from C&A, Cardigan from Sainsburys, poppy brooch made by me.