Gladrags, Handbags & Elephants

The time has come the walrus said to talk of many things.
Mostly because I haven't got around to blogging for about a month and much has gone on in between!
It's not that I haven't meant to, I even had a post kind of semi ready to go but somehow I lacked the oomph.
I think even though I have been determined not to let all the upsets and dramas of the year dampen my usual positive outlook I will admit it has taken it out of me and I'm bloody tired right now. 
The clear indication being I'm ill and can hardly crawl out of bed in the morning at the moment

also our usual blissful jaunt to Bournemouth has not recharged the batteries as much as I had expected. 

Anyway this to shall pass and really I should pick up where I left off and share the damn magnificent parcel or joy that was waiting for me when I got home from the Nettlebed sale. 

To give it it's correct name it was actually a parcel of elephant joy.

I'm sure I burst the eardrums of every dog in the district with my squeal when I opened this amazing and spot on gift from Curtise 
I have been eyeing up the recycled elephant cement purses and bags on Ebay for a while now so I was beyond thrilled to find one inside.
Both brooches have already had an outing as well!

Whilst we are on the subject of elephants I celebrated World Elephant Day by buying this really rather lovely set of bedding on a day out with my Ma.

It's actually my 3rd set of elephant bedding and I honestly couldn't choose between them so don't even ask.

There has been much, MUCH clothes buying in the month just gone. I share with you here a mere fraction of all my purchases. I'm not sure why there was such a frenzy but I just went with it.

I will justify it by saying not a one was full price. 

Chazzas, the sales, vouchers and birthday money have combined, but yes it did get a bit manic, I might have to share it in dribs and drabs over the next few posts and that doesn't include the boring things like socks pants and jeans!

Two Hell Bunny dresses off the bay of E. Black one for work blue one might just be  for a wedding that I have coming up.....

Charity shop tea dress and a too much wine, egged on by twitter, impulse Ebay deer print buy.

   








Hedgehog print dress! Hedgehogs you say, and in the sale? Plus 2 money off coupons that are valid on sales goods? Don't mind if I do!
Ok so on me it is actually more of a top than a dress but still, hedgehogs...

An I'm on holiday blouse purchase when I was actually looking for some kind of cheap footwear I could happily not care about wearing on the beach.

I did find them too in the shape of navy blue canvas flats for £4 by the way. I also picked up another dress at the same time for a fiver but that's in the laundry basket.

So what else? We had some friends from Newcastle drop by unexpectedly which was lovely. We haven't seen them for about 5 years so it was great to catch up over dinner, though kind of frightening to see how much the kids had grown. Children have a way of reminding you just how quickly time passes.

I went out for afternoon tea twice.
Once at Soo's house with our friend Simon where we did our level best to create a Prosecco shortage in Oxfordshire whilst stuffing our faces and laughing like drains.
And once in a far more civilized fashion at Patisserie Valerie with an Amazon Local voucher.

I also did a summer taster menu dinner at Jamie's in Oxford with Soo and Melissa, again a cracking Amazon Local deal.
No wonder I have piled 'The Half Stone' back on again *le sigh*

The bank holiday weekend we went to stay with Mum and help her sort some stuff at the house as well as do our annual pilgrimage to the Stonor Park Craft Fair.

I bought the above necklace and glass pendant, which was made from a piece of a broken lilac patterned milk jug apparently.
I also bought a glass elephant for the Christmas tree, but he is safely wrapped up until he will be needed in December.

Finally I bought a couple of vintage bags.

The beaded one at the top was 0.01p plus postage!?! It's in immaculate condition so I still can't quite believe it was only a penny. I though there would be some terrible fault but nope it's perfect.

The red leather one is a Clarks bag, I'm thinking 1970's?

 I still trawl regularly for my holy grail green 1940s/50s handbag, I haven't found it yet, but I've turned up some other crackers on the way.

Finally we had a long weekend in Bournemouth, there will be a very picture heavy post to follow!

The weather was kind, sadly the hotel was not kind at all, safe to say we won't stay there again.
We did the amazing Russell Cotes Museum and I met my friend Alison who whisked me off to the Emporium in Christchurch where I dithered over another red vintage handbag but ultimately left without it, though I did buy some other wonderous bargains.(see next post!)

We arrived home to water coming though the back bedroom ceiling, I can only thank god we weren't away for 2 weeks!
So I now have the joys of a stained and smelly carpet to freshen up tomorrow as it's finally dried out.

Also home to the sad news that Mum's cat of 20 years Missy, (or Mishka the Russian spycat as she was known internationally) had taken a turn for the worse and sadly had to be put to sleep on Monday.
She had been steadily failing recently, so we were all expecting it, but after all that has gone on this year it really was a bit like the straw that broke the camel's back for my poor Mum.
I have spent a fair bit of my spare time doing things with her this week, including a day off today.

We had a gentle bimble around a fab garden centre that's near her house and is called World's End, I have to say I have always found that a hilarious name for a plant nursery.

I love that I can go into work on Monday and say I went to the world's end to buy winter flowering pansies on Friday!