Good Grief Charlie Brown and a Handbag or Two.

Well my February blog post didn't happen because for three of the four weeks we had no computer at home. We knew it was on the way out and Himself had purchased a new hard drive but didn't quite get around to replacing it and then the old one actually died. It then took a long and frustrating time to try and keep coaxing it into life for long enough to retrieve photos and emails etc. Himself has been randomly tinkering as the mood takes him and in the meantime I've either brought my work laptop home or done without.
Anyway after I grouched about wanting to blog Himself finally sorted out the picture editing so here I am.

The highlight of February was going to London to see the Peanuts exhibition at Somerset House. As ever I left it until pretty much the end of the exhibition before getting there. I've known about it since October last year I'm a huge Snoopy fan after all, but I could not convince Himself to go with me. He most definitely is NOT a Snoopy fan.

Soo then spotted the exhibition and emailed me a link and when I explained I had no one to go with she was more than happy to come. We chose the date, we bought the tickets, and then 5 inches of snow descended and made the roads impassable so that was that. Bah.

I think it finally dawned on Himself just how much I wanted to go so he agreed and we set off the following Saturday. The tickets were timed entry and I over estimated how much time it would take to get there so we ended taking a blissful if windswept stroll along the embankment in the sunshine.

The exhibition was about the enduring appeal of Peanuts and how Schultz's work has influenced modern artists. It also looked at the themes in his work, a lot of people don't realise he fought things like racism & sexism and raised awareness for many other causes via the comic strip.  There was plenty of Schultz's original artwork and some personal objects from his life, we were also taken through the creative process via the equipment he used and a fabulous little film where Schultz described how he came up with the each character and their quirks as he sits drawing them.

As you can imagine I bloody loved it. To see artwork he had drawn and the very pens he used to draw them.

Also to see some of the old merchandise brought back memories. I still have my banner that says 'One of us always stays awake in case of vampires'!

I have to say not all of the modern art works were my cup pf tea, but it was interesting to see the influences. As it happens Himself really enjoyed it too. Being a graphic designer he was fascinated by the creation process and the tools used to create.
He did tell me he was admiring one cartoon for it's artwork and everyone else around him was chortling away so he looked and looked but still couldn't see why it was funny!

One super excited Miss Magpie with her childhood looky likey Sally, yes when I was little my hair really did look uncannily like hers!!

From here we ambled through Covent Garden, ate lunch and ended up at Piccadilly. We were going to go for a cheeky drink at Waxy O'Connors but it had the rugby on so loud it made your ears bleed so we quickly backed out again. We were debating where else to go when I was distracted by drumming so we went to see what was going on.

This is the third time we have stumbled by chance onto the Chinese New Year celebrations in China Town. An unexpected fun way to end the day.

Yesterday there was a vintage fair in Oxford, the first one in many, many months for some reason. My friend Alex asked me to go so I headed into town to meet her and her best friend.

It was a Lou Lou's fair at the town hall again and pretty busy. A fairly good mix of stalls and several were more reasonably priced this time I thought, about time. Having said that there were still a couple of stalls that were crazy expensive, I swear they think because Oxford is the second most expensive place to live in the UK everyone here is loaded!

Anyway we browsed thoroughly and all bought something before stopping for a welcome cup of tea and a slice of delicious cake.
I was fairly dressed down yesterday so when I asked for the price of one handbag I got a slightly patronising explanation of what it was and how old it was.
I do find this happens a lot if I am trundling about in jeans rather than vintage from head to toe. Does this ever happen to you?
I find it quite annoying if someone is really condescending. I also wonder if you get quoted a higher price because the seller thinks you don't really know what you are looking at. In this case it was a Corde bag, nice shape and slightly rarer colour, but in poor condition so definitely not worth the £45 she offered it to me for. As you can imagine I left it where it was.

I bought two dresses, apologies for the dodgy pics they have already been washed and are hanging up to dry!

 The brown one was £12 and the checked one £9.50 

A green shirt.

Two brooches

Finally two bags. The white leather one still had some little bits of confetti in it so it has clearly been a wedding bag at one point. Since this picture I've cleaned it and polished it then put the confetti carefully back in one of the pockets.
The brown one was stupid cheap because it was pretty grubby and had one of those grim crumbling foam linings in it. I ended up taking ages first cleaning the outside and then carefully cutting open the lining seam to clear it out thoroughly. 

I have bought other handbags recently too so I shall end with those.
Just like Ann I've been on the hunt for a yellow bag for ages and just like that I found two. One of them I won't get to see for ages as one of my good friends in the U.S purchased on my behalf. It was from an American seller and was super cheap, just £7 but the postage to the U.K was down as nearly £50!
 I asked my friend how much it would be for the postage to her house and it was about £10 so she very kindly agreed to buy it on my behalf and I sent her the money.

Isn't it fab? Now I just have to wait for work to send me to New York again! 

The other bag is a raffia one. Oh and in the background is the little gift I bought myself at the Snoopy exhibition because all the other merch was stupidly expensive, £40 for a paper thin t-shirt? No thank you. I always wanted a Belle (Snoopy's sister) when I was young but never got one, so I treated myself to one now.

Finally a little purple suede one, again I've wanted a purple bag for a while. It's a little faded in places but not too bad. 

I have lots of fun stuff on in March so more anon.