October 2020: Tier I Medium

 I started this post over a week ago but soon became distracted by Arts Society Zoom meetings - something new to me! After a few basic instructions from a drop in meeting I learnt enough to be able to attend a talk - mute myself, make myself invisible and give myself a name. The first talk was '1929-1959: The Glamour Years' by Arts Society lecturer, Andrew Prince who gave an informative and colourfully illustrated history of jewellery and glamour linked by Hollywood actresses mainly from the 1930s and 1940s. Last week we had an extra event which was a virtual tour of the East End by Pepe Martinez, a Blue Badge guide, and was Part II of his talks (unfortunately I had missed Part I). This was called 'From Bangladesh to Banksy' and featured a potted history of graffiti artists operating in the East End from the 1960s, and the cultural influence of the Bangladeshi community who began arriving in the area from the 1950s onwards. Using a combination of Google Streetview and photographs we felt like we were almost there and it is an idea I would participate in again.

Meanwhile, in Gloucestershire we have been placed in Tier 1 as regards the covid 19 pandemic which means that we are under The Rule of Six and a 10pm curfew, although it is quite a long while since we have been out in public after 10pm! We did visit Burford in West Oxfordshire a few weeks ago to collect some books that I had ordered from the local independent bookshop, The Madhatter Bookshop. As I knew that I would be going into the shop I wore my mask before I got out of the car and was surprised to see that over half of the population was also wearing masks in the street - maybe because the local population is somewhat older than the average. It may be working, as the rate of infections in West Oxfordshire is lower than that in Gloucestershire.

As regards my Etsy shop, MillCottageRetro, I was thinking about what would be a good range of items to feature in this blog and thought that serving dishes and tureens are always useful for family meals - perhaps for the Christmas season. I have a selection of vintage tureens which would create a talking point and some small Denby soup tureens which. as they are oven to tableware, are very useful. The early ones are quite unusual; some ideas are below:

I know that not everyone will be looking forward to a big family Christmas this year (my daughter is in Greater Manchester which is now in Tier 3, so will be affected more than some others of us), but most people could perhaps think about something on a smaller scale. We are fans of Strictly Come Dancing, like many others, and this will help to keep us entertained up to Christmas, hopefully. In fact, the last event we went to before lockdown was the Strictly related show featuring Giovanni Pernice called 'This is Me' which was in Swindon in early March. Also on the show was Strictly professional dancer Nancy Xu and husband and wife team Oksano and Jonathan Platero. As tomorrow is my daughter's birthday I have been remembering a show that we took her to in Cheltenham as a birthday treat a few years, 'Rip it Up: the 60s', which starred Harry Judd, Louis Smith and Aston Merrygold - previous Strictly winners. As it was her birthday she wanted to meet the stars so we went backstage and waited and eventually out they came. As photographer mum I took her picture with each of them - all were very polite and amiable - and fortunately the photos came out all right! A favourite band of hers during her teenage years was The Wanted and we took her, and a friend, to a number of concerts including a VIP ticket one in Cardiff where she got to meet and greet all the band. She was somewhat disappointed that Jay McGuiness (her favourite back then) joined the Rip It up show later in London, but she is interested to see how another band member, Max George, gets on this year.

I hope that everyone stays safe during these difficult times,

Best wishes, Julie

September 2020

 It's almost a month since my last post for MillCottageRetro during which we have had some warm sunny weather (like now) and some colder damper weather - I think I prefer the former as it enables me to do what I enjoy - potter about in the garden and read in the fresh air listening to the sounds of nature. I have sewn some Sweet William seeds and pricked about half out for planting out next year and have also potted up some little seedlings that have started to appear in the garden in the hope that they will survive until next year in the greenhouse - I think that they are lychnis that have self-seeded in the wildlife area. We have had no further trips since my last post but I think that we have now left it too late as the coronovirus infections start to rise again. We had hoped to see my daughter as her birthday is at the end of October but she is currently living in Greater Manchester which is something of a covid hotspot at the moment.

I have been busy listing new items, and my husband discovered some boxes of kitchenalia and glass vases, in the garage, that used to be my mother-in-law's - it's amazing what keeps appearing in there. I have taken many photographs so will be ready to add them to Etsy in the coming week or so. Below are some items that I have already recently added.

I have also spotted a couple of things on Etsy recently which I have bought for myself: firstly a small sized Hornsea muramic dish as designed by John Clappison with the enamel circles on the base which has joined the three I already have and which live on the chest of drawers in the bedroom. Then I spotted an art deco confectionery tin decorated with butterflies which goes nicely with one I purchase earleir in the year which features pansies.

We have recently discovered (via our cctv cameras) that we have a nocturnal hedgehog visitor to the garden, so my husband has made a hog hotel from pieces of wood which he had in the garden and I have begun to put out hog biscuits in the vicinity so that it will be more sure to reach its required weight before winter. If the hedgehog isn't big enough to hibernate it will most probably die, so I am trying to give it a helping hand. So far the biscuits look like a popular choice but the visitor hasn't moved into the hotel yet, but if he already has a good home that is perfectly fine. Soon, I will be ordering some suet balls which help the birds get through the colder months of the year. We still have quite a variety of avian garden vistors but the swifts have gone - I miss their screaming in the evenings - though we have acquired a pair of dunnock (though a common bird, I haven't seen them visiting the feeders this year) and a wren family, which quite likely were responsible for the nest that my husband found on his old David Brown tractor at the upper part of the garden.

Postscript: since I started this post last week the weather has become much colder and we have actually switched on the central heating which has been off since March or April. In the next day or two I shall have to check our FIT reading - we have fourteen (?) solar panels in the garden which produce electricity for us during the sunnier months and the surplus goes into the grid. It is the latter meter that I have to check to submit the reading. To give you some idea, the reading for the last quarter brought in just over £400 but it was an unusually sunny spring here. Now there is just the two of us, we don't use half as much electricity as before, and I always try to hang the washing out on the line when possible as the tumble drier (along with the washing machine) are two of the guilty culprits as far as energy consumption goes.

Anyway, I will stop now and hope you have a healthy and peaceful couple of weeks,

Best wishes, Julie

August 2020: visits and days out

 I hadn't realised that it had been such a long time since I had written a post for MillCottageRetro - six weeks or more; I can only think that I had a post in mind and had written it in my head but not actually written it down. Anyway, here I am now! I am planning to reopen MillCottageRetro next week having had a short break to enjoy my birthday (at home) and the lovely sunny weather - possibly the last we shall have this year unless we get an Indian Summer in September or October. I am still adding items to the shop as well as renewing - maybe one or two new items on most days. When I have added the larger homewares items I still have a lot of vintage and retro jewellery and perfume bottles, so that will keep me busy for a while!

Yesterday we had a trip to Cheltenham (about 12 miles away) to see our son and his girlfriend who live near Pittville Park, so we walked round to the park and had a picnic lunch which was all vegan as they are too. I had managed to get some vegan doughnuts from The VeganKind Supermarket (online) which are as rare as hen's teeth so we sampled a few different flavours - lemon drizzle, chocolate hobnob, maple pecan etc. They are only on sale from 2.30pm on Wednesdays and sell out quite quickly. We were lucky with the weather which, although quite cloudy, didn't drench us with a shower or blow our picnic away in the blustery wind.

A week or so before that we had a day out to Buscot House, Buscot Weir and Buscot Lock on the River Thames (all National Trust) topped off with a refreshing cold drink at The Swan at Radcot. We didn't have to book for the House which, although NT, is a less busy destination, The Weir was popular with younger folks and families who found the river tempting as it was one of those very hot days we had. Here are one or two pictures:

It was probably our most adventurous day out so far as previously we had only been to a National Gardens Scheme open Garden near Tewkesbury which was for a couple of hours.

I have discovered all sorts of new products during lockdown: when there was a shortage of soap I started buying handmade soap which has the added advantage of not adding palm oil to the ingredients - as we all know we should avoid products that include palm oil! I also use vegan skincare products including this Vitamin C range from Superdrug - the facial wash has a very refreshing effect. There are many small producers on Etsy that make handmade soap and skincare products and I am sure that is worth giving them a go.

This is a selection of colourful ceramic jugs that I have and which reside on the bedroom window sill of my daughter's old room. I acquired them a year or two ago on a collecting spree when we visited antique fairs and flea markets (remember those!) and they make a cheerful display, They are a mixture of old French jugs, WadeHeath, BurleighWare and fun Victorian majolicaware in the shape of ears of corn. On the left are the more subdued tones of the blue Hastings Pottery bowl which lives in the kitchen (which I have had for decades) and a small beige and brown studio pottery vase which moves all round the house ( I have had this for more than five years, probably)

These are two pieces of Toni Raymond ceramics - the 'Mops and Things' sink tidy I purchased a few months ago from an Etsy seller which, along with the wooden soap holder, was my attempt to make the sink area more eco friendly instead of using some old plastic pots which had been there for ages. It's the small things that make a difference, eventually. The pot with the orange or peach on and which I use as a candle holder would have originally been a preserve pot but now missing its lid. I have had this for ages and don't recall where it came from, but I love the design. I find that some Toni Raymond pieces I really like and some I don't like at all, but they mostly date from the 1960s and were made in Torquay in Devon. Apparently the company also acquired the Babbacombe Pottery in 1967. The Pottery Studio website has examples at: http://www.studiopottery.com/cgi-bin/mp.cgi?item=219 and sellers on Etsy also have various Toni Raymond pieces.

I think that is all for now - if I carry on much longer I probably won't get it posted until too long after I began and there is only a week left in August,

Stay safe and Staycation, Julie

July: social distancing, masks and wet weather

Here we are in July, but unfortunately without the glorious weather that we had earlier in the year though the rain was much needed for the garden. We have ventured slightly further afield to the Post Office  and the Pharmacy (me) and Gardners (a home and garden store) and APD (a car parts shop) (Roy), but are still getting our groceries delivered by Ocado and Abel & Cole and VeganKind Supermarket. I have taken the opportunity of the wet weather today and tomorrow to catch up with the blog.
I have changed the MillCottageRetro sections around after having a bit of  brainwave - making fewer of them and relating to activities rather than being over specific. It's a good idea to have a change around now and then. I am having quite a few sales in this shop at the moment for some reason but hopefully the others will catch up!
I am eying up the next jigsaw on the pile - one that I bought from Postcript earlier during lockdown - which will be the fourth one I will have done and which are all 1,000 piece ones. I do like a challenge but two that I bought from the Literary Gift Company were fiendishly difficult; fortunately my daughter sent an easier one as a belated Christmas present.

The above book on St Ives artists is one of the factual books that I am reading at present, also purchased from Postscript which is mainly about the modern art movement there since the end of World War One, rather than the Edwardian and Victorian artists that came before.
I am still adding items to MCR from the 'Draft' section that I wrote up during lockdown whilst the shops were closed, but have nearly run out of those so will have to raid my stash of objects to photograph and describe.
We had quite a magical couple of days this week as far as wildlife goes as, in addition to the various birds visiting the feeders, we saw: a lizard that lives in the stone wall; a weasel just outside Roy's shed and a hedgehog, late at night. We think that the last probably came from the neighbour's garden as there is a small gap at the edge of the wall around which he could walk, but today some workmen are installing a fence and wire mesh to fill the gap to keep the neighbour's dog in so it looks like he won't be able to get through any more - but at least we saw him once!
Anyway, I am hopeful of better weather tomorrow so will probably be distracted from Etsy and be sitting outside - never mind!
Stay safe and look after yourselves,
Julie

Unlocking lockdown: June

Life for us continues much as normal with my regular morning routine of catching up with messages and notifications on my phone over a morning cup of tea and slice of rye bread toast with olive oil spread. Then outside to check whether anything in the greenhouse or garden needs watering and to replenish the bird feeders. This is a photo of the new protected ground feeder for the ground feeding birds, such as robins and blackbirds.

 

Most of the baby birds in the locality seem to have fledged by now and the feeding has become less frantic. During the course of the day I can expect to see in or from the garden: goldfinches, blue tits, great tits, greenfinches, chaffinches, great spotted woodpeckers, blackbirds, robin/s, jackdaws, rooks (occasionally), magpies (occasionally), feral pigeons, collared doves, jay (very occasionally), swifts, swallows, buzzards, red kites and either kestrel or sparrowhawk. Sadly we watched the latter bird of prey ambush a goldfinch at one of the protected feeders whilst we were having our morning coffee in the garden. It swooped from behind us, but couldn't get the bird through the bars of the cage but did kill it. It would almost have been better for the kestrel /sparrowhawk to succeed in getting the prey, having killed the smaller bird. It was difficult to make out which bird was the attacker but I did notice that it was a brownish red colour and quite small. It did struggle to get the goldfinch through the bars for quite a few seconds, until it gave up when my husband stood up and waved his arms around. We have seen a similar bird chasing a smaller bird from the feeder at least once before which we must expect as we live on the edge of the countryside and not get too sentimental about it.
Still, on a more cheerful note, it looks as though the goldfinches have done well this year as there is always a crowd or 'charm' at the feeders, as have the blue tits and great tits. We have seen several woodpeckers as well as heard them in a distant half dead tree.
 MillCottageRetro is open once again after being closed for some three months and, although I am not going to the Post Office, Hermes are a regular and satisfactory courier around our way. As well as the usual editing renewals (each listing is valid for 4 months for a payment of $0.20), some with alterations and updates, I have also been adding new items as drafts - though probably not as many as I should have liked. I will be adding a few of these each week.
Our garden is doing better this year with more bees and insects which are, hopefully, attracted by the types of plants I have introduced. Below is the wildlife area with Californian Poppies, Cornflowers and Corn Marigolds.

To match the summer garden theme I have selected a few items from MillCottageRetro to illustrate the theme. All available for sale now:

Don't miss the current special offer of Buy Two items and get one under the price of £10 free! These itema above are: a Portmeirion planter, a pair of pink Victorian style handled vases. a Voctorian style green glaa jug decorated with lily of the valley and a CarltonWare sunflower milk jug. Below are a few pieces that I will be adding soon:

Stay safe and keep looking after yourselves and hope that you are enjoying fabulous weather like that we have been having here in the Cotswolds.

Shielding: last week of May

Tuesday morning, it looks to be set to be a fairly hot day already and it is only ten o'clock. I have been out to water the seedlings in the greenhouse and pricked out a few little Sweet Basil plants, also scattered some Californian Poppy seeds on the wildflower garden and given all the garden a sprinkling with the watering can not forgetting to top up the bird bath. Then I put some suet nibbles and robin and blackbird friendly seed mix out too - as they don't use feeders, but feed from the ground, I always make sure there is some for them too. The same would be the case for thrushes and dunnock but we don't have those birds visiting our garden. The blue tits are still liking the suet balls and all the finches love the sunflower seeds which are in a separate squirrel and large bird proof feeder.
Now back inside I am about to review the expired listings in all my three shops which still remain closed. I have read on Twitter via the #vintageshowandsell hosts that Drew Pritchard has established a #salvagesundays spot to cater for thse who are having flea market or antiques fair withdrawal symptoms. As my shops have been closed I have not been participating except for 'liking' other people's items but with the 23rd June (our shielding date) now a few weeks off I might allow myself to start thinking about it.
I have a rather nice little studio pottery vase that I use to put a spray or two of small flowers in and which has an, as yet unidentified, makers mark. As I like it so much I will probably hang on to it for now but sometimes use it as a prop in photographs

A new potter (to me) that I have found this week is Sara Moorhouse whose work is both colourful and perfect in form. This just one example but she has a website at saramoorhouse.com and her new collection in a vibrant yellow is entitled 'St Ives'

Self isolation month three: May

Although the lockdown has been relaxed somewhat, as both I and my husband are in the 'shielding' category, we are still staying at home with food and other household essentials being delivered. We have taken a few short walks locally, the longest being three miles which incorporates three villages in the Coln Valley: Coln Rogers, Coln St Dennis, Calcot and back to our village of Winson. It is easy to social distance as there have been few people about when we have been out, just the odd jogger and dog walker.We start our walk off-road through the field behind our house and along a public footpath. The weather has been more unpredictable during the last couple of weeks, but the last day or so have been warm enough to sit out though a little windy. I have read that we can expect a mini heatwave over the weekend but we will see! (The latest is that it will not happen until Wednesday! NB  It is now Wednesday and it is happening here in the Cotswolds) I can tell that we have had little or no rain recently as our water butts are at a low level. A daily task is to water the seedlings and seed pots (some wild rocket and basil seedlings just emerging!) in the greenhouse and also some of the plants outside which need an extra drink. At about the same time I usually put some bird food out on the front lawn: suet nibbles, suet balls crumbled up, Robin and Friends seed mix and whatever else comes to hand. Hopefully all baby chicks will have fledged soon. Only last night I saw four swifts performing aerial ballet above our house on their arrival back from South Africa.

This morning we made an application for the Self Employed Income Support Grant for my husband which went through without too many complications, so will wait and see if it appears in our bank account next week. I was considering doing the same because, although my income is much less than his, I have closed my Etsy shops and, as R says it would pay for some groceries! Latest news on that, however is that my trading income is less than my non-trading income so I am not eligible. I have had asthma since I was in my twenties and take regular inhaler medicine twice a day so believe that I would probably be at risk even though I am 64. I also have a regular winter flu jab so consider myself to be in the category of people who have to 'shield' themselves.

Like many others I have been watching the Great British Sewing Bee and particularly like the various takes on a 1940s tea dress in the first episode. The next be lingerie which I am not so sure about. I expect I am not alone in wondering when we are likely to get to visit a flea market or vintage festival again. I remember this time last year visiting the Malvern Outdoor Antiques Fair where I bought an enamel bowl which had been planted up with cacti and which is in the greenhouse at present but will soon be allowed outside as the frosts should be over for this spring (touch wood). As I am compiling my figures for last year's tax return I can see that I also bought a Peter Rabbit bookshelf with books and leaflets and a small collection of lead animal figures. About this time we also visited  a couple of local car boots and the Stockton Park Vintage Nostalgia Festival.

I recently discovered a new contemporary potter through a Facebook page - her name is Mary Rich and she has a studio near Truro in Cornwall. She has been working as a full time potter since 1962 and is a Fellow of the Craftsmen Potters Association. Her pieces are known for the precious metal lustres which decorate them. I have found a few examples:


Although they are mostly functional they look far too precious to use.

If there is anybody who hasn't visited the Art Uk website now is the time - they have introduced a new tool called Curation with which anyone can curate their own art exhibition. The origin of Art UK was to record all the art in public buildings which are not usually open to the public at large, such as council offices, hospitals, schools and so on. I learnt about it at an Arts Society lecture and looked it up afterwards - the digital collection can be searched by title and artist. Their recent podcast considers the relationship between art and mythology https://tinyurl.com/ycc6fqqv 
Grayson Perry's Art Club has also been fascinating: Monday's episode considered the view from your window which was very pertinent right now.

I have also been picturing some of my ceramic collection to join in with merlesvintagechallenge on Instagram in which pictures are shared in accordance with the set theme which this week is floral which is great.
Anyway that's all for now - I think I will catch some of that sunshine outside!

Self Isolation: month 2, April 2020

Hi folks,
I though that I might as well 'diarise' some of my week during lockdown as my Etsy shops are closed for the foreseeable. The lovely weather last week, and the week before, made me think that it would continue indefinitely but sadly it was not to be. While the sun shone I was able to plant some seeds, mainly of cottage garden flowers such as daisies and pansies, both outside and in the greenhouse. The downside was that I also had to start watering everything so the rain has been a timesaver in that respect. Roy and I also ventured out during the fine weather on a couple of short local walks, starting off through the field at the back of our cottage and walking on to the next village and then back. It was easy to social distance from the few people that we met who were mostly going for their daily run or walking the dog. We met someone we knew in the next village who has had various operations on his legs so is not able to go far, if anywhere. From the safety of the lane and well away from his garden wall, which he was a good distance behind, we had a chat.
I have been renewing items in my Etsy shops as they expire and when I get some time I have been listing new items but have been saving them as drafts so that they do not appear 'live'. My self isolation has lasted since the second week of March and Roy's a couple of weeks after that. The last time we went out was on the 3rd March to a Strictly Come Dancing show in Swindon with Giovanni Pernice and Nancy Xu, and we were quite worried about that but fortunately all was well and the number of infections in both Gloucestershire and Swindon were low at the beginning.
I have a fair amount of backstock to work my way through, so not being able to go out to look for new stock is not too big a problem, but I must admit that I am not getting through it very fast! My time has been spent on searching out suppliers for our household essentials and supermarket slots for deliveries. Like everyone else, I have taken up baking again to make stocks go further. I can't say that I have taken up any new challenges but have some jigsaws to pass the time. I usually pick 1000 pieces to make it a challenge but, as Roy does not join in, I am on my own on that one! I have done some reading but not as much as I though I would, possibly because I find too much reading at once makes my eyes ache these days.
I have watched all of the first six Star Wars films in chronological order and all eight of the Harry Potters and Roy has watched most of those too. We enjoy Killing Eve on Sunday evenings even though it is a bit violent, The Repair Shop and The Curse of Oak Island on Wednesdays. The next box set may be the Marvel Cinematic Universe films in chronological order starting with Captain America but I don't know how far we will get with those. I also have some episodes of Hypothetical to watch on the Sky Planner, as well as Gardener's World, though they couldn't be more different!
One of the things that I do on a regular basis is feed the birds every day - as well as the bird feeders on the tree which are squirrel proof for the small birds, I scatter an array of suet nibbles and bird seed over the lawn for our close corvid neighbours who are the rooks, jackdaws and crows who nest in some very tall trees not far away.
I am wondering which direction to go with MillCottageRetro after the lockdown. I am wanting to continue with the same number of items in the shop but showcase smaller things, partly because of the space needed to store them but also the amount of packaging that is required to pack them! I'm not sure that I can think of many retro homewares that would be small so may have to change tack - if anybody has any ideas please let me know .....

Winter

We are now well into winter and have had a couple of sharp frosts so far, in this part of the Cotwolds, which has seen me put out the suet balls, peanuts and seed mixes for our local birds - yes, even the rooks and crows who live in our very tall trees across the road. I have some squirrel proof feeders for the small birds to make sure everyone gets their share. As we live in a village about six miles from our larger town, Cirencester, the colder weather has seen me making more trips to our local Post Office in Northleach with parcels.
In November we went on a day trip to Worcester with a local Arts Society group and the highlight of the day was a visit to the Royal Worcester porcelain museum where we had a very informative talk by a senior mould maker, now retired as the models are no longer made in Worcester but have been taken over by Portmeirion. He showed how a model is created using liquid slip, a mould for an arm and a complete white model of a famous local footballer. He was involved with the work on many limited and valuable editions, including spending months in Vienna working on a special piece for Goldschneider. We spent the rest of the morning looking round the museum which had some rare pieces from the eighteenth and nineteenth century, including some pierced work by George Owen and beautiful examples of hand painting of fruit and cattle by the Stinton family. There was also a small collection of 19th century art pottery which looked very contemporary. Unfortunately, my companion caught a cold at the event which was passed to me thus causing me to miss my Poetry Circle meeting that month.
Prior to that I attended a meeting of the Scandinavian Interests group of a local U3A (University of the Third Age to younger readers!). The morning session included a talk about, and display of, Scandinavian glassware from Iitalla to Holmegard and more, with a collection of decorative tableware which included candle holders, decanters and vases.
On the Etsy front, I have been working through my stash to add more items to MillCottageRetro and have yet more waiting in the wings to be added. I work more indoors these days, though I heat my Outside Studio (shed!) during the winter months - now our youngest has moved out I am utilising a small corner of his old room for a desk and PC! (It remains his room, though!). I also do my packing inside - in the kitchen - though the packaging materials are also outside in the Stationery Store (another shed!). I don't have any pictures to add, as yet, as I took the photos of the Worcester visit on my phone and haven't yet added them to my PC. I can add some, however, when I put the posting URL on my Etsy Facebook page.
At the beginning of December we went to an exhibition at The Wilson in Cheltenham on the craftsman and designer, Ernest Gimson, who settled in the Cotswolds along with a team of like minded people, some of whom were based in the village of Sapperton, a few miles from Cirencester. There were some interesting exhibits, especially a pair of firedogs with a squirrel design and various items of furniture. Earlier this month we went to a lecture at our own Arts Society branch which was about the depiction of glass objects, usually vases, bowls and glasses, in paintings by old masters - the aim was mainly to illustrate the virtuosity of the artists but it also included something on the history of glass which was most interesting.
This past weekend I took part in the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch and, fortunately, as I usually put out food for them in various containers hanging from an old tree that I can see from my desk, there are quite a variety with goldfinches, blue tits and great tits being the most numerous and lesser well known visitors, such as a greenfinch, nuthatch and coal tit putting in an appearance, along with a jay.
We have had a few more days of frosty weather but, as it is now the end of January we might not being getting anything worse - but who knows!