PRETTY PICTURES OF 1883.

A very sweet Victorian picture, Randolph Caldecott was mainly known for his book illustrations and this book was published 3 years before he died and he was better known for his children’s book illustrations, and a member of the RA.

As with all my books this one is a little tatty, mind you it is a good few years old!  but it is complete and the inside clean and legible and truly delightful.

It is amazing what a good nights sleep will do for a woman – today I feel almost human, And the sun is ‘shinning’ a family joke, shining and I was going to say ‘All is well with the world’ (Pippa’s Song) however it is not but on a day like today I feel that for our children and grandchildren it might be one day.

So having drunk my coffee I am off to get on with the day, keep well out there.

VIRTUALLY NORMAL NOW! NEARLY.

It is 10 past five – in the morning!

I have been wide awake for about 2 hours now, this insomnia seems to be part of the strange new world that we have all had to get used to over the last few months.

And this is really the first time that I have felt the urge to write again on my Blog.

It has all seemed so overwhelming and pointless and weird and strange and to be honest I am not sure why I am feeling that today I can write.  Perhaps I just need to empty my brain out and this is a way to do it.

In spite of the fact that we are old, in the real world of ‘before’ we were usually quite busy.  We ‘wheel and deal’ in the Antique world and that usually keeps us on the move.

Normally we have a routine of no routine and travel around from Fair to Fair, selling and buying and meeting up with friends and acquaintances and in between meeting up with our loved ones and never dreaming that our lives and everyone else’s would be tipped upside down in this way.

And now under ‘Lock Down’ our lives have become just us really and a routine of not sleeping, getting up late, eating too much, etc.  The normal of now!

We walk almost everyday, sometimes only as far as the bench just down the road and occasionally down to the village and back, sadly we are not as fit as we were.

The Pokemon that the Grandchildren put on my phone has become my constant companion, he counts in many ways,  how far we walk each day.  I suppose I could just have a pedometer but actually a Pokemon is rather like having a pet dog, without the loose hair and the Poo Bags.  That’s him in the picture above, the more you walk with him the cheekier he gets and now demands treats and sometimes runs away and hides.  You can tell I like him can’t you?  ‘Second childhood’ I hear you mutter, too right!

We have recently become involved in the ‘Virtual World’ and are part of an On-Line Antique Co-operative and every few weeks we will stand a Virtual Fair.  My mind is ‘boggling’ at the amount of learning I have had to do regarding the technicalities of it all.

The house and my brain are in the same kind of chaos.  My days are increasingly filled with unpacking stock and working out how to get it into ‘Virtuality’  in the right place, at the right time and now we have decided that we need to do little video cameo’s, interesting facts to inter-space between the selling items.  Another steep learning curve.

And my daughter, my go to rescuer, deems that I have to do ‘Tags’ and on occasion ‘Hash Tags’ and other complicated things.

It is time that I shut up and went away but before I go I am just going to try one of those things that she insists I need to know.

@MidcenturyAndAntiquesUKCooperative, Maybe it will work and we will all end up in the same place, maybe not!

 

 

THE SPHERE, 1907

I am practising this morning, photography and I am discovering that it is really hard to take good pictures of large old books, this one is dated 1907.

On May 8th/ 9th we are going to ‘stand’ with many other dealers, a virtual Antique Fair.

@Virtual Midcentury Antique and Collectors Fair.

Lyn Chapman has created this event for Midcentury and Antique UK Co-operative, basically because we Dealers are all going ‘stir crazy’ under the lock down and who knows when we will get back to standing proper Fairs!

Hence the importance of taking good pictures of our goods.

Bound copies of The Sphere dated 5th October to 29th December 1907, in good condition, not mint, but sound binding and complete.

And some great adverts!  I couldn’t resist this one, in light of President Trumps latest gaffe – perhaps this is where he got his information.  Don’t do it!!!!!

And in the December issues some really great seasonal articles for children and grown-ups.

And a ‘catch-up of the year as always at the end of December.

It is quite hard to choose which pictures to post, there are news items and celebrities and politicians and disasters and wonderful adverts, I am spoilt for choice really.

And I am hoping that there are enough little snippets here to tempt someone to think that they might love to own this book, you never know.  £75 plus carriage, postage really but ‘carriage’ sounds right for the date.

And if there are any Antique and Collectable Dealers out there who are interested in joining in please contact us, and get photographing.

MILLERSBURG CARNIVAL GLASS PUNCH CUP

This green Carnival Glass punch cup, was made by Millersburg, USA in about 1910, the pattern is ‘Multi Fruits and Flowers’ and priced on our stall £27.

Millersburg only manufactured glass for about three years.  They made beautiful designs, very sought after but were terrible at running a business.

And consequently today, over a century later their Carnival Glass is much desired by Collectors all over the world for its beauty and rarity.

And the pattern on this little cup is rather rare but rare doesn’t always equate to price.  Now had we got the Punch Bowl or a Water Pitcher, or even blue Punch Cups instead of green in ‘Multi Fruits and Flowers’ we would be looking at prices in the thousands!

Never mind we might find treasure in the next box we open and in the mean time if you want a little piece of Millersburg just message me.

 

A PENSIONER’S LIFE, CHAPTER UMPETY!

I gave my I-phone to my Other Half yesterday and sent him off to play with it’s camera and guess what he photographed?

No prizes for getting the answer right – Carnival Glass, he found a rich seam of Tumblers and Punch Cups and spent a happy hour in the sunshine whilst I ruined another bag of flour trying to cook an edible loaf.

His own phone, as I have remarked in the past barely takes telephone calls, especially as he never charges it.  So he was very proud of the 70 odd pictures that he produced on mine and now he is waiting for me to post them on to various sites, Instagram, Ebay etc.

Perhaps that should be lesson 2, posting them.   Although I am still learning myself with varying success.

And the birds in the garden will be grateful when I concentrate more on the laptop and less on the cooking, they all have bent beaks at the moment.  And I am remembering now that in the last great Bread and Toilet Roll crisis some time decades ago when the kids were little, I couldn’t make bread with any success then either!

I am defrosting a loaf out of the freezer as we speak (so to speak) and happily I didn’t make it.

The punch cup on this post is ‘Pinwheel’ c1960 in smoke coloured glass.

 

 

THE PRACTICALITIES OF LIFE!

‘Lotus and Thistle’ made in America by Fenton around 1911, a rather rare little piece of Carnival Glass with a ‘Berry and Leaf’ back pattern.

We are still sorting Carnival Glass, I have to admit that we are being very desultory about it.  We need looming dead-lines to spur us along and the way this plague is going it looks like it could be months before we need to stress about our next Antique Fair.

And the nice weather isn’t helping, I would rather be pottering in the garden.  The salad and vegetable seeds that I ordered a few weeks ago have finally arrived and I am itching to get out there and sowing.

And speaking of ‘sewing’ (which I know we aren’t) it was the Sewing Bee on television last night, I just love it.  Strange really because I only have to look at a sewing machine and it crunches itself to pieces!  But I love the programme and if they could run the ‘Great Pottery Throw Down’ along side it, I could sit happily not doing my embroidery for a couple of hours just enjoying the cleverness of other people.

Turns out that I love watching other people working, who knew!  I also love watching Dick Strawbridge and Angel in their Chateau, and the spin off about other Chateau owners and cooking programmes.

I am an ‘expert’ on the theory but just rubbish on the practical side – can you plant lettuce seeds upside down?

We shall see!

 

RESCUED, THANKS.

Not abandoned at all, thank you everyone for your advice on using Instagram.  It is all helpful.

My Other Half doesn’t do technology on a serious basis.  He takes what is useful to him and then moans at me when he can’t sort things out.

Consequently he can read his kindle but the buying and sorting of books is a complete mystery to him.  His mobile phone is also fairly useless, unless I remind him daily he never charges it and any messages on it are a surprise feature.

He rarely answers emails, texts etc. although we have made progress he does occasionally read them.

He likes to see what I post, most of it is his prized Carnival Glass after all and he is sometimes very critical of my photography, which as you can imagine doesn’t always go down well.

Anyway today I have had a rest from difficult things and pottered in the sunshine, pulling up the odd weed and admiring my washing blowing in the breeze.

And he has made his signature dish, Cheese and Potato Pie, one for tomorrow (we have  Curry today) and one for the freezer.

I had a lovely letter from my Grand Daughter this morning.  We often message each other but at the age of 16 writing a proper letter is a new thing for her and she was absolutely amazed to find that you had to buy stamps to send letters!  Between laughing I am feeling very ancient.

Anyway we have decided to become Pen Friends, I haven’t had a Pen Friend since I was 12 years old.  All so very exciting and I have already posted my reply, 5 sheets of very scribbly writing and a badly done drawing.

And just so that you don’t think that I have given up the antiques here is a detail from one of my favourite Carnival Glass patterns ‘Sailboats’ c1911 made by Fenton in the USA.

A very random post today, enjoy the sunshine if you can.

 

 

ABANDONED IN A SEA OF TECHNOLOGY!

And so the children have set me a new task, this lock down is a steep learning curve.  They have suggested that I should put some of our Carnival Glass etc. on Instagram!

Usually when they give me a new thing to do they are around to say things like ‘No. don’t do that’ or ‘You have to do this’ but of course now with a few long distant instructions I am ‘sailing’ solo, so to speak.

So every day I put something up and it took me several days to discover that although I can see ‘Instagram’ and my page on here I can only put things on via my phone.  My cursing is becoming extremely fluent as I sit here struggling.

Now it appears that only my nearest and dearest can see my posts and really I wanted the world to see and admire my cleverness.  Apparently, so they tell me, I have to do ‘hash tags’, so today I have done # but what they forgot to tell me was I have to join up whatever words I add, so basically I mustn’t leave spaces.

And so the piece of glass that I put on there today, appears under ‘Carnival’, nice pictures but not glass.

It is really hard, ‘Old dogs, New Tricks’ springs to mind and hence the lovely picture I have used for this blog is from my old picture file, I still haven’t worked out how to get pictures from my phone onto my laptop on a regular basis.  Sometimes I can, more often I can’t!

Technology is hard, specially for people whose only piece of equipment they had when they started school was a slate with a scratchy, squeaky stick thing!

Anyway back to my Pokemon.

 

FOOD!

I am finding this new way of living – peculiar!  I am not sure whether I like it or not.

We had the last crumpets for breakfast (they freeze well), one and a half each, then I had  a banana for elevenses, and just now a cannoli.  I have three more in the fridge, my daughter left them on the doorstep for me along with a few other essentials yesterday.

And it is only 1 o’clock, really time for several more snacks before our main meal at 5-ish.

And at the moment food is ‘god’, not just for me but everyone.  It seems to be consumed and thought about on a constant loop.  No wonder the Supermarkets are working all hours to keep us supplied.

I suppose the good thing is that whilst we are so busy worrying about starving to death it is keeping us from panicking around in circles about how the world as we know it has gone and it may never be the same again.

My family call me up every day to make sure that we are ok and have everything we need, we all chat of ‘ships and shoes and sealing wax’ etc.  But eventually the conversation always comes back to food.

It is a comforting, homey thing I think.  Whenever we all get together we share food, sometimes just a snack but often an all around the table meal, good food and conversation.  ‘Catch up’, we call it, catching up with each other,  gossip and best of all love.

Kate rang this morning and we had an in depth conversation about books and 1950’s fashion punctuated by how she is making Galettes, the laptop is arguing the spelling and I have no idea but basically little puff pastry fruit things rather like Danish Pastries.

Robert rang yesterday and we discussed the cooking of ham and how come his whisk has snapped.  Nothing to do with the ham I hasten to add!

And whilst writing this (an excuse for it being disjointed), I have made a Shepherds Pie with leftovers, my Mother- in- Law would have been proud of me.  She was a great advocate of make do and mend.

Got to go for my daily walk now to walk off a calorie or three, whilst I deliberate what my next snack will be.

Really we haven’t got time for ‘the end of the world’, to busy menu planning!

 

CASH REGISTER

.

We have this very cash register standing on the floor in our hall, dates from 1890 and is in full working order and the only reason we haven’t taken it to an Antique Fair and sold it – is that we can’t get it off the floor!

It weighs an absolute ton, so I am resigned to just dusting around it, however if anyone wants to make me an offer around the £595 mark and come and pick it up, let me know, and of course I am happy to supply further details if required.