Coming out of my shell.....

I am confident and shy in equal measure - circumstances determining which attribute comes to the fore.  So whilst it was very nice to be in the 'BBC Homes and Antiques' magazine I felt too shy to post about it - but can now as that was back in August!

The orange bowl I bought from a charity shop a few years ago - it was for Maille for Christmas (!) - she loves oranges and this bowl is made to look like orange peel on the outside - I filled it will Clementines one Christmas Eve and placed it by her bed on her chair so that she woke to a bowl of oranges (some may understand!).  The mugs were also from a charity shop - I only wanted two (one for each daughter) but at 30p each the ladies in the shop 'forced' me to buy them all and then gave the extra fish one for free (do I look as though I am in need I wonder). The old Heals light was £1 from a car boot and it worked! Our Breathless poster is getting a bit faded now - when I worked for the casting director of the National Theatre I went along to Peter Hall's rehearsals for his Jean Seberg play and I think that I bought this poster around that time.  I used to go to many rehearsals and knew the 'secret' back route from the main lobby to the Green Room without having to go round the back (through an unmarked door and down some winding corridors - I wonder if you can still do that). When I started my nurse training I took some new colleagues to the National and 'showed off' by taking them backstage to the Green Room via my secret passage (!). How to win friends and influence people....

I very much liked the title of the article - it sums all my stuff up nicely

Several things have changed round in our dining room now - always shuffling stuff around. The yellow/orange bag that I made from some 50s barkcloth I gave to a niece to carry her university books in.

Bronte has 'hippified' her bedroom since and purloined lots of my purchases made in India many years ago - she is miffed that I no longer have some of the clothes that I bought there a few decades ago but I have kept all the lovely old Indian embroideries. As far as I am concerned India is the best place in the world for shopping - my kind of shopping (oh and I quite like that old market in Bangkok where they used to sell lots of ex-colonial 'stuff' -  one of my sisters was there recently and tells me that there are still plenty of old bits.  Oh and that place in Malacca....and perhaps that nice shop we went to in Dunedin a few years ago....oh and I remember my jaw dropping when a friend took me to the one behind the Sacre Coeur - pricey but goodness me and finally remembered that super duper market on the outskirts of Belgrade...and finally,finally I remember the souk in Sana'a (our brother lived there for many years) - a market that I can only describe as being a biblical scene).  More about travels one day

So here are some 'behind the scenes' photographs taken on that day...a long day it was.  Yes I did tidy up!  Cheek!  The only room that had to have a reshuffle was our living room because televisions are not allowed in photographs apparently.  The photographs were taken in July 2011 - a long time ago and some rooms have changed a great deal since then

This is a our spare bedroom and where the ironing is supposed to take place...

This is Maille's bedroom - all systems go!

On the screen is the photograph that ended up in the magazine

I showed everyone round the house but opened and shut some doors very quickly as they were not great - one was the spare bedroom which they took photographs of....

I did not show anyone my larder cupboard (a cupboard that is supposed to contain food produce I believe but instead......) but our rubbish bin is kept in there so I opened it to get rid of some rubbish.  There was a bit of jaw clanging....I keep one or two bits of china in there.....Here is a photograph that the lovely Rachel Whiting (her photography is wonderful and is frequently in that magazine of which I no longer speak!!!) took of inside my cupboard.  There are one or two shelves....going up to the ceiling...

Not sure where to place this photo so will plonk it here! Nothing to do with the article. This purse was my sisters as a child and then it was mine (I am sure that you gave it to me Trude).  This purse was an endless wonderment for us - it moved, it did something, it was cutting edge, it was just great!   For the past few years Bronte has used it for her dinner money - I am a great believer in using old stuff - she was devastated when she thought she had lost it recently.  It turned up eventually.  

Here's winking at you kid

PS Just found some of your lovely comments in my SPAM!! I have never checked spam before so had no idea - so sorry again.  The mysteries of blogger just got a little deeper...