Maison Lucille*

Freda wonders what I might wear with my new leather jacket.

This has been exercising me somewhat

as there appears to be nothing suitable in my wardrobe.

I decided to design my own collection.

In this endeavour I have been marvellously assisted by Megan

of the Scent of Water,

You Tube,

and a pile of discarded magazines.

Voilà Spring /Summer 2015.

*Maison Lucile

Candy and the Rocking Horse

'Let's go in and see if we can buy it.'

Candy has sixpence to buy sweets with.

'I'm afraid you'd have to save up a lot of those
before you could buy it,'
says the owner of the shop.

Candy saves all her money.
She never goes to the sweet shop.
But oh dear, one day the extra special rocking horse
 was gone.
She is very sad.

She writes to Santa Claus.

She spends all her saved up pennies and sixpences
on presents for her father,
(three handkerchiefs)
her mother,
(a pot of daffodils)
and Peppermint the dog
(a piece of ribbon to tie on his collar).

On Christmas Eve, Candy wrapped up her presents
and put them under the Christmas tree.

What a wonderful Christmas everyone had!

This year's rather wonky Advent window
based on a children's book published in 1965
and the song
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree.

The allure of the past

 I'm not sure what I feel about 

Alastair Hendy's Home Store

after my second visit at the weekend.

Experiential shopping taken to extremes.

Who is buying the 

Denby and Woods Beryl Ware china

(aka Anglican china)

and ostrich feather dusters?

They aren't cheap here, but elevated to museum status

in their meticulously contrived vintage setting,

they exert a curious pull.

The fact that the same things can be found 

down the road in one of the many junk shops

at half the price means that people must be

 willing to pay through the nose for

the scent of the real open fires and dusty floorboards

if this oddity is to survive.

His window dressing is pitch perfect,

the attention to detail obsessive,

but the place has a haunted,

not a happy atmosphere.

It reminded me of Dennis Severs' house,

another time capsule experience

dominated by the personality of its creator.

I went in with my camera,

and wandered about in a slightly hypnotic state

but came out empty-handed into the chilly street 

with a feeling of relief.

Breezy

A bright but buffeting walk yesterday.

Stormy weather tomorrow.

If I had hatches,
I'd batten them down.
Instead I have located the candles and
the wind-up torch.

Displacement activity

Show me a woman washing candles

and I'll show you a woman

with a tax return to do.

The candle factory

In the Bleak Midwinter
Wordled and fiddled about with.
16 million HTML colour codes to play with.
Such fun.

The shop with the yellow AGA

My candles and I had an outing last weekend.

Going Shopping has never been so much fun.

Luckily someone else was in charge of the cash register.

All I had to do was lean against the yellow AGA

and pass the time of day with the customers.