Today is the bank holiday that symbolizes the end of summer.
Cue the rain - torrents of grey drizzle and low slung clouds.
Quite predictable really.
Unlike the new Gower bus service, which yesterday involved the usual changeover in the middle of nowhere, this time accompanied by a driver emerging from the trees carrying a large, red towel.
The mind boggles.
Perhaps he was expecting a marauding bull.
I was expecting a driver in a bus.
But as I'd had a particularly fruitful vintage trawl I let it wash over me.
Along with the mysterious trail of straw decorating the bus floor.
Vintage.
Oh my goodness, the lure of 1960s vintage.
And oldie, oversized aran jumpers.
My new favourite dress, albeit in need of a freshen up, is a vision of turquoise crotchet.
Amazing to think it is around 50 years old.
We think of impulse buying as a modern habit, but judging by the unopened packets of bed linen at this particular fair, it appears to have been alive and kicking in the '60s and '70s too!
This week has been one of international vintage winging its way through the letterbox.
My fabric stash has been boosted by Swedish daisies and orange hearts.
And I am currently trying not to be seduced by some particularly wonderful french acropal, and a bevie of tins, but I don't hold out much hope.
I'm not sure what's happening to my willpower, but it appears to have vanished.
And as a footnote an update on the fifteen year old minature rose that I'd ignored and abandoned to the point of extinction - the power of banana skins has worked its magic!
Not only has it gone from sad brown stump to fresh green shoots, it is now a mass of minature blooms!
And all due to the humble banana skin...
My increasing obsession with vintage has been fuelled by the abundance of seemingly upended sewing boxes in local charity shops, yet no sign of the original baskets or boxes they were sold in.
What happens to these boxes, a staple of family homes of a previous generation?
These would have been boxes of a certain age, handed down through generations, only to be discarded by the new throwaway generation.
A trawl through https://www.etsy.com revealed that while the UK may not appreciate these treasures from a bygone era, there are some truly beautiful wooden sewing boxes being sold in Poland, France .. Germany. All that history - all that darning!
And as for all those vintage wooden cotton spools...oh my goodness, these could be my latest obsession, plastic just doesn't cut it anymore!
So pretty, so full of history - my favourites are those from the Soviet Era, being sold in Ukraine, Estonia...Lithuania.
From a time - and a place - where everyone learned to sew, as very often there just weren't clothes to buy in the shops.
These worn and well used spools date from the early 1980s, and I love the idea of them living on in sewing projects more than three decades on!
A truly bygone era.
As is my latest doorstop, Patchouli.
She is a throwback to the early 1970s and resplendent in flower power.
In a previous life...a campervan curtain.
http://folksy.com/items/6494551-Patchouli-a-groovy-retro-dog-doorstop-1970s-flower-power-
https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/198076241/patchouli-a-groovy-retro-dog-doorstop?ref=shop_home_active_7
