A Vintage Easter Lunch

To feed our hungry friends on our wallpapering workshop we put on a full vintage style lunch, with dainty finger sandwiches and home made cake, with enough food to feed a army we enjoy the fruits of our labour on our wallpapering workshop and across the rest of the easter weekend! I must admit the cake didn't last two days though, oops. 

p.s the flowers are out of my garden!

A Spanish Market

We have been going to Mallorca for years and similar to our mini moon last year ( http://vintique-tree.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/mediterranean-moments.html ) we wanted to do something that takes us away from the crazy tourist areas and into the local culture. So armed with our map we set out into Mallorca's most central town Sineu. A farmers market come brocante has been happening here every Wednesday for hundreds of years and although there are stalls for the tourists to enjoy it still has the essence of its orgins with a animal quarter and local home grown produce. Worth a trip this summer!

I wanted to bring one of these handmade sinks home! So nice!

Bees making honey while you wait!

The perfect help for hostess and housewife all the year round!

It is sad but true that now the Great British Bake Off has finished I feel a cake shaped whole in my life! However this little beauty, a purchase from ebay helps fill a void, I just couldn't resist. I love the old recipe and home making books, they make for interesting and funny reading! Someone pass me the butter cream!

Grand old duke is York

A delayed post but been busy at the antiques fairs! York is a beautiful city and we had a lovely time especially in Betty's Tea rooms. It was like stepping back in time all the ladies were dressed in black and white and the tea was served loose with a little tea strainer! Delightful! Betty's is famous because in the war airmen would sitting downstairs and drink tea and chat, a mirror with their names etched on to it is still there! It crazy to think how life has changed since then!

We were lucky to get a window seat and enjoyed fat rascals and proper English tea! We were shocked to see that later on the queue was around the block to get a table, it proves how amazing the place is!

Another one of my favourite places in York was the Imaginarium https://www.facebook.com/YscHome It was possible the most visually stunning shops I have ever been in, defo worth a look at their facebook page, as it a no photo shop but you can see why, it so lovely everyone would be snapping away and blinding the shop assistances! Its sister store next door The Yorkshire Soap Company is also brilliant, just like a patisserie but with soap!

a good weekend all round x

the fat rascal - I must find this recipe!!

The Golden Fleece is the oldest pub in York and apparently the most haunted (Most Haunted tv show have filmed there!)  I particularly like the cat popping out of the white window!!

The Shambles, a lovely cobbled street full of quirky shops...

Hehe just made me laugh, outside a florist

Fruits of the season

There is nothing lovelier than picking blackberries from the hedgerows in the autumn. My mum and I spend some time picking through the prickles to get to the wild berries, these in the picture are from pinterest, I forgot to photograph! Wild organic straight from the hedge blackberries in my experience are never this big but are so sweet and delicious they do make up for it! We got some cooking apples from a generous local farmer recently so I feel a blackberry and apple pie or crumble coming on! 

It is nice to do something that is a ritual of the past, it brings back happy childhood memories of stained hands and war wounds from tripping over brambles. Hope you all had a good weekend :-)

A day out in oxfordshire

This weekend we took a day trip out to the Cotswold's and then on to Oxford for a bit of shopping. A good day was had by all! We ate scones in the Cotswold's and pizza express in Oxford both were delicious (back on the diet today boo). A visit was also paid to The Cotswold Cheese Company a lovely deli based in Morton in the Marsh. This shop is a food dream full of interesting foods and loads of lovely local cheeses. We brought some speciality cheese and some olive bread...very very good!

I also treated myself to a Barbour international jacket I have been longing for one for sooo long and when I come upon a shop in Oxford that literally had a whole floor dedicated to Barbour I had to have one!! Start to save the pennies again now :-(