Crinoline Robot's vintage week (and then some)

A lottery win and a bigger house and I'd buy 'em.
On Saturday I met up with Liza (The Vintage Knitter) and Gisela (Miss Magpie's Musings) for a day out in Bath. I know, everyone comes to Bath - I'm very spoiled with not having to travel far to see people! One of these days I'll actually have to take a proper journey to visit someone. Anyway, we had a fab day out, ponking round the farmer's market at Green Park Station, eyeing up the amazing vintage jewellery in Bartlett Street Antiques Market (this was yer actual gold, not costume jewellery) and ambling up Walcot Street to look at the vintage shops.

Bath's a bit rubbish if you need practical things like a washing up bowl or a mop, but if it's Edwardian earrings or giant bronze cat-things you want, the city's got you sorted. The Christmas Market starts this week, which is a fortnight of hell for those of us who live/work there as coach parties converge on the already-congested centre. I avoid the city centre during the daytime as much as possible for that period, and try to avoid catching the train if I can (nightmare) but will take wanders round it after work, when most of the coaches have gone and you can actually enjoy your mulled wine as you browse around Tat In Sheds.
It's not Christmas without these.

I didn't buy much, but I did get these mushrooms, from high-end ribbons and trimmings shop VV Rouleaux. When I was a child, my dad was in the Royal Air Force, and we were based in Holland and Germany. While we were out there, mum got some mushrooms that she wired to the end of the Christmas tree branches every year, and they're an essential part of Christmas for me - but, of course, eventually the wires snap, and nowadays the urchins like to try to chew them up, so I was running short of them. I was so happy to find more! Hopefully Ziggy and Pippin won't destroy these ones.

A good day!
I haven't done much else of late, in case the silence on this blog wasn't a giveaway. I'm into my mega-deadline period at work - I had three in the past three weeks, though none this week, thank goodness - and it hit me that while I didn't feel sad as such, I was behaving very much like someone with depression, in that I was finding the basics increasingly difficult. I'd been doing big cook-ups at weekends so I'd have something nice for us to eat during the week, but was falling back more and more on ready meals and takeaways when it wasn't Mr Robot's turn to cook, and I had clean clothes but wasn't really putting much effort into looking nice, and it was obvious that if things slipped much more my life would be a MESS. So while I had wanted to take my stress tablets only when I felt really bad, I've put myself on a regime of one every weekday morning till my early December deadlines, at the very least, are out of the way. Touch wood it seems to be working; I'm coping a lot better. Parental birthdays are SORTED and half of Christmas is too, so we're all on track. Just my three remaining magazine deadlines to get out of the way now, and some more blog posts for you if I get my act together!

Comments

  1. How lovely to have people come and visit you in Bath! I would, if it wasn't so far away ... Love the mushrooms, I have some mushroom lights, which I put in a glass bowl at Christmas. I hear you on the Christmas market, though. It's the same here in Antwerp, and then working right at the edge of the main shopping street doesn't help either. I'm sorry to hear you've been feeling a bit rough. So many deadlines must be a nightmare. Sending you a big, virtual hug from Belgium. xxx

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    1. The Belgian Christmas markets are legendary - we keep promising ourselves a trip to one one year. I can imagine they must cause mayhem for the locals, though.

      Hug gratefully received!

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  2. Fab. I wish I could have made it but there we go! There is always next time and Bath is such a terrific meeting place. The Shedds of Tat have come to Winchester too and I feel exactly like you do about Bath over their residency! Funny isn't it, I don't mind pushing through the crowds in Bath but won't do it here. You take it easy and look after yourself, lovely.xxx

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    1. I guess it's because when it's where you live, it's getting in the way of everything you usually do (in my case, blocking the route between work and the Post Office, which is hellish enough at lunchtime on its own). The inconvenience becomes so much clearer.

      We missed you! Hopefully we will all get together in January.

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  3. Ugh, Christmas markets. I don't like crowds, or vapourised roasted nuts filling the air (might feel differently if allergies weren't a problem)so I keep away from them as best I can. The mushrooms are lovely-I wasn't familiar with them being a "thing" at Christmas.
    I'm glad the tablets are helping, and I hope the deadlines come and go without much trouble.
    Housekeeping and cooking are overrated-I'd go for the ready meals ;)

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    1. I always thought the mushrooms were a German or Netherlands thing, but it doesn't seem to be. Perhaps it was a short-lived fad while we were there in the 70s and my family carried it on while the fad died off at source. I have to have them, though. I also try to cook up a gammon on Boxing Day. (Weirdly, I'll vary Christmas dinner, doing wild boar instead of goose some years, and this year we're probably having turkey, but Boxing Day gammon is sacred.)

      The problem with ready meals is we're pretty good cooks, so ready meals usually remind me why I cook things from scratch. So disappointing! But the pills are helping, Pete is cooking, and I'm firing at 75-80% again, which is GOOD ENOUGH.

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  4. Another blogger day out - I'm so jealous! Bath's nigh-on impossible to get to from Walsall unless you drive (boo!)
    Those cats are ace and I love your 'shrooms - they're too good to save for Xmas!
    Gorgeous photo of you, you don't half suit a head band.
    Hope the tablets do the trick and you get through these scary deadlines unscathed. Take care. xxx

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    1. We could always have a get-together nearer Walsall at some point. Brum's not impossible for me. And I wonder if many of us could manage Bristol? That's on both the Cardiff-London and Manchester-Brum-Bristol routes.

      I love my headbands. Pete says they make me look like Axl Rose, but I don't care.

      Tablets are working. They basically stop the fight/flight response, so I can think clearly and deal with stuff.

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  5. I waved at you in Bath on Friday afternoon as I headed towards Devon and back again on Sunday...

    You look very glamorous in your photo, Mim. I l love your lippie!

    Glad to hear you're feeling a bit perkier and you sound very organised to me!

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    1. *Waves back*

      Organised is my job. I'm back up to kicking butts again...

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  6. Bah Humbug! I don't miss Xmas nor all the consumeristic hype that goes with it. For some reason I found all that nonsense depressing too.
    My relatives in Louisiana always put mushrooms like that on their Buche de Noel.

    Hang in there, baby!

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    1. I love Christmas, when Pete and I do it our way - lots of good food, films on telly, and just us and the cats. I don't miss the chaos of a huge family Christmas at all. My mum's an extrovert and loves filling the house with people, and I can't bear it.

      Hmm. Perhaps I should mushroom theme this year's trifle. I haven't thought of what to do trifle-wise this year...

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  7. Hi Mim, glad to hear that you are feeling more cheery. That is great that you have got all your December deadlines out of the way. It must be a big relief. Bath sounds like a great day out. I am very taken with the bronze cats. Don't think that they would last long outside a house in Glasgow though before they ended up at the Scrappie. Whereabouts in the Netherlands did you live? I used to live there too and get a bit misty-eyed about it, especially this time of year. when the Speculaas was on the go. The guy that I sit next to in work is Dutch and he gave me a stroopwaffel yesterday. Love your mushrooms. They are gorgeous. You look absolutely lovely in your pic and are rocking that hair band. Navy is definitely one of your colours. Xx

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  8. It was a great day out with no train traumas either so win-win! Well we certainly had those mushrooms when I was little (and when I described them to my Mum she knew exactly what I meant) so they were definitely a German/Dutch thing.

    I'm glad you decided to take the tablets for a wee while again, I have been thinking about you all week and how you are, especially with the deadlines that are due. Here's to the new year and new beginnings. xxx

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