Holiday Germs

Corn Stores Indoor Market

It turns out that my brain’s still full – this time with germs.

I had five days off work at Easter, spent four of them working on the Emporium, and the fifth in bed with a chest and sinus infection. What a lovely relaxing holiday! This is our little stall at the Corn Stores Indoor Market, the first event of its kind. Unfortunately the combination of a quiet town on Easter Sunday and the absolutely pouring rain meant that it wasn’t terribly well attended – but we made a few sales, and had a lovely day chatting to the other stallholders. Hopefully it will be busier next time.

Carters Steam Fair

The following day (despite feeling terrible and having to hobble around with my walking stick), I forced Paul to take me on my annual pilgrimage to Carter’s Steam Fair. We stayed less than half an hour in the end – partly because the weather was terrible, and partly because I should have really been in bed!

Carters Steam Fair

We usually have a go on the arcade machines (neither of us being big fans of the actual rides), and Paul fancied winning this little chap to go with his ever increasing collection of miniatures to paint. Unfortunately the motor had broken so the crane didn’t want to work… until a nice man with a huge chain of keys came along and opened up the machine and poked it with a screwdriver until it sprang into life!

Carters Steam Fair

Paul seems quite happy with his winnings!

Carters Steam Fair

This dapper gent (half soldier, half carousel horse) doesn’t seem too bothered that there’s a giant chicken giving him a funny look…

Carters Steam Fair

…and I think this is the best advice I was given all weekend.

It may not all be going to plan (you may not even have a clear idea of what the plan’s supposed to be!), but if there’s nothing you can do about it, why worry?

(I worry a lot. I’m working on it.)

Memories are (apparently not) made of this

Gottschlich brooches

This afternoon I was very excited to spot these two little brooches at my local church’s Autumn Fair. (It was a Christmas Fair, but I suspect they didn’t want to call it a Christmas Fair when advent doesn’t start until tomorrow.) They cost a grand total of 30p each, and although they’re rather yellowed, I was really pleased with them.

I was absolutely convinced they they were a) Holly Hobbie, and b) the same as a mug and plate my sister and I each had when we were kids. Turns out I was wrong on both counts.

They’re definitely not Holly Hobbie. The little girl above is Holly Hobbie, and these little girls aren’t even her friends. (How mean.)

Gottschlich brooches and Purbeck plate

They’re also not the same as the plate and mug I had as a kid! I was absolutely 100% convinced that the little girl with the yellow cap and pink apron was on this plate. Wrong again!

However, the two little brooches are by the same artist as the plate – Gisela Gottlschlich, a German illustrator. The plate and mug are by Purbeck of Swanage, but Gottschlich’s designs must have been licensed very widely, as there are ceramics by all sorts of different companies listed on Ebay.

I’m now wondering whether the little dark haired girl is the one from my sister’s plate and mug – I know I’ve seen her before. Usually I had things with pictures of dark haired girls and my sister with blonde, to match our own hair.  (Let’s not talk about the brunette Girl’s World head that you couldn’t dye the hair of, when my sister had fancy streaking pens for her blonde one. Apparently I made up for that by messing with my own hair in later life!), But if our names happened to be on the plates with the opposite-coloured illustrations, then maybe my sister does have the dark haired girl on her plate and mug. I’ll have to ask.

Either way, I’ll be keeping one of these little brooches, and hoping my sister would like to have the other.