Retro and vintage baby clothes and an unimpressed Aurora

The other day I got the email to say Mothercare have their summer sale on. After finishing the Futterwacken I headed over to the website. 

I wanted so much more than I was able to afford. Still, I got some great retro items: they're not clothes she can wear yet, they're all for babies over 9 months, and some are for when she's a toddler.

I absolutley love the fun, bright colours of each item, as well as the rainbow details most pieces have.

My husband likes this tracksuit top; it reminds him of the football casuals style of clothing, worn by... erm, hooligans in the 70s and 80s... nice.

I love these shorts! That's me wearing similar ones in the 80s: I look like a 118-118 mascot. 

I managed to pick up this gilet (or body-warmer, or whatever they're called these days) in a shop,rather than online. OMG I can't wait until it fits her. 

Although Aurora wears pink and florally clothes, I don't want to box her in in a pink princessy world. I love the work Let Toys be Toys and Pink Stinks do in breaking down the ridiculous limiting stereotypes foisted on children (and adults), through cynical, out-dated and damaging gendered marketing. That's one of the reasons I love the Little Bird range - the majority of the clothes are unisex, as well as retro and fun! 

Somewhere else I love and where I have also been raiding (again) for vintage gems is Rowdy Roddy Vintage . And oh my goodness have I got a gem. 

First off I got this lovely floral vintage dress...

But this, this I absolutely adore! I wish it was in my size too...

It makes me happy just looking at it. I can't wait until it fits Aurora!

If you need any more reasons to check out RRV, it'll be the lovely little extra touches, like this nursery rhyme on a card wishing us a great week: I love RRV!

And finally, here we have madam in something that is going to cause a stir at the swimming pool:  a vintage style swimming hat! With thanks to her uncle who picked up three (3-6 m, 6-9m and 9-12m) when he was in America recently. 

She's going to kill me when she's older... 

Not impressed...

Aurora's Busy Weekend

This weekend was a busy one! It was Aurora's first music festival on the Saturday and we went to the Basildon Tractor Plant open day on Sunday.

The Village Green Festival is a one-day, family-friendly event held at Chalkwell Park in Southend. The festival has been free up until this year, when adults were charged £10 each: worth EVERY penny!

There was some grumbling about the introduction of charging an entrance fee, which included an utter plank being quoted in the local paper about dropping a bomb on the organisers!? But if charging a tenner is enough to keep arseholes nuggets like him out, I am 100% for it.

The value for money is superb, this is taken from the Metal website:

600 arts, crafts, vintage and food traders 900 artists performing on 11 stages 140 volunteers 100 production crew

The fantastic line up of artists and musicians included Beth Orton, Eddi Reader (Fairground Attraction); Dan le Sac vs Scroobius Pip; New York ska band, The Slackers; from London Man Like Me; Youth Club, Shlomo; Danny and the Champions of the Worlds; Kathryn Williams; Eight Rounds Rapid; and hot tips to go global in the very near future, The Hosts!

There was also cabaret, comedy, literature and LOADS more... for £10! How can anyone grumble about that?!

The only thing I would say is that there should have been more vegetarian food stands, or at least more vegetarian options provided. From what I saw, the only choice veggies had was a cheese and onion crepe (there may have been more options but no exclusive veggy stand).

Anyway, I didn't get as many photos as I would have liked, they're mainly of Aurora, but here are a few.

 

 

 

We made it!

So that was Saturday. On Sunday we visited a tractor plant. Yep...

For toddlers and children, and for adults with a love of vehicles, this was a fantastic. It was a free event to mark the factory's 50th anniversary: activities included bouncy castles, mini golf, tractor rides and processions, live music and tours of the production line.

As someone not even faintly interested in the production of tractors, I think they should make it a yearly event: it was really good. 

Knackered from the day before (or just bored) Aurora spent the whole time asleep.

 

And there we have two excellent days out in Essex.

Vintage on the pier

Hi!

Ok, so I know it was a week ago now, but I have only just got around to uploading the photos of the vintage fair held at the end of Southend pier: it's been a hectic week! 

We were due to have stalls outside but ended up in the pavilion, due to the windy weather. There were around seven stalls - all selling lovely vintage, up-cycled and/or handmade items - along with some excellent entertainment from Perfect Vintage.

It was a lovely weekend (we missed Leigh Folk Festival though!)

Southend pier and Peter Pan's Playground (technically Adventure Island, but it will ALWAYS be Peter Pan's Playground to me!)

The journey to the end of the pier began about 9 am: the weather was lovely and the view superb (it was also nice that there was hardly anyone around). I think I will have to do an early morning pier trip more often! We used the pier train as we had all of our gear, but I imagine a stroll at 8.15 am would be fantastic!

 This is where we were due to sell from. It rained in the end so it was for the best, still... that view.

Some of the items on our stall. 

I have one problem with selling vintage, and that's selling stuff I absolutely love. I was gutted to be parted from these curtains, even though they were only in the drawer at home. I originally bought them to use in Aurora's room, as I wanted a Wind in the Willow nursery; I went for another theme in the end, so didn't use them. After selling them I found out they are going to be used as a cat blanket... 

Tit-Bits, by far the most popular item I sold. Very popular with women and men of a certain age, who all remember hiding them under their beds from their parents.

It was Aurora's first fair (attending and selling), I know she's going to love vintage too!

I managed to pick up a beautiful bargain for Aurora's room at the fair, for £4. 

Perfect Vintage brought a wonderful atmosphere to the fair - a very talented duo! 

Although it was a knackering weekend, I can't wait to do another.