The Pumping Station

Sorry everyone, another picture intensive post (as are all the posts planned this week). I'm desperately trying to get to grips with my camera and am still rather rubbish as I can't quite figure it out. I'm sure I'll run out of things to photograph soon, just bear with me.

I was at a bit of a loose end one weekend and decided to go for a wander around the Pumping Station in Cardiff, a beautiful Victorian pumping station once owned by Welsh Waters and now a treasure trove in a Grade II Listed building. Everything is for sale, and it has everything you can think of: antiques, vintage, even modern day ... erm, stuff. My parents, once they learned where I was headed, decided to tag along to hunt for a birthday present for one of their friends. The Pumping Station is so big, so packed with goodies, that we only covered the ground floor before lunch. So we headed to the nearby Harvester in Cardiff Bay for yummy goodness and then returned to the Pumping Station to scour the upstairs floor. Be warned people, you could lose days there.

Some old friends ... erm, miniturised

Apparently, this is the world's largest lion and is in the Guiness Book of Records.
When he died they stuffed him and he ended up here!

I wore my Ginger skirt that I'd made (and completely failed to blog about, shame on me). I love my Ginger skirt, unfortunately my step-dad can't seem to work my camera either and the photos he took of me were mostly too blurry to post. Suffice to say, the skirt looks awesome, fit together really well and completely deserves its own blog post (note to self, write that!).

Not only did we manage to fit in the Pumping Station, but we also decided - as the weather was being particularly lovely - to go for an ice cream and a wander along the Victorian Pier in Penarth as my parents had never been. The art deco pavillion on the pier is beautiful but in need of restoration, Penarth Arts & Crafts Ltd are asking for local volunteers to help with their planned renovations. The pavillion managed to survive a fire in 1931 that destroyed much of the pier, the Port Royal Park (a 7,000 ton ship) being blown by gale force winds in to the pier in 1947 and the Bristol Queen paddle steamer running in to the pier during dense fog in 1966. Poor thing, it's had a bit of a bad time of it, and it's one of the last remaining Victorian Piers in Wales. It's not particularly long but it has great views and, on this occasion, a local brass band playing. Any day that involves ice cream is a good day, but this one was particularly lovely.

Thanks for stopping by,

Vintage Kitchen Scales

I've mentioned before I'm using pinterest as inspiration for the different rooms in my house. One of the many pins I love is this one, the vintage scales are great and add a piece of colour and interest to the wall shelves.

{ Source: via Angie A on Pinterest }

So I set out to scour eBay for my own and found these! The label needs replacing, luckily for me I have a friend with a printing business, but in the meantime my shelves look much prettier and they go with my mixer and my Aga. The kitchen is still very much a work in progress but I love all the little steps like these that take you closer to the finished product.

Shelves, crockery, glasses and cake stand - Ikea

Scales - eBay

Birdie measuring cups - John Lewis

Poppy glass picture - local garden centre

Enamel coffee pot - a present

Vintage mixer - a present

Thanks for stopping by,

The Big Cheese 2011

Every year my local town, Caerphilly, holds a free festival called The Big Cheese on the last weekend of July. So named - I presume - because once upon a time it was an actual cheese festival to showcase Caerphilly Cheese. Nowadays it's the site of a huge fun fair and market with organic food, homemade gifts and exotic animal showcases (the birds of prey are fabulous). There's living history and battle re-enactments in the castle, not to mention the mead and ale tent. Oh, and the hog roast. There's an awful lot of pig eaten at this event.

Every year I take the wolf for a wander through the crowds ... a very slow wander as we're often stopped every couple of feet by people asking about him. This year I took my camera and below are some of the things I snapped whilst out and about. Warning, a little picture intensive (I got a bit over-happy to be posting a non-css post).

I was a little fascinated by this lovely cider press, but it was awfully noisy

Thanks for stopping by,