Constant Catchup

That's how it feels with the blog at the moment both with posting and reading others blogs.

We've been back from Cornwall for ...  Hmmm, must be 3 weeks now and I've only blogged as far as day 3!!!

Meanwhile LIFE has been happening and I have loads more to blog about and I don't know where to start.  If I leave writing a post for too long I find I lose momentum and then I hurry it and then it really isn't doing it justice.

So, this weekend just gone ... (neatly skipping over the rest of Cornwall AND drag racing at Stratford which I WILL come back to soon!) we hitched up Maudie (our tiny 10ft retro caravan) and headed to Washingpool Farm just outside Bristol for the Bristol Aircooled event.

This event is only in it's second year, last year it was more of a private party with around 300 invited guests and it had such a chilled, relaxing atmosphere with a small beer tent, a rockabilly band playing on a trailer and a huge fire pit that we all gathered around in the evening.

This year it was slightly bigger although Adrian (who runs numerous events for upwards of 10,000 people) wants to keep this as a smaller, more intimate event to round off the summer.

On the way up I'd felt a slight tickle in my throat which told me I may be in for a dose of the cold Miss Mac had happily been trying to shower me with earlier in the week but I ignored it and focused on enjoying myself.

We were SO lucky with the weather.  I'd been watching the Met Office site all week (because SOMETIMES they get it right) and they had promised a warmish (17/18 degrees - not bad for September all weekend with a little cloud on Sunday).

Well, they got it WRONG again!  It was a glorious weekend (the little cloud we did get soon cleared) - I even got a little singed yesterday!

We sat in the sun, caught up with friends, ate some amazing salted caramel ice cream and wandered around the site checking out the eclectic mix of cars:

For some reason Adrian decided to buy a bus - last year it was a boat - who knows WHAT it will be next year!

These vans have become really popular as food vans - the ice cream seller also had one.

You probably have to know far more about cars than I do to understand why this was SD's favourite car of the show.

I liked this one because it was SO cute!

Hated this because it's SO ugly!

And really liked the rest of them:

As Saturday wore on that tickle in my throat started to get worse, my glands started to swell and my joints were beginning to ache.  I took some paracetamol, cracked open a beer and watched the sunset over the vans:

And it was a lovely sunset!

But I wasn't getting any better and by 8pm all I wanted to do was curl up with a box of tissues and feel sorry for myself so I sent SD off with friends to listen to the band and drink lots of beer and I took myself off to bed.

It was possibly one of the worst nights I have ever had - SD said he had a pretty bad night too with all my tossing and turning not to mention getting up twice for the loo AND constantly reaching for a bottle of water.  EVERYTHING hurt.  I couldn't swallow without it bringing tears to my eyes but at the same time I had a raging thirst.  All my joints aches and my head was full of lead.  I cursed Miss Mac and her rogue germs!!!

By 7am I'd had enough I wondered across the field still in my PJ's (a pair of old jogging bottoms and t-shirt with a hoodie over the top which I'm saying CAN pass as day wear when you feel as crap as I did!) to the carboot sale in the next field where I knew that in exchange for my £1 entrance fee they would give me a leaflet that I could in tun exchange for a hot cup of tea (and I was CRAVING a hot cuppa!). 

I had a bit of a wander around the carboot.  Stopped to chat to a parrot (a real live one) sitting on a perch at one stall.  Picked up a pair of nearly new Converse for a couple of quid in Miss Mac's size - it's habit thinking of her - she was still NOT forgiven!  Had another cup of tea and started to feel a little better.

After a brief visit to the loo (Maudie is only 10ft long - NO loo!) I happened to glance in the mirror and realised that while my PJ's may just about pass as day wear (well, at 7am anyway) last night makeup (which I'd put on before I threw in the towel) and last night hair which was an interesting and slightly scary shape did not but hey, it was far too late to worry about that so I hurried back to Maudie to try and sort my face and hair before the day visitors arrived for the show proper.

Sunday was (as I said) the proper show day with several hundred more visitors.  There were stalls to visit, I stopped by Retro Rachel's and bought these:

 I know, you are probably thinking 'what a heap of old junk!' but they aren't for use - I'll be hanging them (along with some other bits of kitchenalia) in my kitchen when I get around to decorating it.  I love this stuff with it's painted wooden handles, I like it even better when the paint is a bit worn.  My kitchen has plain cream shaker style cabinets and the walls will stay plain too so any colour will come for things like this and I have some interesting ideas on re purposing every day kitchen items (stay tuned for that one).

There were also some fun games going on in the arena including lowdown limbo:

This car thought he had it nailed

Until THIS one came along:

 

 Other than feeling crap and missing out on the evenings entertainment I really was a lovely weekend and the last time we will be taking Maudie out until next year.