Life's a beach!

A week ago was opening day at the Antiques for Everyone show....how time flies!!!

It's great to see everyone there, customers, friends and other standholders some of whom who we only see at the show. It is quite a social week, you see some people every day for a six day stretch so you make lots of friendships, talk loads and have a laugh :-) Thank you to everyone who came to see us, especially Nic, Ashley and Emily :-) Thanks also to Mr Martin for all the free marketing advice and help and to Mrs Martin for being happy to chat whilst we plan our next move!

As usual I am totally blooped out ( so much standing! ) But, on Tues we nipped into Nottingham for a few bits and saw this amazing site!

Life's a beach in Nottinghams Old Market Square
It was complete bedlam, but the kids were loving it, a bit of sand and water and they will play all day :-) I think it is a great use of the newly re-furbished Market Square and it is a bit of fun for the families who may not get a holiday this year due to the horrid credit crunch, at least the kids get some sandcastle time and a few fairground rides

To aid my post show recovery we had a coffee in Chocolate Utopia on Friar lane as they give you a handmade chocolate with your drink, wonderful for restoring depleted energy levels or as a reviver when out having necessary retail therapy. The chocolates are handmade on the premises and are excellent quality with lots of choice of flavours etc.........YUMMY!

Antiques for Everyone!

Next week is the 'Antiques for Everyone' show at the Nec in Birmingham. I can't believe how quickly it has come around again!

Jen and I have been trying to do as much of the deciding about what goes where, display and stockwise at home this time instead of trying to figure it all out on set up day. To that end we have been sorting out what to showcase in the big cabinet by laying it out shelf by shelf, that way it should take up much less time to do the display when we get there.

I find it is so much harder to motivate myself to do all the preparations and planning in the summer as I want to be outside gardening etc. However, I seem to have got everything together in plenty of time by working really hard during the bad weather....we have had soooo much rain! Then, when the sun is shining I have been doing repairs and pricing etc on the bench by the wall at the bottom of the garden.
Whilst sitting on the bench I have kept a close watch on one of our Japanese Acer trees because for the third time in four years we have had Goldfinches nesting there. This year they had three chicks and I could just see their little heads peeping over the edge of the nest if I looked up into the branches. Luckily Richard and I were both sat on the bench when they decided it was time to try out their wings and one by one they had a very vigorous and rather noisy flapping and fidgeting about, each coming out onto a nearby branch and having a look around.
Richard managed to get a pic of one of them later that day, then they were gone! We have seen them flying about so hopefully they will survive and come back next year :-)

Hope to see you at the Nec show :-)
For further details click on the link 'Antiques for Everyone'