A dream come true

I know I said in my last post I would show you my new (old...yay!) bed in situ but then I came to take the photos and oh dear...it suddenly struck me that I have far too much bedding for a person who only possesses one bed. Yes, one. And I obviously have too much time on my hands as well because I actually enjoyed getting everything out and faffing about, making up the bed over and over...Well, in another life I was a chambermaid. But I digress...on with business. Many years ago I owned an old bed, a very ordinary piece of utility furniture with an oak head and foot board. Although it came with springs (rare to find) it was topped off with a very cheap, thin mattress. My other half and I hadn't been together very long and were just getting started with a few bits and pieces of furniture and the like so we couldn't afford to buy a good mattress. This bed was comfy and bouncy but unfortunately we were constantly waking up in the night having 'rolled together'! This was a problem although not insurmountable but... on top of this we had just bought our first house and had to use the smaller bedroom as the larger one had an ancient Crittall (metal) window that didn't shut properly. In fact, we used to scrape ice from the inside of the glass on winter mornings. I should also say the house had no central heating. Oh! the folly of youth but that's a whole other tale...

So, we were using the small back room where the bed took up most of the floor space and I had to clamber over A to get to my side of the bed. Being in 'reduced circumstances' (living in a money-pit) we had no idea how long this situation was likely to go on and so the difficult decision was taken to sell 'the bed'. I was quite happy to see it go in the end as it went to a young couple much like ourselves who were also doing up an old house sympathetically. I hope they bought a good mattress for it though; maybe they're still 'rolling together' on it...The point of this tale is that ever since, I have yearned for another old bed. If, like me, you love old things it's pretty high on your list of essentials but I also have a husband with a bad back. We put it off for years and I had to be satisfied with a nice divan. But A's back benefited in no way from sleeping on a modern bed and he said "what the heck...it can't be any worse than it is now (his back) and it might actually be better (it isn't)" and so I have my bed! I particularly liked this one as it was unrestored...it's got chippy paint and dents in the knobs but I love all that...it's patina. I like to think of all the people that have been born in it or maybe died in it and certainly a few were probably made in it, if you erm, know what I mean..!


I had a large collection of eiderdowns at one time and oh! when I think what I used to pay for them...I sold most of them on ebay (for good money I might add) because I just don't have the space to store them. Feather eiderdowns are very bulky and most of the stuff I have now folds up quite small...honest! I only have two eiderdowns now, the pink one in the first picture and the one below which is an old ebay buy and also my favourite. It spends all winter on the bed along with the Durham below it. The 'comfy' quilt (above) is in beautiful condition and sits on the arm of a white armchair in my office.










At the moment, I have these crocheted blankets on the bed although they have to come off at night...too warm! I bought the large granny square's to sell but somehow its found its way on to the bed...ahem, that almost never happens.



I love crochet. I appreciate the hours and hours of work that went into making something like that, not being able to do it myself.






And of course, the end of a bedstead makes great storage! Hey, that means I can....NO!

This paisley eiderdown is for sale on the website.

Usually, they just fly away but this ones sticking around. It's the flowery ones that everybody wants of course but I really like it.... such a pretty shade of apple green and lovely and plump, excellent condition. Maybe I'll keep it and put another on in it's place...it does match the black of the bed quite nicely.





I'm on the lookout for a good sized patchwork quilt and love browsing at this website. The small piece below came from there (a Christmas present from A) It's exactly the sort of thing I want but unfortunately it's one fifth the size!

I found this rhyme in one of my children's books and thought it so sweet...it says it all about how people used to 'make do and mend'. We thought nothing of reusing old fabrics and recycling them into something 'new'. Click on the rhyme to enlarge it.

When we were on holiday in Norfolk this July we visited a tiny little cottage near Ludham called Toad Hall. It used to be home to reed cutters but was derelict for many years before sympathetic restoration.




There were two rooms upstairs in the eaves and I thought I'd gone to heaven...lovely patchwork on all the beds. I want the beds too!

And this was the parlour downstairs...if I ever get my cottage this is how I want it - pared down. I wish I could do that now, but I have so much stuff. Why is that...!

By the way, thank you for all the good wishes for my Mums recovery, she is indeed on the mend.

Speaking of which, this week, we've had a very large cloud lifted from us... one that's been hanging over us for the past four months. I won't go into details as A isn't here to approve of what I'm writing but suffice to say our lives were on hold but we can now breathe a huge sigh of relief. He has had to go through some very unpleasant things to get to this point and has faced it all with incredible stoicism, much more so than I could have done. I'm not going to get gooey...he knows how I feel about him (well, I think he does!) I just want to say that I'd be lost without you and for a second, I actually considered how that possibility might become reality and knew it would be the worse thing that could ever happen. So don't go anywhere...'cause I quite like you...xxx