Attic24

Weekend Review

Right now I'm sitting here writing (wednesday 8pm ish) and I can hear the rain pouring down outside. And it's cold too. It really does feel chilly and very un May like today, which is quite a shock to the system given the delicious weekend we had. Oh the weather in our patch was divine at the weekend! It was so lovely and warm, well no actually it wasn't warm it was hot. Yes, for the very first time this year we had some serious heat from the sun and it was glorious.

We spent the weekend in the midst of the beautiful Yorkshire Dales, only about half an hours drive from home, yet it felt like we were very much further away. You can see in the above picture where we stayed :: a picturesque little campsite nestled down in the bottom of the dale, surrounded by big grassy green hills.

 

We spent the weekend away in our little caravan, oh oh oh the JOY!!!! There she is look, our home-from-home, tucked neatly into a grassy corner. The above photo was taken by J early on Sunday morning when he took the Little People climbing up the Big Hill behind the campsite. Yours truly had to stay behind drinking coffee and reading while Little B had his nap. I know, such hardship.

Did I tell you we finally named our caravan? In the end we went with J's suggestion and named her Connie (J was surprisingly very chuffed about this fact). The Little Peeps call her the Connievan, which I think is rather sweet.

We arrived at the campsite around 6pm Friday evening. Such a beeauutiful evening, warm and glowing and green and golden.

A picnic tea of crusty bread and dips, sweet little cherry tomatoes, scotch eggs, crisps, strawberries. Ice cold beer in the glow of the early evening sun. Lean back in the chair, stretch out ones legs, wiggle bare toes in the cool green grass, and reeelax. This is the weekend, and it promises to be good.

Saturday was a heat-soaked lazy day, the best sort of camping day with nothing whatsoever on the agenda other than soaking up the warmth and enjoying the day.

We walked down to the river for a mess about and it was a real delight. We paddled about, searching under rocks for fish, the sort of fish that both J and I remember searching for in the rivers of our respective childhoods. Funny how nostalgic a little fish can become, and how excited they still made us both feel. Paddle paddle, splash, splash then back to the Connievan for ice cream.

I managed to fit in a little bit of outdoor camping hooky on Saturday and it was hugely enjoyable. I sat in my turquoise chair with a glass of cold wine and made a couple more squares for my cotton cushion. All the time I was hooking I had to control the urge to leap about with excitement as the colours of the yarn looked so amazingly beautiful in the sunshine. I took lots of photos similar to the one above, oh dear me, I did get myself into quite a giddy spin over my al fresco hooky time!

I'll be making 16 squares in total for the front of this cushion, and I'm really, really, really loving how it's coming together. I'm getting me some serious thrills working with this yarn!

And just while we're talking yarn things and caravanny things, let me show you my latest purchase.................

 ...........oh dear yes we have another yarn stash in the Attic. To be more precise, it's a big bag of Stylecraft Special DK, 100% acrylic, destined to become the Granny Stripe Caravan Blankie.

Am pretty happy with what I've got, seventeen colours in total, a few of them it has to be said are borderline garish, but I think all in all it's going to work out great. Once I get going with it, I promise I'll write up a tutorial/pattern for the Granny Stripe, I'd love to have some company on my stripy grannified journey if anyone fancies joining me.

Oh yayaaayyyyy for Happy Yarn-infested Days :o)

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Caravan Love

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwww just L:O:O:K at that cutesome little caravan, doesn't she look sweet sitting quietly in the early morning sun dappled shade??

We had a lovely, lovely time at the weekend, it was a hugely exciting trip for us, our very first outing with our new girl. She did us proud. So well behaved! So warm and cosy and homely! Everything was OK with her, everything worked, nothing went wrong. Pheww, a little quiet sigh of relief there. It was indescribably exciting to pitch up at the caravan site on Saturday afternoon and know that for the next 24 hours this little 14ft x 7ft space would be our home, I was like a Big Kid with a much longed for new toy. Can't tell you how much I enjoyed pottering around inside, trying everything out, getting aquainted, opening  and closing doors, opening and closing the curtains, switching the lights on and off, finding places for all our bits and pieces in the many little cupboards, making up the back-end bed for the Little People to play on, putting the kettle on to make tea, ahhh it was all so much fun! 

The site we stayed on was very grown up, very orderly and well kept. No other children to be found, it was a site full of posh looking modern caravans with big awnings and people of a Certain Age sitting inside watching television. It wasn't quite "us" (think we would be happier in a farmers field) but it was undoubtedly a beautiful site, and we really enjoyed our stay there. Well truthfully I think we would've enjoyed staying absolutely anywhere because the fun was definitely to be found within our four little walls.

On Saturday Little Man was still working his way through the tale-end of his illness (a throaty achey virsusy type thingy) and was also in the process of passing it on to his sister, so we were a little limited with what we could do. We did try a walk in the woods on Saturday evening,  but truthfully neither of the Little People were well enough to go far. They both simply wanted to stay inside the caravan snuggled up in our camping blankets which suited  me just fine. After all, we've walked through Strid Wood dozens of times, but this weekend was all about Caravan Love.

Night time in our cosy little van was great, despite Little Lady waking me up at 1am feeling poorly and with a high temperature (note :: must purchase and make up a little first aid tin for the van). J and I made up our bed at the front of the van, and it was oh so super cosy! He had insisted that we take easy and practical sleeping bags, but I had double-insisted (with authority) that no-no-no we needed an egyption cotton fitted sheet, plumpety-plump goose feather pillows with my lovely designers guild stripy pillowcases on and a duvet. A proper bed for a good nights sleep, none of that annoying zippity stuffy sleeping bag business for us any more. The Little People however seem to get a huge thrill out of sleeping bags, so they were very happy to snuggle down top-to-toe in the bed at the back of the van. And what about Little B?? Well he has his very own baby sleeping bag and went to sleep very happily on the fold out bunk above the Little People, sleeping soundly till 6am.

My favourite part of any camping trip is without a doubt the very first early morning bit. The bit of the day when you first wake with the rising sun, stick your head out of the door/window and take a huge, long, deep, heavenly breathe of Fresh Air. Oh I LOVE that little moment of the day sooooo much! Its a close call though cos my second favouritist part of any camping trip follows closely behind when I'm sitting snuggled up in duvet/blankets with a mug of steaming hot tea in my hands :: absolute bliss.

Early on Sunday morning, I really, really, totally loved those two bits of the day, they filled my heart with joy. But as the day happened to be gorgeous with clear blue skies and sunshine, we didn't sit around in the van for long...as soon as my tea was drunk and Little B fed, I upped and dressed and out for a walk with Little Man.

These photos that I'm showing you were all taken on our early Sunday morning walk, at about 7am or thereabouts. It was absolutely beautiful. B:E:A:U:tiful. The countryside here in North Yorkshire is looking so lush and green now, the trees beginning to wear their fresh new spring green leafy coats. We walked and talked, talked and walked and then headed back for breakfast....

...orange juice and a cafetiere of fresh coffee, with croissants warmed up in the little van oven. Due to the huge messiness of Little People + croissants, we took the van table outside and ate breakfast al fresco, it was lovely! A little chilly perhaps, but lovely all the same.

So that was our first happy trip away in our caravan, and what a success it was.

I have to tell you it's been amazing to read all your comments on my last post, to find you all as excited as I am about this caravan of ours. You've made the whole experience so much more thrilling for me, you've amplified my own feelings and made me unbelievably giddy with excitement (well I can quite easily get giddy on my own, but as I say, you have added to it all a gazillion times over). I was pondering on it over the weekend, pondering the thrill of starting out on a new adventure, building new layers of Family Memories. So precious! So amazingly good to know that we will hopefully be creating some top notch Childhood Memories for our Little People in the coming weeks, months and years. I don't possess any childhood memories of the camping or caravanning variety (although I have so often wished that I did), but it's not too late for me either, I'm pretty damn sure I can still memory-make at the ripe old age of forty one :o)

And then of course there's the other dimension to owning a caravan of this sort :: the Makeover Potential. I dream about our caravan most nights, dream of how she will look once I begin to prettify her up a little. My dreams are multicoloured and hippety-hop-happy I can tell you! It's going to be a gradual process though. For the time being we are keeping our caravan in a storage place about ten miles away which makes getting to her a little more tricksy than if she were parked right outside the front door. And then there's the daily restrictions I have of the babyish kind.....but I will do what I can when I can and I know I'll get there in the end.

Am doing some yarny pondering at the moment too, looking into which yarn will make the best and most practical van blankies....thinking I'll probably step away from my usual (expensive) natural yarns and go for *gasp*shock*horror* an acrylic yarn....ho-dee-ho, how about that then??!! I've been email-chatting with the lovely Helen who I discovered is the lady behind the snailtrail granny blankets, and she tells me she uses Hayfield Bonus for a lot of her blankies. I'm also looking at Stylecraft Special DK which I've found in a local shop. Will most certainly keep you posted on Van Blankie goings on.

And finally, two more things..... firstly I created a little inspirational caravan gallery over at Flickr which you can find here, please feel free to let  me know if you find any more inspiring images on your travels in cyberspace. And secondly, we are still debating a name for our New Girl...so far Little Lady is asking for Flower or Daisy, Little Man has suggested Bob, and J suggested Connie (good lord YES he blew me away when he came up with a name, I was fully expecting him to laugh me into next week over The Naming Of The Van)

Right-oh, I really must go now, I've got Little Lady home from school today and she is pulling at me asking to go ice the buns we baked this morning.....

See you all soon xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The Stuff Of My Dreams

I treated myself to a new book last week after seeing some of the pages reproduced in Coast magazine. I've always had a major passion for any type of thing that can be prettified and turned into a cute little homey hideaway, you know, sheds, summerhouses, beach huts, caravans, camper vans and the such like. Have never owned any of these things mind you (excepting a very small shed full of spiders and dirty underused garden tools), but ooooohhhh I've certainly dreamed long and hard about these sorts of places. I just love-love-love the whole idea of creating a Cosy Happy Place in which one can while away some hours and be surrounded by cosy cuteness. Comfy seats, cushions, blankets, dinky little curtains hanging at dinky little windows etc. And if this Cosy Happy Place happens to be on wheels and can take one away on holiday too, then woohoo so much the better. Yes, this is the Stuff Of My Dreams.

This book really is visually very lovely indeed. The blurb on the back tells you that the book contains "forty stylish caravans of all vintages from across the world. Packed with inspirational photography. Exploring how people refurbish and customise their caravans. A visual voyage into the unexpectedly stylish world of modern caravanning". 

Ooooo Ok, so quite a quirky but very trendy-cool subject then. Cos it's all about style and vintage and being cool, obviously.

But you see, personally I'm not too fussed about the Vintage Credentials or about being Cool or Trendy or Stylish. No, just show me Interior Prettiness please. I want to see dinky curtains and brightly coloured melamine plates......

........pretty tins and lovely cutlery, and oh oh yes some bunting too, and if there could possibly be a blanket or two I would certainly be jigetty-jigging with the pleasure of it all.

 

Ah yes yes yes!!!! Page twenty and I see a crochet GRAnNy BlanKet and I'm oh so happy, doing a jigetty-jig!!!!

Aren't these images just adorable? Heart-skippingly lovely and sweet and the stuff that my Cosy Happy Place dreams are made of. For sure.

Would you like to know more about the delightful vintage caravan on these pages??

 

Here she is....she is called Constance, and is owned by a very nice lady called Lucy (haha, no not me, although I wish). Now Constance is no stranger to me as it happens, I have come across her before in fact, over in Flickrville.

Yes, I have drooooooled over the above image of Constance's interior more times than I can remember.

 

I have swooned over that blanket. And the cushions. Curtains too.

Oh and the bunting, the floor, the Greengate tins, the spotty tray. Yes I have swooned, admired, desired and been inspired by Constance for a long time now. She is the Stuff Of My Dreams.

I emailed Constance's owner last week and told her how much I was in love with her caravan, how the Granny Square blanket made me go weak at the knees. I asked her pretty-please could I share these pictures with you all, cos I wanted to show you the Stuff Of My Dreams. And she very kindly said that Yes I could most certainly bring Constance to Attic24 to show you all.

But that's not all.

No, there's more.

As well as the lovely Constance, Lucy also has a fleet of amazingly adorable VW camper vans that she hires out through her company Snailtrail. Oh my friends, you are going to LOVE these campers so much....take a look at some of the interiors....

 

First up we have Betty, doesn't she have the most beautiful interior?

 

This is Elsie......oh her blankie is so so so yummy in all it's grannified squariness!

 

And this is Flo...oooooooo spots and dots and great big granny squares and mugs of tea with jammy croissants!!!

How FAbUlOus!!!! 

How beautiful and fun and inspiring and heart-skippy these pictures are!!!!!!!

OK, I shall stop exclaiming now, shall calm myself down and talk in a normal voice.

Now then....as you may or may not have guessed by now, this post does in fact have something more behind it other than me just hyperventilating over other peoples caravan/camper interiors.

I shall not beat about the bush....shall tell you without further ado that on the 1st of May we made a New Purchase for our little family here at number 24. Rather a big New Purchase.

Yes, we bought ourselves a Caravan!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just an ordinary type of English caravan you understand, nothing cool or trendy or vintage.

But she is ours, all ours, and we are so so so so so so so so excited here at number 24!!!!!!!!!!

She's 18 years old and has been lovingly used by two families (brother and sister) and is now about to become the Stuff Of My Dreams. 

You see at the moment she looks quite ordinary, a little shabby, a little tired.

 

Inside she has some rather dubious carpet and quite a lot of dusky pink and beige going on.

 

But in my Minds Eye I have already given her an Attic24 makeover, I can see her so clearly!! (remember The Chair, remember how clever my Minds Eye is??!) She is going to be made to look beautiful, colourful, cosy, happy, heart-skippy. Yes, I can assure you I've got it all worked out already. Can't wait to get started.

We're taking her out tomorrow, we are spending our first night caravanning at a local site in the woods near Bolton Abbey. I hope it's going to be the first of many, many happy days (and nights) spent holidaying with her, I really do.

Excited??

Ohhhhhhhhhh YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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