Colchester Castle, Castle Park, Colchester

I love History. Always have and more than likely always will. When we saw our house for the first time, a very exciting feature of it was the fact that we could see the top of Colchester Castle from the back window. I used to look out my back window in Hackney and see a housing estate and rutting foxes, so the prospect of even the tiniest bit of such a unique building was very exciting. A quick Wiki search has since told me that it was commissioned by William the Conquerer and is the largest Norman Keep in Europe. Although due to the fact that there seems to be no one responsible for Colchester's PR I'm sure not a lot of people know what a rare place it is. Shame.

Anyhow, 2 weeks after we moved here, The Castle closed. So there was a long, almost 2 year wait before we could actually go inside. Then in May last year, it finally opened and after a £4million lottery funded revamp, it's pretty good! My son thinks so anyway and would go every day if he was Head of Entertainment.

Imagine a blue sky, it really is a great building.

I do love a crest and this one hangs over the doorway at the entrance.

I didn't want to take too many pictures as that would spoil things for you if you end up visiting, but it's definitely worth a peek, especially if you like 'dug up treasure'. This place is bursting with artifacts that have been found in the ground round here. Below are a few pics to give a brief glimpse of some of the contents but there is also dressing up for the children, huge screens with loads of info on, the jail that Matthew Hopkins imprisoned his 'witches'. A fair bit to see basically. It costs £7.50 per adult, which actually I thought was a little steep but I think that is due to years of being able to visit London museums for free. However, you can purchase a yearly pass for about sixteen quid, which is what I decided to do. When you live locally and have a little kid, more than likely you will come here ALOT. My castle pass now gets almost as much use as my Colchester Zoo pass.

Of all the things on display here, my favorite items are the glassware. Not only because it is so beautiful, but because I think I may have found some of it in my back garden!

One day last October, I was sniffing around our poor neglected vegetable patch when I saw something shiny sitting on top of the soil, just below the Gooseberry Bush / stick. I have found lots of broken glass out the back over the last 2 years while trying to make the outside space more like a garden and less like a prison yard, and think it was probably used for drainage over the years. (Although we do live in the centre of town so it could have been chucked over the wall by the 'nightime economy'). However, on closer inspection these shiny objects were a different colour and thickness to anything I have found before.

There are 4 pieces in total of between 3 and 4 inches in length, its very thick in places and is a sort of pale green iridescent colour. Considering our house is built on top of the Roman Theatre, I'm not surprised there are things in the ground. Watching The Detectorists recently really made me want to buy a metal detector. Who knows what could be lurking underneath our miniscule shallots?! Its rather an exciting prospect particularly since last summer work on the the £30million refurbishment at Fenwicks / Williams + Griffen's on the High Street had to stop as the contractors stumbled across this in the ground:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-29029917

A Roman Hoard!

Having looked at the glass in the Castle I think my glass might be pieces from a Funeral Urn (creepy) but to be sure I asked the Castle if I could bring it in for them to look at. Also, I wasn't sure, if is is Roman, if I should hand it in or if they might want to dig up the garden (be my guest), but sadly their Archeological Curator has just retired. Typical.

So, while I wait for the Curator position to be filled, I shall hang on to it and hope that no spirits got disturbed in the revealing of it. To get haunted by a Roman Ghost is all I need right now.

Fabric Printing Part 1

My hobbies of Scandinavian baking and pickling, and cross stitching are not keeping me busy enough. So over Christmas I started dabbling in fabric printing. I bought 3 awesome print rollers from The Painted House a couple of years ago and after 1 disasterous attempt on a cupboard door which I knew wouldn't work (I used the wrong type of paint) I packed them away. However, I found an old tablecloth at home a few weeks ago, and in the spirit of austerity, rather than chuck it out I cut it up and did some printing with one of the rollers.

It doesn't look like much in this photo, but I was over the moon with this (it's bigger in real life, and less creased). I planned to make a couple of Christmas stockings with the fabric, then some decorations for the tree but sadly ran out of time. So it ended up as the table cloth on the children's lunch table at our Boxing Day Party and they were pretty happy with it. At least I think they were, no one was sick on it like last years boxing day tablecloth so that was a bonus.

Then I found some of my sons' old baby muslins (sob). So I printed this using an old stencil I had for making cards with, and made my son some handkerchiefs which he used once and threw on the floor:

The fabric paint is by is made by Pebeo and once the paint is dried, you iron it with a hot iron to set it then the fabric can be washed at up to 40 degrees. After the fabric has been washed the colour faded quite a bit but I quite liked the 'vintage' effect it made. 

Then, yesterday morning, as the weather was horrid and we were trapped indoors, my son and I got crafting again and I cracked open a yellow Pedbeo fabric paint. As you can see, up until this point I'd only used red, my local supply of fabric paint being very limited. However, this time, I used some old fabric which I had picked up for £4 from my local Emmaus (one of the Colchester's great Charity shops). I'm not sure what this fabric is, it looked like something that had been bought to make a nativity costume with. Pretty bland and sack like but once I'd washed it, it softened up a bit. Anyway, it was cheap and I've got plenty of it to practice on.

I bought this old printing block from a 'vintage' shop in Long Melford last year ((Rosehip) who told me it was French. I don't know if it is, it looks like it might be Indian to me, and I didn't know what I was going to do with it until yesterday, but actually it printed pretty well for a first attempt , while simultaneously trying to placate a toddler who was extremely angry that he couldn't touch "mummy's stuff" for the first time ever.

The yellow wasn't such a success on this particular colour fabric but if I had an indigo colour paint, I think it could look really nice. It would make a lovely cover for a footstool. Or a deck chair for the summer.

I then went back to red and printed this piece using another stationary stencil I had. I am really pleased with this and might try and make a cushion with it. With the proceeds from my eBay sale I am hoping to buy a sewing machine so until then the printed fabric will sit gathering dust. However, folding it all up and packing it away once we had finished printing gave me an excuse to hang out in my favorite room of the house. The Utility room.

I've never had a utility room before, I'd never had a tumble dryer before we moved here but I think you'll agree there are some perks in moving to Colchester. I could quite happily spend all day in here. It's tiny but I love it. And it will be even better when Wig finally gets round to hanging up my royal collection. 

This little room has lots of things in it that make me happy:

My glass bottle collection.

My lead toy collection.

My collection of Wedgewood and Sylvac vases, collected for use at my wedding...

Dried Hydrangeas from my best friends wedding last summer. I swapped my liver for these.

First Aid Cupboard with my life saving Berocas in and my sons life saving Micky Mouse plasters.

But best of all, this sink. Perfect for chucking all the dirty print stuff in, closing the door behind me and leaving for another day. Thanks utility room, you are the best.

Hunt & Darton Cafe @ Firstsite, Colchester

Poor old Firstsite. It gets a right old bashing. The Art Gallery equivalent of Marmite. As a relative newcomer to Ye Olde Colchester, I have to say, I like it. Yes, it cost loads to build, yes, the exhibitions tend to run on a rather long time and tend to be rather abstract, yes, the original cafe at the back of the building had poor to awful food BUT the building itself is rather splendid (designed by the world famous Architect Rafael Vinoly), the shop is pretty good, they have toddler Discos, a partnership with the Picturehouse and while the gallery itself is closed now for a few weeks they now have Hunt & Darton in their entrance space until the end of January.

To be fair, I had only heard of Hunt & Darton towards the end of last year whilst sniffing around the net googling 'Colchester'. But when I saw they were headed this way, I was very excited. They describe themselves via their website as an "interactive performance/installation and fully-functioning pop-up café". When you are at home ALOT with a toddler, this is just the kind of thing to motivate you out of your pyjamas on a cold January day. And its also just the kind of Creative project Colchester should be encouraging and shouting about particularly as the area is about to get a £2.6million Creative Business Space! If the Council wants Colchester to be seen as a Creative place, which I know it does (“The development of the centre will reinforce Colchester’s status as a real hub for the creative sector" Councillor Anne Turrell), it needs to be over the moon that these guys are here. Firsite should be pretty pleased too!

So, with much excitement, my son and I got our winter woollies on and headed off for a spot of lunch today. And I have to say, it was probably our most enjoyable lunch out together. I wish Hunt & Darton could set up in town permanently. We were met in the entrance by a super friendly waiter in a turquoise sequined jumpsuit//babygro. To a 2 and a half year old child, this encounter has got to be up there with breakfast with Father Christmas and spotting a giant Penguin (the Nandos chicken) walking along the High Street. He was mesmerised. To make matters even better the sequined waiter/baby told us we had arrived just in time for the complimentary lunchtime raffle. (Prizes on offer: a baby's bib, some dog shoes and a bottle of CIF or JIF to those of us born in the 70's). So we took a seat, and guess what, I won a prize! I never win anything! I'm sure it was a set up as all tables seemed to win a prize, but who cares, it made me feel happy to feel like a winner for a change and I do love cleaning products. 

The mismatched table and chairs work really well in the huge stark entrance 

of Firstsite and all the tables have interesting things to look at. My son was particularly fascinated by this half completed jigsaw and the massive pineapple on our table.

Winner!

After collecting my prize, I then ordered our lunch. The menu is rather limited but so is my brain's ability to make big decisions like 'what to have for lunch' these days so it was perfect. My son had a banana milkshake (his first Nesquik ever), I had a Nescafe (no fancy coffee's in sight) and we shared a large plate of finger sandwiches (cream cheese with cucumber and cream cheese with salmon) and the whole lot came to £5.20. My son was also given a complimentary Kinder Egg. This has to have been his best (most sugar filled) day ever. 

A veritable Jenga tower of sandwiches. Sometimes all you want is a good 

old fashioned sarnie and this was it. The kind of basic menu available here is perfect for my new 

resolution for 2015 of simple living. Simple food, short menu, no brain overload.

As well as the odd complimentary raffle, you can request entertainment at your table, the table next to us won all their drinks free in a guessing competition, and there are all sort of things going on until the 31st Jan. Daytime and evening events.

I know this wont be everyones cup of tea (or cup of Nescafe...) but you have to support initiatives like this. It was FUN, it is something different for the town, it's brightening up the most dreary month of the year and I ate my lunch listening the theme tune from 'Black Beauty'. It's great. Locals should go and non-locals should jolly well go as well. I am definitely going back. I've got 1 stamp now on my Loyalty card and if I can get to 5 I'll get a badge. Happy days. 

Unplugging for 2015

It was not my intention to go a month without posting, however, the last few weeks have been rather chaotic. There was the small matter of the Christmas holidays to contend with and what happens when you live in a house in Essex rather than a 1 bedroom flat in Hackney, is that people want to come for a 'countryside mini break' (even though we live in the middle of the town...). And not just for 1 night, but for 4 nights and also 2 weeks.  I am absolutely not complaining though, and that was a huge reason for us moving out of London to a house. We wanted to have space for people to stay although it does often feel like Fawlty Towers round here.

So, lots of hosting has meant zero blogging but Wig is now back at work, my son is back in nursery one day a week and I am slowly scraping my grey matter back together to form a shape that will hoepfully resemble a brain. Despite the shitty end to the year we managed to salvage 2014 by having a great Christmas but I could not have been happier to get into 2015. It's strange as nothing had actually changed from when I went to sleep on 31st December 2014 to when I woke up on 1st January 2015, I was still in Colchester, still in desperate need of a haircut and still had guests to make breakfast for but I felt so much more positive than I have in months. Psychologically the new year is a fresh start, a time for new beginnings, a blank page and a clear road ahead to exciting unknown adventures. I think last year was bad for a lot of people, Charlie Brooker certainly seemed to think so, I don't know why, but I hope that we all have a better 2015. Amen.

My older brother was one of our Chrimbo guests and he asked me what my New Year Resolutions were going to be. I hadn't given it any thought until this moment but immediately said that I wanted to consume less. And I didn't just mean food. I meant less junk information (on crappy websites), less social media, less material items (I'm a sucker for Gap Kids Sale), you get the idea. It will hopefully lead to a more simple existence. Towards the end of the year I thought my brain was going to explode. There was too much going on inside it, I was consuming too much of everything. Life felt out of control and ontop of all of this (raising a toddler, doing up a house, working when possible, thinking about a possible new career, trying to make new friends here) I was still so desperate to know that we had done the right thing in moving to Colchester I got obsessed with things that were going on round here. Local blogs, local newspapers, local events. I needed to slow down and I think by just realising that and trying to address the issue it's a step in the right direction. My brother thought this was a good idea and told me that more and more people seem to be coming to the conclusion that 'unplugging' from technology is a great start to a simpler existence:

http://www.becomingminimalist.com/unplug-please/

So for the last week I have hardly been on my computer at all, and instead of taking my Blackberry to bed, I have Marcus Aurelius' 'Meditations'. I am also trying to address the issue of material posessions. I have taken 2 bags to the charity shop today and am having a huge eBay clearout. However, there is one area which I am going to have a huge problem addressing and that is any item belonging too or directly extracted from my son.

In light of new beginnings, and the new, more mindful me, we chopped my sons hair off. When I say 'we', I mean the hairdresser and may I say it was much more traumatic for me than for him. We have never cut his hair, he gets so many compliments about it, and it took such a long to show up in the first place, it just didn't seem right. (Apparently, this lack of hair early on was from my side of the family. My Dad used to tell me I was bald and didn't smile until I was 4 years old. Charming).  It was like his special power, it softened the hearts of the most grumpy strangers, it hypnotised the local Butcher's wife into giving him free lollipops whenever we went in, the man in the local Antique shop gave him a toy bus for free and our local MP gave him a Thomas the Tank Engine! However, it was getting in his eyes and he was being mistaken for a girl. So new year, new hair cut. And its like having a new son. I can't stop looking at him wondering who he is! However, coming from a long line of hoarders I kept the trimmings and am now on the hunt for an old Victorian locket to put this curl in. Sob.

(I don't know why I'm still taking rubbish photos, I actually received a smart new camera for Christmas, I just haven't managed to get it out of the box yet. Hopefully, in my next posting you will be dazzled by my wondrous photgraphy...)

Then strangely, 2 days ago, I found this in a box:

It is some of my hair from when I was 5. My Dad always said he was brought up by Victorians (as a child, after the War, he spent a lot of time with his Grandparents who were Victorians) so maybe this is a weird habit he picked up from them, which I seem to have developed. But now I have my own child I understand a bit more about why he kept this. It's incredibly hard getting rid of anything to do with my son, baby clothes, bottles, pictures, even hair. Although I draw the line at nail clippings...

Anyway, Happy New Year all, bye for now x

Christmas Wreath Workshop, Love Grows Wild / Homemade Christmas

Things are getting very christmassy around here. Last weekend, not only did William's + Griffin's unveil their wondrous Christmas window, complete with animatronic polar bears, and the Mayor did the High Street Christmas light switch on, complete with firework display, we got our tree. And it was because of our tree that I sadly missed the lights being switched on (although I did hear the fireworks). We had a slight Clark Griswald situation at home ie tree rather too large for room, which then took hours to decorate. So many hours in fact that by the time I'd slung the last bauble on it, I'd missed the towns festivities. Note to self, don't let the Wig go to buy the tree alone next year.

Griswald!

But not only have we been tree decorating, we have also been making a few other Christmas decorations (kills time and is a very cheap activity. Win win situation). First of all, we made some Chrimbo cards. I don't think Clinton's have anything to worry about but Auntie Margaret was impressed.

Glitter, glue, washi tape, stamps.

Then, we covered some pine cones in glitter. Very quick, easy and really pretty on the tree.

Glue, glitter and pinecones

Finally, we made a couple of snow globes. There were very easy and quick to make and just need a bit of forward planning to keep a few old jars. The hardest thing to find for making these were the Christmas cake figurines but you could easily make these with old plastic toys instead.

To make a snow globe, you will need:

1 x Plastic / Christmas Cake figurine
1 x Clean jar
Superglue
Some glitter
Tap Water
Drop of glycerine (from baking aisle at supermarket, this thickens the water and makes the glitter fall more slowly)

* Superglue your figurine to the inside of the jar lid, wait to dry.
* Sprinkle you glitter into the jar.
* Top the jar up with water.
* Add a teaspoon of glycerin to the water/glitter and stir.
* Add a ring of superglue to the jar rim then quickly put lid on and wait from glue to dry.
* Voila!

Baby reindeer in Nescafe jar.

Fat Santa in jam jar with washi tape to jazz up the lid.

 We also made mince pies but this was just frozen puff pastry and a jar of mincemeat so I wont bother explaining how to do those!

However, of all the Christmas crafts we have been making this week, my favorite project was the one I did this morning (minus boy child) at The Waiting Room. Sian Willis from Love Grows Wild, a local florist, ran a 2 hour workshop to show how to make a Christmas Wreaths. £30 covered the cost of 2 hours 'tutoring', all materials (foliage, berries, ribbon, wire frame etc), a hot drink and a mince pie! It was a really great way to spend the morning and another way to meet some new faces. A lovely  relaxed atmosphere I'm over the moon with my wreath. I just hope it doesn't get swiped off the door before the 25th!...

Ta dah!

PS: Just a note for your Christmas decorations next year. While you are out and about at the shops, if you see any Christmas decorations in any shop windows that you like the look of, ask them if you can have them when they have finished with them.  I swiped 3 of these huge gold bows from Laura Ashley  last Christmas and they were going to get thrown away!