Castle Coombe

Castle Coombe is a very pretty English village, according to their website it is "the prettiest village in England" . I can't verify if this is true since I haven't been to every village in England, but it is a delightful place to visit, though it does get very busy with tourists in the summer.

The pictures above aren't mine, I 'borrowed' them from the village website here (I hope they don't mind). I also discovered on looking at their website that it was used as one of the locations in the film Stardust. There are some pictures of the filming on the website.

It is also rather a good venue for a car boot sale which is located at Castle Coombe motor racing circuit nearby. They have a boot sale once a month during the summer so a couple of weeks ago I had a bit of a clear out and went selling. My dad went with me as he and my mum had a clear out too so we shared a pitch. Mr. Bloom couldn't go as there was no room for him in the car - we had 5 trestle tables full:

My dad likes going to car boot sales almost as much as I do and is always happy to go with me if he can. We pack some sandwiches, a primus stove to make tea, and a few bottles of beer. My dad loves having a banter with the buyers and is quite happy for me to go off wandering around the other stalls.

I like this boot sale as there is always a wide variety of sellers including a good few dealers so you can usually find some vintage loveliness. Another bonus is that there are proper indoor toilets! It is quite a large venue, though it's difficult to show that in the pictures as the pitches are spread out over the spectator area.

A good tip when you're selling at a car boot sale is not to leave the car radio running the whole morning. When it was time to leave we discovered that the car battery was completely flat. Fortunately the organisers had a set of jump leads and kindly loaned them to us at a charge of £1!

As I didn't want to come home with more stuff than I went with (and buying nothing wasn't an option) I decided I would only buy small things. I managed this quite well though a couple of larger items did sneak in.

Some sparkly jewels and buckles:

A tiny bottle, jar and pincushion doll:

My favourite find was this pincushion doll who still had her original clothes - she's now in my china cabinet which you'll have seen on last week's post. I was also pleased to find the chintz bowl which I can add to my small collection.

A lovely old Communion certificate dated 1919 and a cute Mabel Lucie Attwell postcard. The tiny wooden hanger is the same shade of green as the postcard so I think I'll be making some sort of hanging with them.

This old collar box was a present for Mr. Bloom but some of my things have already found their way inside, though he hasn't discovered this yet.

The communion certificate has already been given a makeover, I had just the right size frame for it, adding a lace border and a vintage flower for decoration.

We're planning to do another boot sale at Castle Coombe this weekend, though I have a horrible feeling it's going to be very wet on Sunday so we may be rained off. I really hope not as I now have several more boxes of stuff cluttering up the hallway.

To the ladies who won my PIF I just wanted to say that I haven't forgotten about it, I should have them ready to send out in the next couple of weeks...

and to friends across the pond I hope you're having a wonderful 4th of July.

It's going to be a bit quiet around here for a while as I'm taking a summer blog-break until the end of July, I'll still be around for shop orders and I might pop in to visit, I just won't be posting in this time. Here's hoping for some sunny days!

TTFN - Lucy x