Saturday 28 April 2018

Natural Treasures

Hi there everyone 😀

We love getting out and about and exploring the coast or the countryside and are always picking up bits and pieces on our travels and tucking them in our pockets. These treasures always make their way back home and finding space to keep them can be a bit tricky sometimes, but we normally manage to squeeze them in somehow.

I thought it would be interesting to just have a wander round the house and see how many finds we have accumulated over time and, more interestingly, see if  I could remember where we’d picked them up.

On the back of the shelf in the downstairs loo is this little wire basket we picked up in the gift shop at Lanercost Priory in Cumbria, when we holidayed with friends in a beautiful barn in Brampton. It has become home to a fair few random bits and pieces ....
This beautiful abalone shell was a gift from my sister, brought back from an epic holiday she had a number of years ago in New Zealand. The colours are just beautiful ... opalescent blues and rich greens ...

The scallop shells are a reminder of the battered scallops and chips we've eaten from Rick Stein's, sitting in the sunshine, on the harbour, in the very lovely Padstow ...

I'm not sure that I can recall where the other bits and pieces are from, it's fair to say that Martin is more of the collector of fossils and pebbles than I am ...

This small Wedgwood dish, which I actually received as an 18th birthday gift from college friends has also been brought into service ....

The tiny pine cone is from balmoral, as is the piece of stone at the back, though I'm sure this is probably from a local builder's yard, rather than being indigenous to the estate ...

... and I'm pretty certain that the pebble was from the beach by the Bembridge lifeboat station on the Isle of Wight.

This big pine cone in the dining room was picked up on a holiday in Centre Parks in the Lake District. We went with our good friends Jackie and Phil and it amazes me that, even after all this time seeds still seem to keep appearing.
I'd been to Centre Parks a few times with Jackie and Phil, but it was the first time Martin had come with us and it was the first time that we'd ventured off the park and got to see some of the local area in the snow, which was a real treat.

It’s not the only fir cone that has been picked up. The rest, other than a couple of small ones have had to be relegated to outside and have recently all been brought together and now sit nicely in this wire basket on the arbor. They are from all over the place ...
Also in the dining room is our conker collection. Yes, neither of us can resist the lure of a bright shiny conker hiding amongst the leaves and shells on the ground. There are housed in a glass lidded jar that used to have a candle in. It was a gift from my brother and his girlfriend and it was just too pretty to discard after the candle had been used. There are a few other random bits in here too and I couldn’t say where they are all from, but I do know that one of the conkers was collected on a Geocaching walk that we did with mum around Longdon Green back in 2014 ... 
This sticks in my mind as one cache involved climbing a pretty tall tree and neither Martin nor I were up for it, but there was no way mum was leaving a cache unfound. We both had our hearts in our mouths whilst she was up there, that’s for sure, crazy woman.
There actually aren’t any natural bits we’ve gathered in the lounge but there is this plastic giraffe ...
... which we just had to buy from the gift shop at the Woburn Safari Park. We spent ages watching the giraffes, they were absolutely beautiful and so graceful considering how big they were. We had the loveliest of days and this little giraffe always makes me think of it ...

There are more treasures upstairs too ... 

On the shelf in the bathroom are fossils that we found on Charmouth beach in Dorset ...
There are also two jars filled with shells, which I didn’t actually collect, but bought. One lot was bought in Padstow, from a gift shop, and the others from a stall at the side of the river in Boscastle. Two places that we both love dearly and hopefully we will be revisiting later this year.

The base of the wading birds, which we brought back from a holiday in Salcombe in Devon, has become home to a real collection of odds and ends.

The tiny periwinkle shells at the back are from the beach at St Mawes ...
We visited with mum and dad whilst staying in a cottage in Caerhays in 2012. I will never forget the visit to St Mawes castle, where all four of us were listening to the audio tour separately and all were running just a little ahead or behind of each other ... it was hilarious ...

The other tiny shells at the from are from Orford in Suffolk, where Martin spent absolutely ages taking photos of the wild flowers growing along the beach. It was our first visit to the county back in 2016. We both absolutely loved the Suffolk coast and it is somewhere that I am sure we will re-visit at some point but, for now, here is the Orford quay area. It was just lovely ...

This simple limpet shell was the first thing that we collected together. There are three of them, one is in the jar on the dining room window sill and the other is in one of my handbags. We picked them up on the beach as we walked over to the breakwater in Bude. It was our first holiday together in June 2006 after we'd been together for about a month ...

We had a lovely holiday, we were very much in the throes of new love back than ... not that we still aren't, but you know what I mean. Everything was new and exciting and we were really looking forward to the adventures we just knew we would have together.

We both really regret the fact that we didn’t bring this heart shaped stone back too ... we did go back to see if we could find it again later on in our holiday, but no joy. I'm sure we would have found a special place for it, but we will both always remember it anyway ... and doesn't Martin look slim ... and not much grey hair either ...
We both love Bude and the North Cornwall and haven't been on holiday there since 2009. We have two weeks booked to stay later in the year and we are really looking forward to getting back down there. The last time we went was pre Life of Pottering, so I'm sure there will be plenty of posts to come later on in the year.

There is also a collection of other fossils that Martin has picked up on random beaches, which I can’t quite recall where they came from, but I'm sure he will know where they are all from ...
Our latest find was from the beach at Ferryside in Wales, where we went for the last new year. The beach was stunning, the day was bright ...

... and we just couldn’t resist picking up this little lot ...
They haven't made their way to their final home as yet. They are still sitting in a plastic bag tucked away somewhere safe, but I have an idea brewing, so I am sure they will be featuring in a new project sometime soon.

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Well, what a trip down memory lane that was ... lots of really lovely holidays and days out, all in this country There really is so much to see and to experience without the need to jump on a plane or to leave our shores.

I feel just a little bit wistful and very ready for our next adventure which, thankfully will be very soon. Will we bring home more bits and pieces? I guess there's every chance. I just know that they will always survive any decluttering or minimalising session ... after all, if we love it and it brings us joy, it will always have a home 💜💜💜

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4 comments:

  1. An excellent collection. I also like to collect pebbles, shells ...

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    1. We just can’t resist picking up bits and pieces, we are forever finding them in our pockets weeks later 😃

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    2. We certainly had our hearts in our mouths for a while there I can tell you. She point blank refuses to grow old gracefully 😃

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  2. I love that your Mum climbed the tree :)

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Thanks for taking time to comment on my blog. I love to hear what people think about what Martin and I have been up to.