Market Days

It's been another busy week in the Norris household, and we have been continuing to enjoy the festival summer season. First up, for the bank holiday weekend the French market is in town. M and I both have a love of all preserved meats and we have stocked up as you can see below. Parma ham, chorizo, and various sausages. Who could pass up the oppertunity to try kangaroo sausage? The meats and smoked garlic are making our kitchen smell divine! We also treated ourselves to fresh goats cheeses, bread, olives, and artichokes.

To celebrate this culinary haul, we had a gorgeously smug lunch with fruit and veg entirely home grown. Rocket, melon and radish salad with your parma ham? Oh, yes! I opened a bottle of 2001 Cairanne bought when I was a house officer eight years ago and it set off the food brilliantly. It's a hard life!

My mum is staying this week which is really nice, and yesterday we had a day out in Bridport for the Open Studios weekend. They also had a Vintage Market with mainly furniture and had a lovely time mentally rearranging and redecorating the house to accommodate the pieces for sale. In the studios I discovered one artist in particular called Paul Blow. He is an illustrator working predominantly for magazines and I was instantly struck by his work. I'm definately going to keep an eye on his work and aim to invest in piece one day. I had to rein M in a bit and remind him we didn't have any room for another vintage electric fire... We were really excited to find a set of rare Woolworths 'Homemaker' 1950s crockery at the market, which we snapped up in a blink. Amazingly the lady had had them for a while and having trouble selling them as a complete set. Annoying she sold a singular teacup and saucer from the set, but it's still the largest collection I've seen for sale. Most of the pieces are the early Ridgeway prints.

We already have some Jessie Tait 'Quite Contrary' ceramics from Midwinter, also from the 1950's. I can see a collection growing here! I am embracing the era by watching Mad Men as I put this blog together.

On the sock knitting front, I have finished my latest pair as a gift for Christmas. Another design from 'Knitted Socks, East and West', this time using 'Casbah' by Hand Maiden. They were lovely to knit and I'm very happy with the end product. Next project is a cable tank top from Easy Knits.

I made use of the buttons I bought at Goodwood on this high street cardigan. I was really pleased with the result - they match better than I could have hoped for and instantly made it something special.

Last weekend, my sister and her husband came to stay, and we had a lovely walk around Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens. I bought a Taipei Silk plant (with flowers as pictured below) for my patch at the allotment. I'm trying to record all my flowers here so that I have half a chance of remembering what they all are.

I don't tend to talk about my family and friends on this blog, but my Grandma died this week. This is for her.