Shopping.........of course

You didn't think four gals could spend a week anywhere without a shopping spree......or two, did you?

Although we were limited for space when it came to buying bulky items - the downside to travel - it didn't mean we couldn't look, wish, sigh.......and, now and again, buy something small to tuck in the spare corner of a suitcase.

Here are some of things I found interesting..............and you'll never believe which item Kim and Rob actually somehow stuffed into their rolling duffel!!

At a fun visit to a huge garden center I loved this Day at the Allotment box.  For those of you who aren't familiar with allotments - and you didn't watch EastEnders on TV - they are small plots of land rented to gardeners to grow veggies/flowers, usually if they don't have large enough gardens on their own properties, or they live in flats or 'digs'........I'll explain that term another time!  Also 'tuck' which means a snack such as a candy bar...............and you really thought we spoke the same language!!!!!!!
Of course to take this cute box home would have required ditching either my basic black carry on or, heaven forbid, my fashionable French blue laser cut leather bag purchased for my vacation. So it was left here for someone with a real allotment to enjoy.

How fabulous, also at the garden center.................a display of the entire line of Farrow & Ball paints and wallpapers.  As you may know these paints are costly in the UK..........and totally beyond my paint budget here in the US!  Their colors are perfection and I'm sure the paint itself is gorgeous to slap on. 

My dirty little secret - buy a sample pot, take it to my local paint store and have them match it in a much more affordable paint.  So no, I didn't burden my DH with a load of heavy paint cans, and as much as I loved their exquisite wallpapers, I'm not going back to hiring paper hangers - who once ate everything in my 'frig, and freezer, and left me with a half done job........that's another story!

At an outdoor market, dodging showers and shoppers, I really fell for these neat replicas of old fish crates - remember how much I love words and calligraphy.  They actually looked authentic, but didn't smell fishy, and several stacked up somewhere in my house would have made a great storage display

We found a 'shabby chic' style shop selling reproduction furniture..............

........and some Union Jack items - the long draught excluder above for an old cottage door on chilly Winter evenings...... 

........and these really nice storage trunks. Now If I had been returning by sea perhaps, just perhaps, I could have gone the way of a vintage ocean voyage passenger and chucked all my wrinkled clothing and muddy boots in one of them before sailing back across the pond!

The one thing I would have really loved to bring back was this tapestry cushion depicting Beatrix Potter's Jemima Puddle-Duck and the "foxy-whiskered gentleman". This would have been a lovely memento from the Lake District......and yes, I'm still kicking myself for not buying it when I saw it in the window of an antiques shop.


What did friends Kim & Rob actually manage to stuff in their bag? Actually, two of the neat fish crates..........guess I need to take packing lessons from them for future trips!