Autumn Views Challenge week 8 and confessions of a new addiction...



 

Hello everyone - am I glad its the weekend!  My regular readers will know that my day job is teaching and this week we had the wonderful news (ahem, sarcastic sneer needed here!!) that OFSTED were going to be around......(cue doom-laden music).  So crafting, time with friends etc had to be put on hold whilst all hands were put firmly on deck with the preprarations.  Fortunately I have experienced these things quite a few times so was well prepared, although they always ask for random last minute bits.  All passed without incident - woop!  So to celebrate my dearest friend Sue picked me up after work last night for an early evening jaunt - more of which later.

 

But lets start with this week's Autumn View:

 

 

 So many leaves have now drifted away, there are still spashes of vivid colour to be seen, but a lot of brown as well.  We are well and truly headed towards the winter.

Well, the title of this post and the news of the OFSTED visit may well have you all worried that I have hit the bottle or some kind of recreational substances - but fear not dear readers!!!!  My new addiction is rather nice (well I think so anyway) as it is collecting vintage pottery!  Im really getting into Midwinter - the autumnal shades at least.  Our local bric-a-brac market can sometimes come up with some lovely finds.  There is a particular stall holder who knows Im into this kind of stuff and puts stuff on one side for me to have first choice of!!  So, yesterday morning, bright and early, I headed off to the market - and what a wonderful collection of things I came back with!

All of these plates are in the Stylecraft shape which I love. 

But then - the ever helpful (and canny!!) stall holder had something else to reveal - some items by a designer I hadnt heard of

Well, just look at these little beauties, in exactly the kind of designs and colours I love....

And with the design called October (my favourite month of the whole year) how could a girl resist?  And I so needed a treat after OFSTED....so they popped into the shopping basket.  THEN....

 

 

Oh my word, how lovely...

And I NEED new dishes.....

Well, I had to call a colleague to help me carry them all back to the office!!  Colleague was completely understanding, having gone through OFSTED as well, but their response was to stuff themselves silly at McDonalds.  Each to their own!!!!

What I love about these items is they work out between 50p - 85p each, so cheaper than IKEA!  I love the designs and that others have used them before.  And I do use them, albeit with care, I never put them through the dishwasher even though, apparently they are dishwasher proof. 

Well, onto the aforementioned jaunt with Sue!  We nipped over to the local garden centre which is wonderful at this time of the year.  I had my smartphone, not my usual camera so the pics arent great but here are a few:

Lovely cheery cylamen

Friendly reindeer

And finally, the garden centre's resident feline friend happily posing for the camera:

We went to the cafe and had some super cakes and coffee.   No photos as both too hungry!!!

And I have one more reason to celebrate - I have completed my final MSc assignment, and only have 11,000 words to do to complete the dissertation!!!!!! 

Have a super weekend!

Helenxx