Monday 7 February 2011

Moving on a bit further........

Hi to all you bloggers out there, who's ramblings give me so much pleasure these days.

We have been clearing out Dad's loft for a couple of weekends and even my Mam was amazed at how much stuff Dad had hoarded, including a radio from a Lancaster Bomber!! He was a radio ham and had worked in a radio television repair workshop before and after National Service and then joining ICI Wilton in the 1950's. He never lost his love of old radios and all the relative components and like we have vintage and retro fairs, he visited radio shows. There were boxes and boxes of old radio valves and 24 radios in both the loft and garage. A couple of his radio friends have been through his 'radio shack' aka the little front bedroom and taken away some of his quite expensive receivers and things to sell fro Mam.

The loft was full of memories of our lives and Mam said that a lot of the stuff was put up there 43 years ago when they moved in.

There were boxes of radio magazines, first day covers, newspapers in boxes of important dates in life. The best things were the boxes of old books we found that belonged to Dad and Mam when they were little and then teenagers and she was so pleased to see them, having forgotten about them. We will be sorting them out later and mine can go on the new shelf unit Alan has made me for the little front bedroom where our vintage stuff is accumulating.

There was a flying suit from WW2 as well as two leather jerkins that the despatch riders wore. We are contacting some re-enactors to see if they want them.

Then there was my Nana's stuff which Mam thought had all been sorted but no Dad had secreted it away, so there was all that to sort out.

We did two trips to the charity shop and two trips to the tip in estate cars so you can imagine the amount of stuff. My brother is putting some things on ebay and we have all taken stuff to our homes, as we obviously have Dad's genes...........

Mam is doing very well and we see her as much as we all can as we come to terms with our greatly changed lives. We did a laugh a lot whilst we were sorting mostly because of the stuff Dad had kept. He and Mam are of the war and post war era where you always mended everything and never threw anything away in case you needed it! So some things had to be prised from Mam as you could see her thinking ' Hmm could this be useful? '. We had to assure her that if it had been in her loft for over 20 years then it probably wasn't useful.

I am going to wash up now as out dishwasher (inherited in the house) gave up the ghost at the weekend, we await a new one from Argos on Thursday.

I have been doing Weight Watchers now and have lost (slowly I might add ) 5 pounds to date. I cannot say I ma hungry but I would love a big bar of Dairy milk!!

I am making curtains for the front door from some lovely LA Sitwell fabric in blue and taupe, lovely. The job has been held up though because of my car accident last week!!

Speak to you later...............................

12 comments:

Aimee said...

Glad everything is going ok. Sounds like you found some lovely stuff of your dad. It is nice to have keepsakes. I can't throw anything away either.
Take Care of yourself, Aimee. x

ahomespunyear said...

Oh, I think I'm going to be just the same because I find it really hard to throw anything away. What lovely memories you must have though when you look at all the things he saved...even though you've the job of sifting through it.
Hope all goes well!

made-and-found said...

Hi,Catherine sorry you can't make the crochet workshop but we will be doing more in the near future.We have a good mix of abilities coming on Sunday.One lady is wanting to learn a little bit more as she can already crochet and the rest have either tried it and not managed it or have never done it so we hope you can come to another one and it would be lovely to meet you when you are so close.Hope your fair is successful and you have a great weekend.
Much love Anne x

love those cupcakes said...

Thanks for popping into Cupcake Towers, it's always good to see a new face!
You did well to sort out your dad's loft. I found it so hard to empty my parents' home after realising I couldn't possibly keep everything.

Niki Fretwell said...

Hi Catherine,
Thank you for visiting my blog.
I was sorry to read of the recent loss of your father. It sounds like you have some wonderful treasures to remember him by...but even more precious I suspect, are the family memories of him.

I'm sorry, but I do not know anything about Sophie Honeysuckle, as I do not follow her blog. (I did reply to your previous request via my blog, in case anyone else wanted to know my reply.)

Take care,
Niki

Niki Fretwell said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
salty pebble said...

hello there nice to meet you x
just wanted to let you know that the cup/sugar pot (as it has no handle) is vintage- it was bought while thrifting for 50p ;0)
it was on its own no set...but yes its very pretty...royal bursley wares...incase you want to look more up online ;0)x

wendy said...

Hi, It's Wendy here, a friend of Linda's at vintage heart. I think you tryed to contact me a while back? Anyway, I have finally started, in fear and trepidation, to blog, and have just posted my very first, and very basic one a few minutes ago! Please have a look and say hello.

You sound like you have been very busy. I too am a terrible hoarder, much to the families disgust!
Look forward to hearing from you. Love Wendy x

Vintage to Victorian said...

Hi Catherine

Thank you! Yes, the day went well and I have to agree that taking on Dairy House was one of my better decisions!!!

The boxes are all still available and I'd be happy to post one (or more) to you. I can't remember offhand how much they are but I'll let you know. If you want me to email you direct then you can pick up my email address from the blog.

In the meantime I'll try and remember to check the prices tomorrow!!

Sue x

Unknown said...

Hello! Just dropped by to say that it was so lovely to meet you today! I was looking at your blog list - I <3 Bespoke and Totnes too! Look forward to talking to you soon! Kx

Unknown said...

Hello Catherine, Thank you for your lovely comment, the image on the side bar of my blog came from the graphics fairy, I don't know if you know this site, if you do, you'll know how it works...if you don't.....the images are free to download. I usually just save as....then put them where I want!! I searched for sewing I think. So sorry about your dad, it's very hard to loose the people we love, I hope your Mum is doing ok. And also how awful about your redundancy, I send hugs xx
Sophie

Carol said...

Oh Catherine I am so sorry. And yes we do know just what this loss means to us. I did think I was doing pretty well until 3 months after when I hit rock bottom.
I am pleased that your sort out went well, treasure all you keepsakes. I kept one of my Mums jumpers, can;t wash it, I like to hold it close the smell is her and I love it.
Take care sweet friend.

Carol xbitothro