Bank holiday nostalgia

 It's a long weekend in the UK and we actually ventured out to do a few traditional things like visiting a garden centre.  And  today (Bank Holiday Monday) it is throwing it down with rain which is also very traditional!  On Saturday we went to a garden centre we are familiar with, so we knew that the outside plant display area was pretty spacious.  There were a lot of (masked) people there but for the most part we could keep our distance.  I was looking for plants to replace the winter casualties lost to snow and cold, and loaded up the trolley with what seemed like a lot of perennials (including a Japanese anemone, some foxgloves, penstemons, Gaura and a few others).  But of course once home and planting them out, they soon are all set out and you wish you had got more.  But it was really pleasant to pretend to be normal  and do something we haven't done for over a year, but used to do a lot in the olden days.  And hopefully we'll have some more flowers this summer.

We also visited a few caravan/motorhome dealers over the weekend as we are toying with the idea of getting something for UK staycations over the next few years, now that international travel is going to be both more expensive and more difficult. Of course we are very late to the party, huge numbers of customers before us have bought up most of this season's stock and the used stock as well, and prices are really high for what's left.  I see on Facebook that campsites are pretty packed and that it can even be hard to find a space to rent at a caravan storage park.  We are very conflicted as shoppers because although I love the idea of getting away and having adventures, at the same time we're both a bit lazy and our own house is so comfortable and so full of enjoyable things to do, that it is hard to see the benefit of making the effort to go away and be uncomfortable in a confined space somewhere else.  And it is definitely not a cheap hobby.  Unless you bought a very basic (and possibly dangerous and uncomfortable) old caravan or motorhome, it's probably easily costing over £100 a night by the time you factor in depreciation, insurance, storage fees, breakdown cover, accessories, etc etc.  Not to mention all the faff of dealing with multiple systems that can go wrong or have to be filled or connected or set up.  Years ago we had a folding camper (fancy tent trailer) and while I loved it, it was a lot of work and DH loathed everything about it.  Neither of us liked being trapped cheek-by-jowl in a campsite filled with other people and their screaming kids, televisions and barking dogs, but if you go off-grid to a more basic site then you really have to keep an eye on your consumables such as your gas and battery levels.  We were impressed though at how much more comfortable and robust the units seem to be now, even campervans had ovens and microwaves, blown air heating, hot water and even toilets and showers.  I had a lot of fun climbing in and out of various units and opening all the cupboards etc., DH was less enthusiastic but still intrigued with some of the gadgets. I doubt anything will come of it, there are big cons and pros for all three types of unit (caravan, motorhome, campervan) and nothing springs out as the perfect solution even though I quite liked some of things I saw.

Crafting this week has been low key, with some pottering in the sewing room altering some clothes to fit better. I had a go at crafting a tiny dollshouse-size beaded bag after a friend pointed out the many tutorials online (and also a bunch here, keep scrolling down through the comments for more patterns).  Apparently tiny beaded bags are a bit of a hobby in places like Japan and Russia.  I should have known better than to jump right into to trying to make one out of seed beads for a first project when I was learning the technique.  The beads are so small and I found it really difficult to manipulate the fishing/beading line and understand how the 3D aspect worked, not to mention just trying to see what was going on.  I tried using my 5x Optivisor magnifier but settled on the 3.5x reading glasses from the pound shop as the best option.  I did a lot of undoing and re-doing but eventually ended up with a respectable bag shape. This is made with size 11/0 seed beads and 0.3mm clear nylon/monofilament beading thread. I've put it into the bedroom of my Canadian-style dollhouse.

Another thing I did this week was to make several trips up to the attic storage room to collect quilts  and bring them down to hang on the banisters on the lower floors. I realised that it had been over two years since I last had them all out, apart from the selected ones that I take out every few months in the winter when I change over the quilts I'm using on my bed.  It doesn't do textiles much good to sit folded up for ages, being crushed under the weight of other quilts.  It can set the fold lines permanently or even cause wear along the fold lines. 

So I'm letting them relax and hang the folds out for a week or so until I go through the work of refolding them all to fit them back into the modified IKEA wardrobe that most of them live in.  Yet another collection I will have to downsize eventually. One of the retirement groups that I have joined online had a post asking 'what would you have done differently when planning for retirement, knowing what you know now?'.  One woman's punchy answer was 'not collected so much cr*p!'.    I have a houseful of cr*p and it makes me happy to own it but at the same time, it feels like burden to think of having to downsize it all.  I have multiple collections, most of which will be extremely time-consuming to sell as individual pieces: vintage linens, vintage magazines, stash/books/tools across multiple hobbies, a room full of furnished dollshouses, etc. etc.  Someone in my old dollshouse club has been taking tables at local dollshouse shows for years and gradually selling off her garage-full of vintage dollshouse furniture.  Maybe I will need to do something like that.

Still handquilting, knitting the shawl and the second sock, and doing a bit of cross stitch on the little house sampler.  I haven't opened the box of the Kyoto Onsen kit yet, I think I will save that for when I am on holiday in June and can really concentrate on it.

What did you do on your bank holiday weekend?