Lovely Langham Street Fayre

Just a little post from me today to mention a gorgeous event, so special that only happens every other year. If you happen to be in North Norfolk this Saturday then you really must visit the lovely Langham Street Fayre there's lots going on.

A wonderful mix of stalls selling crafts, homemade & home grown food, bric a brac, books and anything else you could wish for. I think there will be vintage cars again this year (yes I will be taking photos but no silly posing by them this time thankfully ha ha). There are competitions, games, proper old fashioned village fete fun that are probably aimed at the kids - but too much fun for big kids to miss out on.

Anyway it's a lovely outing for the family, or just you & your friends. Oh don't bother with the picnic as there will be bacon butties, homemade cakes, afternoon teas and too many other goodies to avoid!

Did I mention the weather forecast?? Make sure you bring sunnies, a hat & suncream woo hoooo. Homemade icecream anyone?? xx

Festival Fever

Well it's taken me all nearly week to write up about last weekend. It was Festival time for me and my buddies. I'm not normally a tent person... camp yes (check out my music on my itunes ha ha), camping no! However I really did enjoy it this time.

Latitude is a gorgeous & very friendly festival just outside of Southwold. It's not just great music, but literature, poetry, theatre, ballet, dance, opera.....

Sadly we missed Nigel Kennedy - how mad would that have been! But we did get the second round of the legend that is Mr Tom Jones!!! Awesome.

Other delights were seeing Florence & the Machine, the XX were amazing & haunting, I love Vampire Weekend... the list goes on.

Before I totally bore you to sleep I should mention other things like the Keep & Share learn to knit stall. It looked incredible, good attention to detail. I would love to see this at all village fetes, such a great idea.

The tent pegs were even embellished in big balls of wool.

Rodrigo Y Gabriela were incredible as ever. I smugly had seen them before & insisted lots of my friends see them. They were blown away much to my delight! They pretty much make astounding music with two guitars & lots of talent.

Worth checking out.

Sadly couldn't fit in everything I wanted to see. I was very much up for checking out the La De Dahs 1940's styled singers singing many new songs in a classic style. Can't believe I missed them twice boo hoo.

If you go down the woods today you're sure to find a tree filled with blue butterflies and a fabulous recycled wooden bar serving yummy pimms. Perfecto.

1940's Evening

We went to an amazing event at the weekend. It was held at a private airstrip outside of Norwich. A beautiful remote location in the midst of barley fields and a patchwork of countryside as far as the eye could see. We took picnic baskets loaded with scrummy salads, homemade cakes and scones (with jam and clotted cream of course) Pimms and champagne! It was Daddy’s belated birthday celebration. He had spent the day at Duxford ogling planes and telling stories of RAF days gone by, so the evening was a perfect follow on. He’s the one with the Union Jack tie & RAF issue moustache in case you were curious. One day I hope to have a moustache just as impressive ha ha.

The picnic area was enclosed in an impressive semi circle of pristine vintage planes. There were 3 Mustangs, Havard, and a Steerman biplane. The hanger was decorated with memorabilia and entertainment was in the form of an 18 piece band who delighted us all with incredible renditions of various Glenn Miller songs and Big Band classics.

There were some impressive outfits and a gentleman who looked very much like Winston Churchill, complete with cigar! I must confess to being pretty clueless when it comes to dancing to anything before 1980’s! I did get bullied into trying though & may have committed myself to going to some sort of dance lessons. I’m thinking I salsa classes with my girlfriends for the laugh factor (at me when I stuff it up hilariously)! There were a couple who looked fabulous and were throwing some amazing shapes on the dance floor, I believe it was called the Jitterbug!! Yes, I have much to learn!!!

Anyway the whole evening was brilliant fun, met some lovely people, the band were absolutely superb and we enjoyed being dressed in the best 1940’s style that we could manage in the short time we had to organise it!! I went for a Laura Lees tea dress which was in a late 1940’s style and an incredible vintage jacket that I got from Natasha Pickles last summer. My “What Katie Did” fully fashioned stockings were quite the talk of the town – no, I didn’t go for any pin up styled shots by the planes… but they had lipstick red seams! Oh and I had a fascinator that I made out of a vintage hat too, it was much admired by Winston as it so happens!!!

Mummy Butterfly managed to avoid all the photos but she did look the part in a lovely black & white floral 1940's summer dress with full skirt.

Looking out from the dance floor at the ladies & gentlemen dressed up to the nines, vintage cars and planes and the bunting fluttering I felt like I could actually have been in the 1940's but without the fear of air raids thankfully!

Hopefully there will be another of these events next year and I will definitely let you all know in advance as it was splendid!

A Weekend A-fayre!!

Well it's good old British Summertime which means Fayres & Fêtes in towns & villages all over the place.

This weekend the Butterfly duo have two on.

Saturday is Somerleyton, which is a really cute chocolate box setting complete with duckpond, good pub and gorgeous cottages. No surprise that they film lots of period dramas & series in this area.

The event is for the Primary School on Saturday 10th July from 1pm to 5pm on the Green in Somerleyton Village. You won't miss the bunting fluttering in the Summer breeze.

Expect to find nice things to buy, cakes to eat, teas and lovely smiley people & plenty of good old fashioned family fun!

Norwich Lanes Summer Fayre

11^th July 2010 11am – 5pm

The Lanes Summer Fayre was originally set up as simply the St. Benedicts Street Fayre but has grown to include the “ Norwich Lanes” community. This is a really nice area of Norwich for unusual little boutiques. Lots of fabulous shops to be found, cool bars, nice restaurants and the Maddermarket Theatre.

This year the Lanes Summer Fayre is being included as part of the Lord Mayor’s celebrations too.

What you will find is a selection of scrummy stalls & selling a variety of hand-made goods, vintage clothes, antiques and crafts and food vendors. There will be entertainment moving along St. Benedicts Street throughout the day and various acoustic music and poetry will be taking place on St. Gregorys Green. Other activities will be happening in the variety of venues and churches along the street and up to St. Gregory’s Church and the Birdcage. Yep Butterflies & Hurricanes (me and Mummy Butterfly)are there selling accessories and my mates the Headless Teddy boys will be there selling really good coffee. I know some of the other stall holders too & it promises nice things (and treats for me oops).

It’s going to be a lovely event & all the shops in the Lanes should be open too, so shop till you drop xx

A Very English Afternoon

Well I haven't been able to keep quiet about the fact that I had the chance to go out for a spin in a 1935 Aston Martin Ulster. We were lucky enough to be able to borrow this fabulous vintage car from the Aston Martin Heritage Trust and we actually drove it straight out of the Aston Martin Heritage Museum!

I can tell you a little about this lovely model, created from the race car which had much success in Goodwood and the Ulster TT (where it gained the name) there was interest in creating a road version and 21 were made (all of which are still running!). Of course as was very much done in the good old days, many road cars were entered into races & this model was apparently very successful. We managed about 60 mph which was pretty exhilarating & the race drivers of the time must have had more guts than me achieving speeds of over 100mph!

If you have been kind enough to be viewing my blog, you will recognise this fabulous early 1960's dress that I wore for the occasion. It has a matching cropped jacket which had to come off due to the lovely weather that was not forecast - someone was smiling on us!

I should apologise for the flattened & windswept hair, I should have taken more photos before we went out. Plus I had a (vintage of course) headscarf tightly tied under my chin to avoid the birds nest look - ok so I failed but at least I could still comb my hair that evening!!

You may be able to guess how silly I felt having my photo taken (I really don't like it) but I had promised a few friends that I would do so.

I had looked much more authentic earlier - honest but I did feel that effort had to be made to pop out in such a gorgeous car.

Now you would think that this would be the perfect opportunity to go for lunch or afternoon tea somewhere .... by the time we had stopped driving everywhere & though about food, everywhere was closed ha ha.

We did find this lovely looking pub which suited the occasion and so we popped back for dinner that evening. The Nelson was perfect, excellent food & service in a lovely setting.

Anyway if you happen to be in the Benson / Wallingford area of Oxfordshire & you love vintage cars then you should pop down to the Aston Martin Heritage trust Museum, it's really interesting & the people there are so friendly & helpful with loads of great stories and ideas of where to pop to for lunch afterwards!

Anyway it was sooo much fun & we giggled around the countryside waving and parping at everyone like Toad in Wind in the Willows ha ha. Definitely a day to remember!