Dig Revelations
After some tidying up inside, breakfast in the garden with Jim and Buster, it was off to do some work. I headed for the same spot I was at yesterday and ended up doing more archaeology than garden clearing. I did clear quite a bit of ivy too. Tonight I brought my finds inside and photographed some of them.
Boots and Shoes
Here are some of the old boots and shoes I have found. And there are more.. There are also lots of bits of boots. I'm sure someone in the past must have been a shoe mender and maker
One of the boots
A different style, maybe a lady's shoe?
Any Old Iron?
I think this is a piece of an old cooking pot
Glassware
This is the bottle of 'Elliman's Embrocation'. Isn't that absolutely wonderful? It's presumably some kind of medicine as there are several of these bottles. It must have been good. See below
I have just googled this 'medicine' and can you believe you can still buy it? The bottle still looks pretty old fashioned in the advert. I think that's amazing. This is what google tells us:
Universal Embrocation for rheumatic and muscular pain. Uses: rub in Ellimans Universal Embrocation to spread soothing warmth; for quick relief of muscular pain and stiffness including rheumatic pain, backache, sciatica, lumbago, fibrositis and for athlete's massage of arm and leg muscles.
Another favourite, 'Lockyer's Sulphur Hair Restorer'. Brilliant.
Apparantly it was a hair dye, not a 'restorer' as such, only in that it restored your colour and got rid of grey. This was only made from the late 1800s to about 1912-1915, so this bottle is pretty old.
I washed and cleaned the glass as best as I could. Here are some of the bottles, jars and glass stoppers
This attractive little bottle still has the stopper in and some of the contents. It looks like oil
This pretty bottle has lost its top but I still thought it was worth keeping. it's quite different from the others. Maybe it was for perfume. I love the 3 glass bottle stoppers we found
Pottery/China
Here is a tiny selection of the pottery I unearthed. The marmalade pot on the right is complete
You can see how thick this pottery is. It was probably a huge old serving dish
Jim was trying to put this bowl back together but it appears there is more than one. We keep saying we'll make a mosaic of the china but never get round to it. One day.
And finally (drum roll)
An enamel potty!
I don't think we'll be using it though......
Didn't I have fun?? I'm sure there is a lot more buried around there but I must get on. Tomorrow I'll try and resist the urge to dig some more.
ATC
I made this ATC, called Madam Butterfly
The material on the left is beaded and very delicate. The centre is a book mark I had, made of wood and the butterflies are cut out from an old pair of girl's tights and then I highlighted them
Bundle - What's Inside?
I unwrapped my bundle this evening and took some photos of the contents. Some of them hardly look any different but some of the paper goods look great. The 2 photographs I put in, especially the one of an Ibis, have changed for the better. Here are the results:
The bee I had hanging from the bottom has hardly changed at all
Purple crepe paper gave this wonderful effect on the ibis
My ATC didn't survive very well and has brown fuzzy stuff on the bottom half from some textured paper
This piece of plain yellow paper has definitely improved too
Our next task is to make everything into a new piece of art. It makes me think I wish I'd know this before I'd made up my bundle! I have a few ideas and the new work has to be finished by August 1st.
The Garden
The strawberries are coming on a treat. There are two sets of rows like this and they are covered in flowers
The vegetable garden is looking a picture. You can see, left to right, gladioli (for cut flowers), broad beans, onions, peas at the back. I know there are also beetroot and lettuce. the strawberry plants are in the foreground. Jim has worked very hard on it.
Pink aquilegia
White saxifrage, white thrift and pink thrift
Blue/purple aquilegia
I know I have featured this little section before but I just love the contrasting foliage. The alchemilla mollis is just beginning to gain strength and will soon make the combination even better with it's gorgeous green leaves and yellow/green flowers. My washing features behind!!
Buster
Buster quite often likes to sleep on this chair. Well, if he can get all of him on it....
He often has his head falling over the front
Yesterday, Sandy cat was sleeping in his bed. Buster did not approve. See how he worked his magic to remove the intruder:
Buster removes Emily (his doll) from Sandy's reach
Then leans heavily on Sandy
Sandy gave up and ran up to bed
Builders
Finally, Martin the builder came round about 5pm to talk about the job. He is coming to meet the electrician and hopefully the plumber on Thursday to discuss their part of the job and will crack on next week with the plastering. He could see I wanted it done. Hopefully things will move fairly quickly from Monday.
I am off to the UK for Jack's 4th birthday on Wednesday until Saturday evening. I'm going to the Zoo on his birthday, the 14th and to an indoor play hall on the Saturday with lots of his friends. Should be great fun.
