A Jaunt

Recently Mr Shoestring and I took a trip to Napier and enjoyed a stay in Ormlie Lodge, a Victorian mansion with picturesque grounds.  

 There was a dovecote with a flock of amorous doves

 a romantic gazebo which was illuminated at night time

and a picturesque fountain where the blackbirds splashed and fluttered to their hearts' content

The summer was at an end but the garden was still looking pretty and the doves in their dovecote were cooing and pitching woo.  (Mr Shoestring didn’t manage to make it indoors without getting bird poo on his trousers, but that was only a minor inconvenience.)  The whole experience was very special. 

We also spent a night in our favourite hotel, The Masonic, oozing art deco ambience and  being refurbished and gussied up in a very sympathetic way.  We have "done" the art deco walk in Napier already but it was good to do it once more and brush up on some of the sights we had forgotten. 

 The original light fittings in the municipal theatre are amazingly colourful and in original condition

The deco details are all round the town to be taken in at one's lesiure

Walking up in the hills behind Napier we saw these beautiful swallows sunning themselves; somehow they are even more appealing than the doves

And there were lots of interesting fungi growing in the botanic gardens and in the hills, including these russety coloured ones

The view from Te Mata peak is spectacular, the rugged landscape awe inspiring

Back to reality again it looks as though Mr Shoestring may soon be joining the ranks of the employed once more, a great relief for all of us and cause for much celebration and rejoicing at Shoestring Cottage.  I do wish he wouldn't insist on telling people that he is about to leave the ranks of "the great unwashed", but boys do tend to favour these less than colourful utterances from time to time.  I always remember that when I was expecting our third child Mr Shoestring took to singing, "I've never been so broke I couldn't leave town" in the shower each morning, which I found somewhat unsettling to say the least!    

Madame Weigel's Journal of Fashion

Now just between you and me, I have a birthday coming up soon and imagine the thrill when I got home from work tonight to find this gorgeous present in the mail from the Queen Of The South!  (The wonderful postal service, we must make more use of it.)  This publication dates from December 1, 1932 and included its original free pattern to make the blouse pictured on the cover.

Here is a detail of the wonderful quality of the printing on the free tissue paper pattern for making the blouse

Both the journal and the pattern are in wonderful condition, I can't imagine where it has been for the last (almost) 80 years but somebody has obviously taken great care of them.  Madame Weigel's Journal of Fashion (A Delightful Home Journal) was published monthly in Australia, and as well as the free pattern there were patterns included for crocheted doyleys, a "London Letter" explaining the movements of the English Court (none of the walls were papered apparently at the Royal Lodge ad Windsor, they all were painted in a dull surfaced English made paint), a knitted pinafore, a knitted dressing jacket and so on.  There were instructions for a knitted shawl and a doll tea cosy, a novelty work basket, a smart jumper knitted in diagonal stitch and also wide filet crochet border for decorating the edges of linen with a "bleeding heart" pattern.  Bleeding heart is the popular name for the dicentra and I can see what a truthful depiction this crochet pattern is.

 As well as the free dressmaking pattern included there were illustrated and advertised patterns for 13 other wonderful garments which could be sent off for; I was only sad I couldn't obtain any of them because they were most fetching.  

The little jacket over the dress is called a "coatee".  My nana used to talk about "coatees" of her youth and I always wondered what they were - now I know.

I was particularly sad that I could not lay my hands on a lifetime's supply of "Formettes", the little tablets which promised me I could stop starving myself and overtaxing my heart with strenuous exercises, weakening myself with ineffective reducing treatments.  Apparently if I had these Formettes I could "get rid of that excess fat once and for all - reduce easily, safely and permanently"!  They were also "invaluable for palpitation of the heart, shortness of breath, indigestion, dyspepsia, sick headache, heartburn, etc".

 Also there was the A.M.S. Digestive and Liver Tonic which would cure just about any ailment known to humankind, and all at the cost of 3/-, which seemed very reasonable for such wonderful results.  I don't know if I would bother with Madame B Eugene's Freckle Soap, but the finger waves of the lady in the illustration were something to behold - I would very much like to be able to reproduce them.

The bottling set looked ferociously demanding.  I remember bottling from when I was a child, and what a hot and sticky process it was - always in the height of summer and it used to attract wasps.  On the other hand, before freezing was widely used in the domestic situation it must have been a wonderful way of ensuring a supply of fruit and out of season vegetables later in the year.

You can see the little lady in the upper left hand corner with her magic wand, "Mrs B. Thrifty", exhorting readers to cut their food bills in half, and that must have been the main reason for people to want to spend all that time and effort on such a pursuit!

Deco Debrief

On Saturday Lord and Lady Raglan hosted a magnificent deco debriefing.  Also in attendance were El Valentinos, other deco devotees (and expert swing dancers) who had enjoyed the experience with us.  Really this amounted to an excuse for us all to share our photos and spend a happy evening oohing and aahing at them all.  The fact that we had three sets of very similar shots mattered not one jot because we were happy to gaze repeatedly at them and relive our former triumphs in Napier in February.  We also sallied forth to the local club where there was a band playing, and attempted to swing dance to the not entirely suitable music, which gave the locals something to wonder about.  Poor Lady Raglan will be having to explain for weeks now what we were up to, I hope her good name is not damaged forever. 

What a beautiful day Raglan turned on for us.  We went for a walk round the town,

out to the harbour and then to the wharf and played that ever-popular game along the way where we would each select which house we would have for our very own (should we ever unexpectedly come into a large fortune and be able to afford such a luxury).  Ruthless criticism of anything not coming up to our high standards meant that we were able to narrow down the field very quickly but there were still enough desirable residences to go round. 

My all time favourite - a deco house and what a beautiful position

But this one would be hard to fault in the cuteness department

Then it was out to the surf beach where the surfers were putting on a brilliant display for our delectation.  How skilful and daring they were!  

How agile and fit they must be to control their boards in that way, we were very much entertained and only dragged ourselves away when we remembered our delicious picnic, which we devoured high up on a hillside by the sea so we could still watch the surf rolling in and see the sea birds wheeling in the air.  

This garden fascinated us.  The assortment of objects hanging in the tree and around the garden is astonishing

But I have to say that a personal highlight for me was when Lady Raglan bestowed the great honour upon us of taking us to the local dump, where there was a fabulous shop.  What an excellent idea this is, I think all councils should have a dump shop because there were some wonderful things there which would otherwise just have been destroyed and not reused.  About 35 years ago I read The Good Companions by J B Priestley and have always wanted my own copy to see if it is as good as I remembered, and here I found a lovely edition for $1.  The original owner’s name was in the front (1953 was the year she obtained her copy) and this made me value it all the more.  Also there was a knitting pamphlet with six (yes, six!) art deco twin sets and instructions on how to knit them.  Each twinset had a name ("Headliner", "Tourist", "Wayfarer", "Mosaic" "Preview" and "Talisman" ) and I am captivated by them.

Lady Raglan pointed out to me that even if I had the twin sets I do not possess the pointy bosoms of the ladies modelling them, but I am sure that is not a major setback.  Going to the bother of trying to reproduce 1930s lingerie is above and beyond the call of deco duty, even for a devotee such as myself I fear. 

 Magnificent Max the Wonder Dog demonstrating his "noble" expression beside a statuette

My obsession with all things avian continues.  I was very jealous of this beautiful bird's nest Lady Raglan had in her garden.  The construction of this nest is so skilful - it really can't be compared with the couple of twigs the pigeons deposit on the bridge near Shoestring and use as a nest!

And here is this week's "frugal challenge".  These botanical images were found in a bargain bookshop years ago and clever Mr Shoestring has cunningly used them to create a headboard at the apartment where we formerly only had a blank wall; we will get a lot more pleasure from them displayed in this way every day.