beach cottage, bEAching, cottage garden, mEAndering, out and about

All the fun of the fair…

wherethejourneytakesme

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Last weekend we went up to our cottage in Scotland and on the Saturday after a morning of jobs we decided to drive into the local town for the afternoon to do some shopping and browsing in the local shops.  It was a gorgeous sunny day and we stopped to have a walk down by the harbour.  As it is half term in Scotland the ‘shows’ as they are called were visiting Stranraer and with camera in hand we wandered around as the stall holders were preparing for the evening ahead when the fairground would become alive with music and lights and excitement.

It is a long time since I have been to a fair and I noticed a few significant changes, like the candy floss being encased in plastic wrappers rather than bobbing about freely on sticks;  the goldfish imprisoned in a makeshift plastic bag and dangling precariously from the stalls waiting to be claimed as a prize have now been replaced with soft cuddly toys of all shapes and sizes, some of them are unidentifiable but somehow are still a wanted prize for the ‘winner’ and of course the inflated prices of the rides, but on the whole the fair is just as I remember when I was young.

The interesting thing about this fair is that it is situated alonside the harbour and if you look closely at the photos above you will see I managed to get a few shots of the stalls and rides with the sea and yachts bobbing up and down in the background.

 

Back at the cottage…

Luce Bay

The sea was very calm all weekend

 

Watering cans

 

There are still a few splashes of colour here and there

 

Blue Gate 2

 

…our blue gate has had a fresh coat of paint ready for the winter…

Blue Gate

and what is this…

Scaffold

…our scaffolding has arrived and is in place but we are a few slates short of a new roof at the moment.  The slate we need like most slate in Britain now will be imported from Spain and the Spanish quarries are not able to send over the thinner slate for reasons only know unto them, so we are desperately trying different merchants to find some stock so our roofer can replace our roof!!  Once the roof is done we can tackle our ramshackle porch if it doesn’t fall down this winter!

 

 

 

 

Published by wherethejourneytakesme

I live in a small old mill town nestled into the Pennine hills in Yorkshire with my long-suffering husband of thirty some years. I have two beautiful daughters who have flown the nest (most of the time!). I paint and draw (a little) when time allows, make and bake sometimes but not often enough and garden and grow things as much as possible. I recycle and up-cycle, hate waste and I couldn’t live without my time planner and lists.

14 thoughts on “All the fun of the fair…”

  2. Love the bright colours of the fair contrasting against the glimpses of the sea. Your new gate looks very smart! It’s lovely to see the sea so calm. I noticed too your bunting we both bought last year is still going strong! I left my outside and it deteriorated but I have managed to recover some of it and repainted and have kept it inside this time!
    Sarah x

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    1. I had it outside in the summer but it would deteriorate with the salt spray in winter and then would look like our shabby porch with peeling paint! We have learned over time that we have to use full gloss paint to hold against the winter weather and sadly the porch is the result of painting in an exterior eggshell – definitely no match for the salt spray we get.

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    1. As we are on the Gulf Stream the winters can be quite mild and we tend to have weeds and grass growing all year round so never get to put the mower and hedge trimmer away! The botanical gardens are just up the road with Palms and Tree Ferns but in the bad winter last year it was very deep snow and no electricity for 3 days. Some of the kids there had never seen snow! Two or three years ago it was -16 and we had bad frosts which is also very unusual there and the nearby caravaners had not drained their caravans down as they had never needed to before – there was so many with burst pipes and ruined caravans. Needless to say they drain down now! Our main enemy is the storms and wind and salt spray.

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  7. Did you go and visit Romany Varda?!!! Your cottage looks to be in a most idyliic spot with lovely sea views. From the garden to the blue gate it all looks very special. I can dream of spending a summer there painting and writing and looking out to the sea. x

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    1. Romany Varda was having her tea at the time in her little touring caravan – she looked as Romany as I do!!!! I too dream of painting and writing at the cottage – I am usually up to my knees with mud somewhere in the overgrowth trying to tame the garden or balanced on a ladder cleaning out gutters!!.

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