Midsummer — A little while back...

Can I just say, in my defence, maintaining a house is pretty difficult. Like, coming from a part-furnished flat had me completely sheltered from the fact that cupboards, wardrobes and shelves are really actually very useful for hiding so much crap. Also, how have accumulated so much crap?

My poor little Macbook, totally on it's last legs, is full to the brim with a backlog of photographs ready to be uploaded - I finally finished editing them yesterday evening - and I've just been lacking in the will to want to write anything out or take photographs or do anything other than think about how I'm going to sort out the mess that is our new home.

It's not a complete disaster, I mean no walls need to be knocked through and everything is basically fine, but we've still got painting left to do and like I said, I've got to figure out a way to 'hide' all our stuff, two things that with self-imposed looming deadlines of upcoming house warming parties (if I didn't set dates they would never happen and summers are short) feel a little more worthwhile than pottering about online.

So it was actually really nice to take a breather from all that worrying at the beginning of June when I attended my second Wealden Times Midsummer Fair, this time without winning a competition.

With Granny and my sister in tow, I made the windy drive over to the Garden of England for a sunny afternoon of browsing independent retailers, dog spotting and snapping away. In truth, these might be the last 'proper' photos I've taken since coming back from Hong Kong (it's been over a month already!), shameful I know, but I'll get around to all of it once I put some dang shelves up, okay?


How cute is this little pug hanging out in the Burlanes tent, it was certainly a hot day for dogs.



It was hard to move for good VM, so many beautiful stalls. ♥


The talks this year were entirely less food-based than last year, on the downside this meant no samples from Masterchef finalists, on the upside... I did get to be eye-level with James Wong's knees and learn about the best ways to grow things in the garden though. Three things I took away: Treat them mean, keep them keen, don't put strawberries in the fridge and heritage foods aren't necessarily better.



These cuties were in a naming competition, sadly my entry didn't get chosen - still bitter about it because I'm sorry, Thundercat is the best name for anything.


[Produce Candles]
The stall I wish I'd bought from but I'm currently on a bit of a candle-ban. Look at them though! They had so many great scents and that packaging! ♥









Sadly this stall had downsized a little from last year (when it featured a great dane and a gorilla) but I'm still amazed by these flowery critters.






Snapped by my sister :: The Barefoot Welder's adorable sausages.



There was a lot of (very reasonably priced) taxidermy at this year's fair, some pieces were better than others...


A bit of a running joke — I'm currently growing one of these, my Gran says it will take hundreds of years before mine is like this though... :(







The gardens were quite as in full bloom as they were last year but were still a lovely place for a stroll.





I really love Hole Park Gardens and the fair itself. I'm so pleased that my Gran enjoyed herself, particularly as this year hasn't been an easy one for our family so far and it was a good way to take our minds off things - she did say the fair could have been 'much of a muchness' and I kind of get what she means but I'm glad it wasn't actually that way.





After going to two Midsummer Fairs, I'm intrigued to see what Wealden Times' Midwinter Fair will have to offer and might just make the special trip later this year. With the house taking up so much of my time, in between fitting in life at the weekends, I don't know how many fairs I'll get to go this summer and even if this one ends up not being the only one by accident, it's still a pretty tough one to beat.

Seriously though, all storage solution suggestions welcome...