Agatha Christie's The Pale Horse with Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple

I watched ITV's Agatha Christie's The Pale Horse last night, it was thoroughly enjoyable and I finally felt comfortable with Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple, she was excellent.

Odd that when you consider that Christie's The Pale Horse wasn't a Miss Marple at all.

Anyway it would appear that Julia McKenzie also feels that she has grown into the part,

“I feel pleased with the way Marple has been received and I’m enjoying it a lot more now.

“I think I was rather in shock in the first couple of films because I did take over the role very quickly. I was just so surprised to get the part, added to which was the trepidation of taking over such an iconic role. I feel now that I’m much more secure in the characterisation of Miss Marple.

“I feel I’ve settled into it and would like to play her for the rest of my working life if there are enough stories to go round.”

(Julia's quote from Sunday Mercury.Net)

So what do you think?

Umbrella day?

A quick look out of the window this morning shows another grey day,

we may well be needing those umbrella's again.

Oh why, did it have to rain on St Swithun's?

Image from The Musical Umbrella a vintage childrens book by Friedrich Feld

The Village Show

If you like heavy horses as much as we do pop over to Renaissance Life to see the photographs of the village show. You'll find lots of Shires and Suffolk Punches as well as sheepdogs and vintage cars.

If you like vintage - Treevoole Farm

If you like (love) vintage as much as we do then get yourself over to A Mermaid's Tale, Christine has the most wonderful photographs on her blog of a visit to Treevoole Farm. You're going to love it

A Mermaid's Tale - Trevoole Farm

Continental Market

Not vintage - but don't these look delicious?

More photographs of our visit to The Continental Market can be found at Renaissance Life

Vintage 1940's Sewing Pattern Misses Long or Short Pajamas

Make your own vintage 1940's PJ's,

so cute,

vintage sewing pattern from Patternshop

Free Vintage Book Illustrations

I found these free vintage illustrations at Brocante Home

Aren't they lovely?

And you can just help yourself, better still there are more so pop over to

Brocante Home and take a look.

Midsummer Roundup

We're at Midsummer and what a glorious week it's been hasn't it?
Last night we were at Houghton Hall for a concert and we picniced on the lawn, the evening was just perfect.
What a wonderful setting this would be for a Vintage Party, and what a perfect place to sip homemade elderflower cordial or champagne.
Our Midsummer flower of choice this week was the wild honeysuckle it smells devine especially in the evening.
The roses are marvellous as well right now giving us the perfect excuse to blog a favourite poem, You love the roses - so do I.
And whilst we are on the subject of flowers we've found a delightfully pretty necklace for little girls called the Annabel Necklace of course we blogged about it at Renaissance Children's Notebook.
Not much blogging going on at The Chicken Daily but rest assured that the girls are all fine and enjoying the sunny days, we'll catch up with them again soon....

June

Are we really in the 6th month of 2010?

How did that happen?

Where has the time gone?

Image from the Homes & Antiques magazine's free 2010 calendar.

There are times

There are times

To hold open a door

To surrender your seat

To thank someone in writing

To let bygones be bygones

To remember your parents

To listen with care

To surprise with a gift

To mind your table manners

To honor tradition

To give voice to your heart

Found via The Tao of Dana

This week ...

This week we've decided to post a spring flower everyday on our other blog

Renaissance Little Green Book

maybe you'd like to pop over and take a look?

Today's post is Plum Blossom

Weekly Roundup

For the first time we took part in Today's Flowers which is such a nice idea that we think we'll make it a regular post at Renaissance Little Green Notebook

Another first was the rather ludicrous photograph of one of our Silkie Bantams at The Chicken Daily and talking of firsts our eldest son exhibited some of his photographs in a gallery for the first time. There is a photograph of his photographs on the website http://www.renaissanceshop.co.uk/ in the What we are doing section.

Whilst we are on the subject of photographs isn't the one above adorable?It's of Charles the baby red squirrel who fell from his nest.

Red squirrels aren't the only wildlife in need of a little help so we were pleased to be able to use the Renaissance Newsletter to help promote a WDCS Walk for Whales in nearby Hunstanton.

Over at Renaissance Vintage Notebook we seem to have spent quite a lot of time at the V & A looking at vintage inspired quilt fabrics and enthusing about the Grace Kelly exhibition.

We're always on the look out for beautiful ways to display vintage books, we are vintage book sellers afterall, and we found a rather lovely photograph whilst blog hopping which of course lead to the discovery of lots of new, to us, blogs

Maybe you'll find the time to visit them?

Lovely blogs we've only just found

The Beat that my Heart Skipped

Roddy & Ginger

Teacups, Cupcakes

Tea for Joy

Have you visited them yet?

Do you have any newly found blogs that you'd like to share?

Happy Easter (& a Weekly Roundup)

It's been a busy week getting ready for the Easter hols at Renaissance HQ with little being uploaded to the website http://www.renaissanceshop.co.uk/.

It didn't start well with the news of Elspeth Thompson's death, so sad.

But we've had a reminder of new life with our quail starting to lay again, very seasonal.

We went all Eastery over at Renaissance Childrens Notebook with Easter Gift Bags,

Flowering Bulbs for Easter and How to Make an Easter Chick.

And all wistful here at Renaissance Vintage Notebook with a sort of if we had a real bricks & mortar shop we'd stock:

Flowers in vintage containers & Crochet Blankets, Bags & Cushions.

And now of course it's April ,we had to mark April Fool's Day with a little joke or two,

and Easter is upon us.

We'll be spending it together, the whole family is home this weekend, bliss.

Wishing you all a very happy Easter.

It's been a wet, wet week here at Renaissance HQ causing endless frustration with pruning and animals.

As for animals our little menagerie has increased by two Silkie bantams who are now settling in nicely with our tiny Seebright and Nankin bantams.

Of course the weather has given us plently of time to enjoy vintage film : The Innocents , look at books : The Flower Shop and wonder what to do with all those books we've read but know we'll never read again , maybe the answer is Green Metropolis. But I rather suspect they'll go to the charity shop as usual.

We've watched The Delicious Miss Dahl on TV and spent quite some time looking at the kitchen Sophie Dahl used. We even found a seller of vintage items whose wares would fit wonderfully into the kitchen: Jolie Trouvaille.

Talking of vintage we continue to add new items to the shop and there is now a rather nice selection of vintage prints there.

We've also continued to post over at Renaissance Childrens Notebook.

Hope you're all having a lovely weekend.

In the shop today

A lovely vintage print of two 17th century little girls just waiting to be framed.

Weekly Roundup

Vintage print of M. Le Comte De Hertford by Corneille De Lyon from the Wallace Collection

So this week we have had the sad demise of Hetty the ex battery hen, now of course we are contemplating additions to our little flock.

Inevitably after joining Lovefilm we've been watching films Kinky Boots and Mr Blanding Builds His Dream House.

Outside by the sea we've been walking on Cromer Pier and the joys of country living continue with pruning in the orchard. After a hard days work outside it's nice to come into a supper of something warm and filling like Pork & Bramley Apple Bake especially when you've grown the apples yourself.

This week in the books to read and keep section of Renaissance Newsletter we've looked at a book you're all bound to love, Home by Anita Kaushal in fact we bet some of you already have it on your book shelf.

We must have spent a long time browsing the internet because we've found several blogs new to us, all well worth a visit:

Elspeth Thompson's Gardening Against the Odds

The Flower Shop Stories written by Sally Page

and

Charlie and Caroline's Blog written by the owners of Pedlars

Browsing blogs has given us a date for the diary with Donna Flower's Open House Sale definetly one for lovers of all things vintage.

We've also been inspired by Alicia Paulson and Cherry Menlove to start posting over at Renaissance Children's Notebook for the first time since January.

It hasn't just been browsing on the internet we've also manage to load some new items like the vintage print pictured to the Renaissance shop .

By the way we'd still love to hear your opnion on the Shovel Birdhouse

Wishing you all a lovely weekend.

Charlie and Caroline of Pedlars

Still on the subject of other peoples' blogs.

Did you know that the owners of Pedlars have a blog?

It's called Charlie & Caroline's Blog

and it's well worth a visit especially as they are going to give readers

a chance to

" TO MAKE AN OFFER FOR SOME PRODUCTS" on the blog. "Proceeds from these SALES WILL GO TO CHARITY, AND YOU CAN NOMINATE THE CHARITY. The idea is simple; every day for ten days we will offer different products on our blog. Followers can make an offer for these products and the best offer wins. So you might buy a mug for a few pence or a French lamp for a fraction of its value."

You can find out more here

Just in - Vintage Romeo & Juliet Print

New in the shop today this beautiful vinatge print of Romeo & Juliet.

Weekly Roundup and Giveaway Result

The winner of our Georgette Heyer giveaway is Jeanne of Tales of a Cottage Garden we'll pop the book in the post to you Jeanne next week when we have your postal details.

Gladys and Annie sorry to disapoint but we do have other Georgette Heyer books to read so look out for another giveaway soon.

So what have we been doing, well apart from the usual horsey and orchardy things we've had to give the ferrets a bath which was fun if messy.

We've found some brilliant greetings cards with little gardens and we've joined Lovefilm ,we've even managed to add a couple of new items to the shop.

Oh and the chickens are laying....

Whatever you are doing this weekend - enjoy!

Weekly Roundup and Giveaway Announcement

So this week we have successfully rehomed (fingers crossed) our juvenile cockerel and been rather amused by a report from the Sun about chickens killing a fox , you should read it for yourselves the puns are really groan worthy.

Since the beginning of March it has felt really Spring like and we've turned our thoughts to window boxes, and displaying Spring bulbs indoors in vintage china pieces. We've also been looking at a tutorial for making floral necklaces.

Whilst in our dreams we've visited Pedlar's castle in reality we've spent some delightful time watching the boats on the North Norfolk coast.

Far more mundane but never the less worth a mention, we renewed our car tax online, it was very simple to do and personally I would highly recommend it.

There has even been time for some reading, I've been dipping into Gisele Scanlon's The Goddess Experience and I've finished the first of my Georgette Heyer dectective / murder mystery books. Which leads me nicely to the announcement of Renaissance's first giveaway.

Footsteps in the Dark by Georgette Heyer

I've finished reading it and would like to pass it on to someone else, so if you'd like to read it yourself please leave a comment over here at Renaissance Newsletter.

If there is more than one person interested in the book we'll do a little draw and announce the winner next Friday in our weekly roundup.

Wishing you all a lovely weekend and good luck in the giveaway.

Pedlar's Castle

I know lots of folk are blogging about this
but with wonderufl images like this who can blame us?

The owner's of Pedlars are now offering their own holiday home to rent

Balbegno Castle

Doesn't it look fantastic?

It's been too cold for too long now

my fav image from The Sartoralist

so far this year.

Currently reading - Georgette Heyer

Not one of her Regency romances but a dective story

though I'm pretty sure there'll be some romance there

as well as things that go bump in the night.

Calender Giveaway at Foxtail Lily

I like florists' blogs',

especially those that have resident dogs (and cats).

Foxtail Lily is written by Tracey Mathieson

who just happens to own a little barn shop of the same name.

It's a delightful blog and at the moment she is running a giveaway,

for your chance to win a copy of the Foxtail Lily calender pop over to the blog and leave a comment before the 28th Jan.

Time flies

I find it hard to believe that it's a week since I last posted it really feels like a couple of days ago.

Where does the time go?

Well this week I've been sifting through last years photographs and I've come up with a

Remembering 2009 in photographs

you'll find it on the website in the What we are doing section.

If you take a look through the photographs you might begin to understand why time goes so quickly - too many animals!

Actually one can never have too many animals but my Christmas pressie might have something to do with it, take a look, her name is Maddie.

Snow

Snow - it's everywhere.

Lovely to look at but oh how I wish local councils would sed the gritters down country lanes!