A Vintage Halloween

I was here today :

and I had a lot of fun. It was a beautiful day, it felt like Summer, there was a lovely atmosphere, great vintage clothing and lovely friends popping in. My lovely Dutch friend came all the way from Chester as a surprise, so nice! The monkeys came with me and had good fun, especially since they were spoilt with sweeties, cherry lollypops, homemade biscuits and hoola-hooping sessions. Boy monkey was dressed as a skeleton for the occasion!

I never know what is going to be popular at the fairs, it seems quite random but today the bags were especially in demand. The little shopping bags attracted a lot of attention and all the ginger bread bags sold.

I had some of these clips left from the previous fair and was quite pleased that girl monkey arranged them on the basket and took a picture at the time because today I learnt about a novel way of using them and I was so surprised that I wanted to share my amazement with you. I don't like plastic but am often too lazy to use containers so I tend to use these clips to close dry food bags. Girl monkey uses them as book marks or to clip papers together and no doubt there are other uses. As I said to the gentleman who came to my stall this afternoon, they really are quite versatile. Indeed, he said, they could be used as tie clips. He then showed me how it would look and liked it so much he bought two! Now there's a new idea. Any more takers? Quick, because I haven't got many left.

After the fair the monkeys were invited to a birthday party in the "Secret Garden" as they like to call it. It is a secret garden indeed but know as Paupers Wood. A beautiful plot of land, urban woodland I should say, in West Didsbury, that is being maintained through a community project. We've been to the wood several times and it is truly magical. The party was fabulous, there was a small fire for roasting marshmallows, hot chocolate, hotdogs and the lit pumpkins at the end of the afternoon really made Halloween special.

Unfortunately when we got home I was pulled into trick or treating. The amount of sweets handed out just makes me feel unwell. Girl monkey had the great idea to hand out her sweets to anyone who came trick or treating at our door but instead of waiting for the bell to ring she left her lovely pumpkin basket with sweets at the door as she did not want to get disturbed during X Factor. It comes as no surprise living in Manchester that her basket got stolen and I had a lot of tears after the show ended. Hope to find some half price ones at the supermarket tomorrow to make her happy again!