Treehomes

As well as being at the fantastic Bust Craftacular this Saturday, Bbel will also have a stall at the Christmas Fair in the beautiful Hillier Gardens in Hampshire.  The Sir Harold Hillier Gardens are  just outside Romsey and the Christmas Fair is on from Saturday 12 December to Monday 21 December, 10am to 4pm each day.

'Plants of Current Interest' in the Gardens (they will give you a map showing all of these and more when you visit)



 

Maylus Crittenden - the good old British Crab Apple - good for jams, wines and pies, yum

Euonymus alatus or ‘Burning Bush’, when the leaves have fallen off, they reveal this beautiful winged bark.

I manage to visit the gardens several times each year, and it was this summer that I discovered their treehouse.  From that moment, I have been designing in my head the home that I will be building in my perfect tree. 

I quite fancy having the quick escape routes at the back - never know when you may need to abseil out of your house.

The company that designed and built it, Blue Forest have an amazing gallery of treehouses including this sweet thatched roof

And if I ever get really ambitious, or just want to house another 20 people I guess I could try one of these...the largest treehouse in the world at Alnwick Gardens
 

Goodbye Christmas Market...and daily dose of mulled wine, belgian waffles, devon fudge (damn, why was that sweet stall so close by)

We've just finished our last day in our alpine chalet - we had a fantastic time, although we probably sampled too much of the refreshments on offer.  Thankfully I found the hot, spiced apple juice so I didn't always have to warm up with mulled wine.  If you're planning a visit to the Market over the next couple of weeks, I did manage to work out that the gluhwein was the best out of the three mulled wines on offer (we were sure there was a swig or two of brandy in that one) and that the belgian waffles with hot chocolate sauce were the breakfast food to start your 8 hour stint on.  I liked to think that the cream I added to mine was kind of equivalent to the milk I would put on my cereal.

Our fabulous little chalet.

Note the warm glow in the top left of the photo - we purchased three of these lights on the first day, concerned that our chalet wasn't light enough.  The lights were very strong wattage and not only lit our jewellery up rather nicely but also half of the cathedral behind us.  A concerned neighbour noted 'I didn't realise you could use outdoor lights inside'  hmmmm, neither did we -hadn't quite clocked that we had purchased football stadium lights, give quite a nice glow though don't you think.

Oh, so whilst I'm on the subject of the Christmas Market, I would like to mention some of the lovely stallholders we met - potters, knitters, glass fusers, people who sew really cute things - here are some of their wares....

Jug and bowl by Caroline Green

Pretty ceramic spoons by Penny Spooner (!) She does make other things apart from spoons too - although at the time of writing both their shops are looking a little bare - Caroline assured me she would be uploading some more of her lovely white ceramics shortly.

Well, actually I should have said here are some of the wares by the potters since no-one else seems to have a website at the moment- that's fine though, I'll take photos of some of the things I bought and show them off here soon....

Alpine Food and Ice Skating!

Only one week to go until the Bbel alpine chalet is open and ready for business! This year, Bbel will be at the Christmas Market held in the inner close at Winchester Cathedral for ten days from 27 November to 6 December.

Come along and check out chalet 46 'British Designers' - I will be sharing the chalet with the fabulous Kylie Malcolm and Tribe Designs so there will be lots of beautiful handmade clothes, bags, jewellery and homewares -I'll post some photos up next week when we're up and running!  There will be 90 chalets, lots of food and an ice skating rink! Open Sun - Wed 10 - 6 and Thurs - Sat 10 - 8.

     

                       

And whilst you're shopping you can sip on mulled wine and sample the Alpine menu that Winchester favourite The Vine pub will be offering.  I'm thinking it will definitely be necessary to eat quite a lot and stay warm with spiced wine and cider throughout the ten days - it's the only way to keep out the cold.

We're all booked in for a skating session on the last day - I'm hoping I'll look as upright as these people, although I think there is someone on the left of the shot that may have crashed.

                                  

Please come along and say hi!