New Forest and New Chairs

This weekend was spent with friends in the beautiful village of Burley in the New Forest. And this was our home! can you believe it? As we drove towards the entrance (after becoming momentarily lost... whoops) we pulled up in front of this wonderful thatched cottage on Burbush Farm.

It really is picture postcard stuff! I should have taken some photos of the inside but, as soon as we arrived we polished off several bottles of wine and the living room was not in a fit state to be photographed!

The family who owned the farm had two excitable Labrador dogs named Hugo and Boss (brilliant, brillaint names!) who came bounding up to us every time we opened the front door. The holiday seemed to be filled with animals - from the wild horses that wondered the Forest and Village, pigs at a Cider Farm to owls, eagels and turtles at the nature reserves we visited. 

These are a few shots from Liberty's Bird Sanctuary and the show we watched with some absolutely astounding birds! They were huge! The keeper even managed to fly the birds so close they landed square in front of us, and I quickly took a few snaps.

We obviously had to take an obligatory walk through the forest, but not before we tucked into a delicious cream tea! The cafe was situated in the middle of a Cider farm, and oh my goodness were the scones divine! I would have partaken in the cider drinking but I was still a little delicate from the night before.

To our surprise we also found a tree swing on our walk! And just like a bunch of kids we had to have a go, although as each of us climbed on, the longer the rope got (clearly eaten way too much food!)

Saturday we spent the day in Bournemouth walking along the beach and making a general nuisance of ourselves. We went along to the 'Oceanarium', odd name - but it enticed us enough to visit. Afterwards, giddy with excitement from the toys in the gift shop we tried our hand at gambling pennies away in the arcades.

We embarked upon the serious task of retrieving lolly pops out of the 2p machines, and to our delight (and a lot of screaming) we managed to get five treats, one for each of us! I think you will agree we had a very productive afternoon haha!

As with all holidays I was sad for it to end, after all it is always wonderful to see friends and spend some quality time talking absolute nonsense. However I have lots to do this week, the chairs won't reupholster themselves!

And here are the two new sets of chairs I am working on this week. The first picture is of two mid century 'Conversation Chairs' aptly named because of their position and structure. I have already stripped the previous varnish and polished the teak wood so that is is ready to be reupholstered with a beautiful Korla Home fabric.

This is the second chair, A classical cocktail chair ordered from a lady in France. She has already chosen a fantastic olive colour for the seat and a grey an white stripe fabric for the back of the seat.

I am planning on completing both chairs this week so the Conversation Chairs can go up for sale and the other shipped off to it's new home. Keep checking in for updates, have a lovely week x