In which there are magic horses, but not one darlek

 
A couple of years ago I lived by the beach in Wales. Whilst I like my life here in London now, the longing for the sea has never really gone away. It was so wonderful to have it always there, always incredible - thrashing storms or barbecue days. So as yesterday was mine and Andy's five year anniversary (and one whole year since he proposed) we decided to head to the beach! We went to Brighton which neither of us had ever been to before and it turned out to be the kind of place we wished people had dragged us to before!

Brighton has some really interesting stuff going on. A good beach - although a bit pebbly -, an arcade, and lots of interesting shops. The only disappointment of the day was our complete failure to get a cuddly darlek in the arcade! We tried so many times on the Doctor Who themed claw machine and 3 whole times picked it up! 3 times! Only to watch the darlek slide out of our grasp and fall down again. I had to be dragged away in the end with slow sad feet, leaving those squishy darleks behind. :(

However the day was still awesome. We had the most expensive dinner we've ever had together (oops, but hey we work now so it's okay... right? ) at a lovely Japanese restaurant. I completely forgot to take photos of the main course, despite the fact that it came in a lacquered box and incredibly arranged plates. Possibly the best sashimi I've ever had and then we had plum liqueur ice cream. Mmmm. Totally worth it.

The famous Brighton pier.

 I absolutely adore carousels and to be honest, I cannot take enough pictures of them. I love the colours, the beautifully painted horses, the old fashioned lights and the magical tranquillity of them. It doesn't go fast or do anything special, just round and round of those beautiful horses. I always feel that a time machine shaped like a carousel would be wonderful, round and round and step off somewhere new.

Looks really sunny and it was so bright I was squinting all day - but I also never took my jacket off! Deceitful British weather! *shakes fist*

New addition to my pocket watch collection!

Cider on the beach!

Postcard-style shot of Brighton from the pier.

Didn't even have time to go in! Next time.

These guys know how to ice cream.

PS. I know Google Reader is going, but is GFC going soon too? As in, no more list of who you follow on your dashboard? Boo. I don't really like bloglovin.
Hope you had a good weekend!

In which time is beautiful

 In my last post I was wearing a pocket watch necklace, and this is the pair-post to share a little bit of the story behind it. I didn't draw too much attention to it last week, but it is in fact one of my most worn and beloved of pieces. I even took it to the Antiques Roadshow! This is because it is a genuine Victorian pocket watch transformed into a necklace for every day wear.
I want to say something like 'my parents are really into antiques' but that makes them sound all official and posh. It's more a love of not getting rid of things has passed on in my family. Meaning that no one thought to remove a collection of slide rules, copies of the Odyssey or pocket watches. So we have a lot of family heirlooms. One of which is this ladies pocket watch.
I can't even say that it was ceremoniously passed on to me. The manner in which it came to my possession was typical of my family. I was building up a steam punk femme-Indiana Jones outfit for a party. It needed a pocket watch and Dad produced this one. Not a modern one or the least loved of the collection, he just chose that moment to say 'have this'.

It is from the 1890s, a ladies watch, still working, still has it's original box and original key. Both the back and the front clock face open up and it has such beautiful patterns on the back and inside. Sadly Dad doesn't know who it belonged to. He just knows that his father collected pocket watches so we are not sure if it originally came from the family or not, but I hope so. I absolutely love it to bits. And then just at Christmas Dad gave me another one! So now maybe I am developing my own version of my grandfather's collection after all.

 The guy from the Antiques Roadshow liked both the pieces we showed him and most of all loved that they were used all the time rather than just kept away like so many other antiques he must see.

I really enjoyed photographing and sharing my pocket watch. If this was interesting to you I have a bunch of other family antiques that I could share with you? I hinted at least one other from my trip to the tv set.