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Beautiful Clutter has been oh so quiet this past week - I disappeared back home to Lincolnshire and spent time with my family for a few days. The rainy train journey home on Friday was a taster of the weather in store but being a rain-loving sort of girl I didn't mind too much. I'm always grateful my parents are fellow magpies; so much time was spent either in antique/vintage/charity shops or having good, long chats over a cuppa - that or being mauled by one of three four-legged furries about the place. The split second 'Where am I?' feeling of waking up in a different bed was pretty swift to evaporate once I'd felt the two feline alarm clocks purring away on top of me. 

Being in the kitchen at home is the best feeling, I could do an entire post on that alone - I won't, but I could. The picture of the copper kettle on the slate windowsill with a view of the woods around the house sums up fairly well; so much tea is made in that kitchen! Home is such an interesting concept to me because I feel as though I have two; wherever I live with T and the place I'm from where my roots go deep - where my family are. When I think about that I feel very lucky, where do you call 'home'? 

Just for today . . .

Just for today Beautiful Clutter can be a small tribute to Kea, the mischievous, expressive, intelligent, loving little Norwegian Buhund who spent ten years making all our family very happy and winning the hearts of everyone who came to visit.

There were a fair few heart stopping moments with Kea - the plunge into the duck pond when she was barely 12 weeks old, slicing her side open while attempting to Houdini her way out of the garden to chase pheasants in the woods, the inevitable days of worry when she did prove herself an escapologist (and ring leader) and took herself and Belle off on a hunting expedition. Undestroyable dog toys were found hours later littered across the living room in pieces, Dad's rubber covered builder's phone was never seen again after she took a liking to it's chewy exterior and ran off with it, and she played dead more expertly than any animal or person I've ever known - proper floppy toddler having a tantrum in the supermarket aisle syndrome. I could type away all day about the silly little things but basically she was an absolute one off. May she rest in peace, she will be sorely missed!

April Snow

Drip, drip, drop little April showers? Forget it. This morning I was woken by a very excited Tristan 'You will not actually believe this' he said, yanking the curtains open. In a way I didn't, there were snowflakes kissing the window pane rather than raindrops and the courtyard was thoroughly dusted in the white stuff. The wind had been so fierce in the early hours that the window in my little office had blown open and there was snow on my desk! I tweeted a few minutes ago that although I may be in the minority I absolutely love the British weather, to my mind snow in April is a little bit magical, admittedly we currently have horizontal snow due to the wind so it isn't too pedestrian friendly round these parts - but still.

I'm sure the sun will come out to play later on and we'll be left with puddles but for now I'm going to enjoy this little snowy spell, how is the weather where you are?

Shake it like a Polaroid picture

My vintage camera family gained another member this week, a Polaroid Instant 1000 Land Camera. If I'm totally honest the appeal with this one is all about the shape, the colour and the rainbow stripe - I decided it was worth the risk of it ending up as a gorgeous paperweight if it didn't work! It came with a pack of expired film so I got giddy about the effects that might be created using it until I figured out this particular Polaroid model is powered by batteries in each pack of film - rookie mistake, of course film a decade or two old would have a flat battery. I'd come across The Impossible Project a while ago and been really impressed by the work they had done bringing back the production of Polaroid-compatible film after it was discontinued by Polaroid themselves in 2008, a little checking up later I discovered that their PX-70 films would work, brilliant! The only downside; at £17.00 per pack it'll cost a mint each time I fancy getting snappy but that's the price of retro beauty I suppose!

There have been a few more finds over the past couple of days, but I thought this little lovely deserved her own post ♥ 

Hope you're all having a good weekend!