Wednesday 30 November 2011

My growing collection of vintage photographs

Well firstly, thank you for still paying attention to our little blog (I say 'our' - Mr BL stays away and just reads what I've been babbling about!), I'm going to pop around in a bit, drop in for a cup of tea and say 'hi' :)  Mine's milk with one sugar thanks.

Today I'm on strike and I was hoping to stand side by side with my fellow teachers in the march - unfortunately our washing machine is broken and I have to wait in for someone to fix it.  SUCKS!  The joy of teaching and Mr BL's crazy hours, we never have time for repairs to be done.

While on the subject of work - it seems that Ofsted will not be coming to our school this side of Christmas now.  They haven't called this week and the next two weeks our Year 11s are on an intensive time-table, which means we'll be teaching a different time-table with lots of different cover/ supply lessons.  Ofsted call for these details before they make their arrangements so it will not be in their interest to come.  Well, what happens now?  Now we have to have training over the next two weeks because Ofsted change the way they do inspections in January.  We've been expecting the 20 minute walk-ins but this will be changing - so we have to rethink everything again.  It's all been so ridiculous, stressful and exhausting.  I feel in good-ish shape though.  I'm virtually marked up to date, I've got 'outstanding' in my last two observations and I know what I'm doing.  On the other hand I still feel stressed because I always want to 'do my best' of course.  Ah well - enough whinging!

BACK FROM THE MARKET ...
It's now a couple of hours later (from writing the mind-splurge above) and I'm on the sofa watching a documentary about the mind and money - I'm so glad we have PBS here now - I love NOVA.

So onto my ever-growing collection of vintage photographs:

The wall of the smallest room
For the men to look at (e.g. it's above the toilet!)
Anyhoo - onto what I was going to blather on about.  Our collection of old photographs and what we're doing with them.  I think I mentioned before that the toilet is slowly getting covered in some of these and I thought I'd show you a couple of photos (Hipstamatic I'm afraid) of how it's coming along:


The walls of the smallest room
One of my favourites is the contact sheet to the left - a man had obviously gone for a photo shoot and this is a selection of shots for him to choose from. 
The wall of one of our bathrooms
You can see him better on here!  The little girl next to him is really sweet too!
The smallest room's wall
Really sad to see wedding photographs being dumped - I usually pick them up - they give such a sense of the era as people tend to dress their best at a wedding so you get a real feel of the fashions at the time.



The smallest room's wall
The wedding photo in the middle has now been moved to the landing.  I hate to say it but it features the ugliest family I've ever seen.  I know that's really cruel but seriously - they are.  The groom looks so upset!
The landing and loo
This is the landing leading to the smallest room in the house.

Our upstairs landing landing wall from the other direction
Look at these beautiful women - you couldn't not pick up their photographs and want to preserve them.  The young girl on the left was photographed at the Lafayette Photography Studio in Bond Street.  You can read about the studio on the V&A website. I have a couple of photographs from the same shoot.  You can see it below above the baby.
Our upstairs landing wall
Look at that beard! It's a pity you can't see the small photograph under the large portrait of the woman - the guy in it has the BEST moustache.

So there you go - a little sneak preview of what we're doing with our collection of vintage/ old photographs.  I know some people will balk that I've put my old photos on the wall like this but I just know that they are in a better place than a landfill site.  People can see them and enjoy them :)  I will try and do some better photos with my 'proper camera' when I have the walls finished.

What do you think?

I used the opportunity of an unpaid day off from work to go to my favourite haunt - Deptford Market.  MOST disappointing today - there was NO paper ephemera :(  I was in a massive sulk.  However I did pick up this:
IMG_2760
Snoopy
IMG_2761
The gang's all here
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Snoopy and I


I think he might be circa 1970s maybe even as early as the 60s?  Everything is there - the t-shirt and trousers and there is NOTHING wrong with any of the stitching - a complete SNIP at £2 methinks!  I used to love Snoopy when I was younger so it was a real no-brainer for me.  Also got a few books and records but nothing exciting.  I hope it's better on Saturday!

Friday 25 November 2011

Well I'm a bit crap aren't I?

but I have an excuse ... I do really.
We've got the 'Ofsted threat' hanging over us, it's been going on since the end of September so the rounds of observations and 'learning walks' has been non-stop.  Constant data checks, paper work checks, blah blah blah.  I've been leaving for work at 5:45am and getting home around 6:30pm every day - so as you can imagine. I've been a tad exhausted.  So exhausted in fact that I came down with something rather nasty.  I tried to go back to work yesterday however my doctor had signed me off for a week so they sent me home again - grrrrr.  I feel fine so now I'm in bed listening to comedy on Radio 4 (iPlayer catchup) and thinking about getting up.

It looks like a beautiful day outside ...

So what's been going on? Not much apart from work to be honest.  We've dealt with a postage thief as we weren't getting any of our mail which was frustrating beyond belief.

I've started filling one of the bathrooms with my strange collection of photographs that I've found on Deptford Market.

Not very interesting is it?  I'll sort myself out and try to post more - I need to go back to having a life.  I don't think Ofsted are turning up this half term and I need to start sorting out my secondhand/ hand made Winter Solstice ;)

Today I am ...
LISTENING: To Feast of Hammers (advanced copy) by Birdeatsbaby - they're playing tonight in London but I can't see them because I'm not well enough.  However after the gig they're staying with us for the weekend as they're filming their video at Mr BL's workplace :)