Llangollen Fun!

This is a sister post to the one I posted yesterday, which you can find by clicking HERE. On the Saturday we spent the day doing stuff in Liverpool, but on the Sunday we went to Llangollen, in North Wales.

Our main reason for going to Llangollen was THE BIG ONE, an antiques fair held in the big pavilion place where they usually do the Eisteddfodd (I had to google the spelling, fyi). It's certainly the biggest antiques fair that I've ever been to (read: the only antiques fair that I've ever been to) and there was plenty of old junk to look at. There was some good stuff too, though.

Some of our purchases are classified at the moment as they're presents for people who might be reading this! I can tell you, however, that I bought a copy of Melody Maker from 1986 that had an interview with Ted Chippington in it. Liz bought a Laura Ashley floral jumpsuit for about £5 and a 60s badge that says 'Young Seeker' on it. Liz's dad bought a book about Patagonia and a stack of Welsh postcards and her mum got some earrings that looked like ones she used to have but was partly stolen a few years ago. Pretty successful trip, I reckon.

I'm half tempted to collect loads of packaging for things so that we can go to antiques fairs in fifty years and make loads of money. Someone was selling an old Bovril tin! Unbelievable.

We spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Llangollen, which looks a bit like the photo that's just above this writing. It's very pretty. There's antique shops, a couple of old mills, a place where you can get amazing ice cream and fudge (we got a rum and raisin and a banoffee ice cream and some mint and chocolate fudge) and nice cheese shop. In fact, we got some cheese that Martin Platt off Coronation Street had made, possibly with his own bare hands. I doubt that actually, but we can pretend.

There's also a steam railway in Llangollen, which we'll definitely have to have a go on at some time in the future. Thomas the Tank Engine was there on Sunday though, so the whole place was full of stinking kids. There's some pictorial evidence for you, in case you didn't believe us. That's definitely Thomas, isn't it? It's not one of the other ones. Dave? Was Dave one of them?

We narrowly managed to avoid getting drenched on the way back to the car, which was lucky. It was even more rainy than the rain we experienced the day before in Liverpool (Please see previous blog post for more details about the rain). Very rainy!

Speaking of rain, we're very much crossing our fingers and hoping that it doesn't rain all week next week. We're going to Tenby on holiday for the week so it had better not chuck it down. It is Wales though, so it undoubtedly will. We'll post some photos up while we're away, so keep checking back to see just how much fun we're having! If you'd like a postcard from us, do feel free to send us an email with your address on to youngexplorerzine @ gmail.com. We fully understand if you don't want to give your address to some strangers off the internet though.

Don't have nightmares

S

Liverpool Fun!

Despite the bobbins weather we're still hoping to go on as many days out as possible this summer. We spent this weekend just gone in Liverpool and Llangollen, which was super lovely. Here's some photos!

We went to Liverpool fairly early on Saturday morning and went for a walk down Lark Lane. Sadly the Amorous Cat Book Shop was closed. If anyone reading this has ever actually been inside this shop, please fill us in on how amazing/rubbish it is please.

We went for breakfast at a café on Lark Lane and had their 'American Breakfast' which was alright.  I think the pancakes were a bit burnt, but you know, it was still nice. I'm still not sure how I feel about maple syrup with savoury foods, but the novelty of it was exciting enough for me. Syrup on eggs! Syrup on everything!

According to Wikipedia, Lark Lane has a 'bohemian reputation', so I guess it's like Liverpool's answer to the Northern Quarter. Kind of. I think it's probably more relaxed than the latter and it's dead close to Sefton Park, which is a bonus. Imagine how much more pleasant the Northern Quarter would be if it was all green and leafy and that.

Speaking of Sefton Park, that's where we went after we'd had our breakfast. The other half of Young Explorer went here quite a bit when she was growing up in Liverpool and she delighted in showing me her old haunts. The palm house (above!) was restored fairly recently and looks beautiful now. It's definitely worth a visit if domed ceilings are your thing. Or if you like plants and trees.

Over here on the left is a statue of JM Barrie's Peter Pan, for some reason. I'm not sure exactly if JM Barrie has any kind of connection with Liverpool, but either way, they saw fit to erect a statue of his most famous character in the park.

Liz tried to explain a game that her and her brother and sister used to play that involved running around the statue and putting your hands on a designated character around the statue's base. So an independent adjudicator (aka a parent) would shout something like 'two little mice' and the first to touch that character would win. I don't think there were any prizes, I imagine it was just a pride thing. If reading this has confused you then I apologise.

Remember to buy stuff from our Etsy shop or email us at youngexplorerzine @ gmail.com if you want to bypass any annoying login type things and just arrange buying stuff off us like that. Many thanks.

S

Wedding Blanket

Sorry we haven't updated for a while! We've been very busy for the last few weeks, but we're going to update our blog more regularly throughout August. Also, we've got some exciting things lined up for the second issue of our zine and we're hoping to get that sorted for some time in September.

One of the things that has been occupying my time was crocheting this blanket to give to my sister and her husband as a wedding present.

The blanket is made up of a hundred individual granny squares that have been sewn together. It took me a few months to finish it all, but I think it was worth all the hard work.

E x

Apple Chutters

On Saturday we made THIS CHUTNEY RECIPE. We'd made it before, and it was pretty nice. It turned out well this time too.

Hmm, it doesn't look particular sexy at this stage does it? FYI, it's got apple (obviously), gallons of cider vinegar, onion, heaps and heaps of sugar, raisins and cranberries in it. We gave a couple of jars away to friends, I'm going to give one to a colleague for her birthday, and we had it with our super exciting tea!

Our friend came over on Saturday evening and we made the fried courgette recipe from the Leon cook book that we always make. It's nice. It's just fried sliced courgette with a bit of garlic. We served it with a semi-improvised stab at making apricot and chickpea falafel, which had a little bit too much apricot in for me, but everyone else seemed to like it. Here's the wonderful table setting, just in case you're wondering what our tea looked like. I flipping love rocket.

SPOILER: there was a bottle of salad cream on that table too, but it was moved out of shot as it kind of dragged the sophistication levels down quite dramatically. Also, the plan was to have a photo of us all having a great time together, but we both look pretty stupid in the photos and there isn't one of Rebecca on her own. Unlucky.

Here's a couple of the jars of chutney that we gave away! One was for our aforementioned friend Rebecca, who infrequently writes a blog and zine called Threads and Letters and the other we gave to Natalie, who famously writes the Shrieking Violet zine and blog, and is generally great. 

I think that's it. Oh! Apparently people are reading this blog. If you are reading this post and you have a nice chutney recipe, why not comment and tell us what it is rather than being selfish and keeping it to yourself? 

Many thanks,

S

Mt. Cushion

I decided to make my friend a cushion for his birthday last week. Here's a picture! I made this one with a fabric sample that I got when I did work experience at a mill in Wales. Sadly I have none of it left now, but I might make some more of them, with different fabric, to sell on our Etsy shop at some point. Maybe I'll even make some smaller hills and tree cushions and make my own cushion landscape on our sofa!

E x

Lost Lost Lost

Lost Lost Lost, the trendy music blog for trendy people, asked if I might be able to make a poster for their club night that's on at the Salutation next week. I quickly whipped something up using an illustration of a bird that I'd drawn previously, and a bit of fabric that I wove while at university. Here it is!

Again, if you'd like a poster doing for your event, send us over an email! I'm completely free of charge, unless you're Live Nation or something, in which case I might ask for some money.

E x

Skyscrapers of the Midwest

Firstly, let me admit straight away that I don't know anything about comics. There are a few comics that I have particularly enjoyed in the past, though. Trains are Mint by Oliver East is one of these. Another one is Midnight Sun by Ben Towle, which involves a) almost real historical events and b) airships, so it ticks all the boxes for me. Skyscrapers of the Midwest by Joshua W. Cotter is the one I particularly wanted to talk about today though.

I bought the 4 issues of it separately when they came out, and then I was bought the book as a present. You probably won't be able to find the individual issues, but the book is probably available on Amazon, or you can find it by clicking on the bit where I said 'Skyscrapers of the Midwest' up there.

Anyway, the comic's about an adolescent cat and his younger brother. Well, they're kind of cats. Or humans with cat ears. That bit's not really important. This particular cat/human is a bit of a loser. He doesn't really have any friends and nothing good ever seems to happen to him. The majority of the story is spent lurching from one disaster to another. It's pretty heartbreaking stuff!

In between the main narrative, there's comic strips, fake advertisements and an agony uncle column with a guy called Skinny Kenny, whose advice is usually either wholly inappropriate, insensitive, or both. I'm going to attempt to describe one of the strips that I particularly like now: mouse in a shirt and tie says to his wife 'I'm off. I'll be back in time for supper. Unless, of course, I'm consumed'.

All in all, it's a pretty bleak tale. And then at the end something really lovely happens and it'll probably make you want to cry, because it definitely made me want to cry. I'm a sucker for coming-of-age type stuff, so I tend to well up at things like this. Sometimes when I'm in a grump I like to read the last ten or so pages and then I always feel better.

I'm not going to try and describe it anymore because this isn't going especially well. Just buy it! Or if you know me, ask me if you can borrow it from me. Joshua W Cotter does other things too and I'd heartily recommend going over to his site to have a look at some of his illustrations and comic strips and things. Here's one! Also, if Joshua W Cotter is reading this and you'd like me to remove your images, just let me know and I'll get rid. Many thanks.