Ashland: An escape from the City.

It wasn't so much like I needed to escape but Beth's visit gave me some fresh surroundings for a day & that was good. She'd come to town for a girls weekend, to meet up with her two college roommates, Kathy (now in DC) & Pat, who lives up by Hanover County. Beth was keen to include me into her weekend alongside visiting her family so my not having to work a Saturday matinee made the prospective day even better. Finding a bus over to the Mechanicsville area was not the easiest so she drove downtown to collect me.

Pat's a crafty lady like myself & she'd eyed up Heavenly Creations, an arts & crafts fair hosted by St. James the Less, as a fun thing for us to do. 
   But lunch was calling so she drove us through the Randloph-Macon campus, pointing out the college dorms & older buildings of interest. 
   We parked up by Ashland's train station to eat lunch at Homemades by Suzannes. The train tracks just run through the campus - no railings, no nothing.  

Another one of those sunny autumnal days when you're best off dressed in both scarf & sunglasses.

My time with Lauren
must be taking effect...

 

I now see scenic paint & flats wherever I look.
It was a good cafe interior! 

Meow.

 

After lunch we walked back over to the visitor's centre, housed in the train station.

Potted local history lesson for Pops.

I'd noticed the arty lettering as we drove by earlier.
It's part of a statewide artwork initiative.

http://www.virginia.org/LOVE/

Onto the arts & crafts. The church show was fun. Quite a bit of variety in what was available to buy: jewellery, sea glass, fairy tale furniture, gourds, local paintings, felt dogs, moisturising candles. A good mix. I helped Beth shop for earrings for Amy, her daughter then she wanted to buy me something for my birthday. 
   I held out stubbornly at first whilst she asked for my opinion on what to buy me. She'd already included me in her reunion weekend & treated me to lunch out, I didn't want for anything else. Then she got the stall-holders on side whilst presenting me with a 'don't you want me to be happy?' argument. I surrendered: I picked out some silver loop earrings with a wee pink gem and some bottletop magnets that had caught my eye, steampunk watch cogs & bingo numbers. (We couldn't find an 'N 30' so 'N 35' had to make do.) 

On the way back we happened to catch another fair. This one was even cooler:
the Barnyard Junkies Holiday Market
as organised by 'a trio of antique-loving, craft-creating friends'. 

   The outdoor stalls featured a lot of furniture, hardbacks turned into bags & totem china bird-feeders made from cups & saucers. 

  I loved the feel of the Indoors outside against the backdrop of trees. It put me
in mind of Kaufman's displaced settee on the beach in Eternal Sunshine, so it felt a bit like stumbling onto a Kaufman or a Gondry filmset. As though an Alice-in-Wonderland tea party was about to take effect. Just stunning. 

The items for sale were even more eclectic. A bit of a rummage through a museum. Vintage weighing-scales. Heavy metal skeleton keys. A random stirrup iron?! As well as craftier affairs like cute scrap fabric cuffs, which I totally want to make sometime. Glass painting. Quirky ceramics.
  Our last part of the neighbourhood tour saw Pat take us to drive around a nearby residential estate. The houses there are so colourful! Red & yellow. Spearmint green. Sugar pink. Quite the range.

As an early-birthday day out, it was a lot of fun to go browsing, enjoy all the vintage
and the craftiness & have some time with Beth & her friends.