Wishing You A Sweet '16

And "Your Good Health!" For 2016

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All My Visitors, Readers & Followers

A very belated "Hello", a slightly belated "Merry Christmas" and a not-quite-belated Happy New Year

Well hello, hello! and once again a thousand apologies for letting this blog lie dormant for over 2 months.  I wouldn't blame you if you thought I'd dropped off the edge the Earth; the truth, however, is more boring than that - I simply haven't been able to find the time, nor for that matter anything much of a vintage bent to blog about (although you can still read my writings in In Retrospect magazine - subscribe today!).  I have to say it's been a very busy time for me work-wise (although as I've said before that's really no excuse) and the daily news since October seems to have been bereft of vintage interest.

However, now it's Christmastime (still, just!) and 2016 looms large!  I hope to do better than the measly thirteen posts I've managed this whole year just gone and although you're probably all fed up with me saying this, I promise Eclectic Ephemera will continue.  So, without further ado -

Christmas presents!

Christmas this year was again a quiet one, spent with the folks and sadly not featuring either of my sisters since one of them came down with a tummy bug on the day itself (although she's over it now, I'm told).  Better luck next year, eh?!

The folks' and my presents gathered around the, erm, coffee table. 
No traditional tree for them this year for reasons I won't bore you with.

As an aside I'm delighted to tell you that this post is the first to feature photographs taken on my new digital camera!!  Yes, after over 10 years of somehow managing on a 3 megapixel, 3x zoom Nikon Coolpix that has been outclassed by most mobiles since at least 2007 I finally got around to upgrading to something better (just as everyone else has made the switch to camera phones and Instagram) - a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX90 for any of you camera buffs out there.  Still, I'm nothing if not old-fashioned and have been delighted with my choice; so from now on any photos on here that were taken by me will be in glorious high-definition whereby you will actually be able to see the subject matter without squinting.  As an example, here's a robin which with the old camera would have appeared as a small dot in the centre of the picture:

As you can probably tell, I'm still learning the intricacies of this new box-brownie!

As befits a small family Christmas the presents were high in quality rather than quantity.  As such I've augmented them in the following daguerreotypes with other things that were either treats to myself in the run up to the festivities or items purchased in the subsequent sales (hot off the shelves today, in fact!).

I am, and always have been, a terrible bibliophile.  I admit it, I love books.  This would be less of a problem if I had a place to store them all (something I hope to rectify in 2016) but it doesn't stop me from buying or requesting more!  This Christmas was no exception, with books including The Complete Saki (if you don't know of H.H. Munro, or Saki as his pen-name was, I advise you to search out his works for he wrote in much the same vein as Oscar Wilde and P.G. Wodehouse - and indeed bridged the gap between the two era-wise until his untimely death in the First World War), The Treasures of Noël Coward; also a delightful little book detailing the on-screen adventures of those two archetypal British chaps Charters and Caldicott and an hilarious spoof 19th century cricket compendium entitled W.G. Grace Ate My Pedalo.

The book is laugh-out-loud funny and can easily be enjoyed by even those with just a passing interest in the game; it's very much in the same vein as The Chap magazine and books.

Then of course there's the almost mandatory calendar - or in this case calendars.  Featuring steam trains, naturally!  One for home, the other for the office, and both come with matching diaries - now there's really no excuse for me to miss any appointments!

And finally, the box set of one of my favourite (and much-overlooked) period murder-mystery dramas - the early 2000s American series entitled A Nero Wolfe Mystery.  Starring Timothy Hutton as Archie Goodwin and the late Maury Chaykin as Nero Wolfe, this programme was - in my opinion - one of the best things to come out of American television since Frasier, but sadly it has been all but forgotten since, with only a few desultory repeats on B.B.C. Two in the late 2000s and a few episodes available on a Region 2 DVD Dutch release.  Fortunately I managed to track down this Region 0 Australian import featuring all the episodes.

I featured Timothy Hutton's portrayal of Archie Goodwin as one of my "Style Icons" back in 2012, and I may yet devote another post to this wonderful series in the future.

Oh, and some neckties.  Because a chap can never have enough ties, can he?(!)

Well, it only remains for me to wish you all a happy and health New Year!  I'll be celebrating quietly at home myself but I hope everyone has a fun time whatever they're up to.  Thanks again to all my readers, followers and visitors for sticking with me through a somewhat sparse 2015 (blogging-wise) and I hope to see you all, old and new, afresh in 2016.

Cheerio for now!

Three cheers for the New Year!

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 To all my readers, followers and friends.

I wish you all a healthy, happy and successful

2015

and look forward to my sixth year of blogging 

here at Eclectic Ephemera.  

Good fortune for 2014

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Wishing you all the very best for a happy and healthy 2014.  

Thank you for reading and for your continuing kind comments and support.
I'm looking forward to following all blogs old and new into the New Year and beyond.

Bonne Année et Bonne Santé!

Source: vintagecottagehome.blogspot.com via Marcie on Pinterest

Once again - to all my readers, followers and blogging friends everywhere the warmest wishes for a Happy 2013.

I think that 2012 was - barring the the odd hiccough - a good year for Eclectic Ephemera and I feel more a part of the blogosphere than ever, with lots of incredibly gracious comments from old and new visitors alike.  I hope to carry on building upon those foundations in 2013 and look forward to seeing where this aspect of my life takes me as well as continuing to enjoy reading all my favourite blogs.

As Eclectic Ephemera enters its fourth year - and I my 30th! - I'm sure there will be all sorts of excitement to share and a succession of interesting news items as the fascination with vintage shows no signs of waning.  Let's hope that 2013 proves to be another vintage year, with good health and happiness for all.

A New Year's Eve

A time to look back, and a time to look forward.  Memories both happy and sad of the year gone by, and hope for an even better tomorrow.

 May I wish you all a very Happy New Year, and see you in 2012.

Happy New Year!

To all and to everyone, the very best wishes for 2011.

Christmas comes but once a year

Well here we again, what? Another Christmas over all too quickly and the year fast waning. I hope you all had a marvelous time, whatever you did and wherever you were. Christmas and Boxing Day were spent at the old family abode with just a small gathering of my nearest and dearest. Next year is lining up to be quite a busy one almost straight from the off, with many good (and, on the face of it, less good but necessary) things planned, all of which will hopefully conspire to make 2011 a far better year than this one but which meant that a full-blown family Christmas wasn't on the cards. Still, I have high hopes for next year - 11 is my favourite number, after all! - and it is my wish that we will all have happier times ahead.

To return to a lighter note, despite being a rather subdued affair over rather suddenly it wasn't a bad Christmas. Although we didn't have turkey this year again (lamb last year, beef & ham this) I was able to introduce a pheasant to the table for the second year running to add a bit of vintage fare to proceedings. This year mater discovered the delights of close-harmony female vocal groups so one of her presents included CDs by The Andrews Sisters and The Puppini Sisters (or, as she will keep calling them, the Panini Sisters!) so maybe I'm finally starting to rub off on her a bit! They provided a great soundtrack to the day along with the selection of recently posted vintage Christmas tunes (which even had my nan bopping away as best she could!). Needless to say I borrowed the CDs immediately to pop on my own iPod so they were almost a joint present in a way.

Here you can see my little haul of gifts which included some lovely surprises - a vintage Christmas card (above) and some silk pocket squares from my aunt in America, a Lancaster bomber calendar and a print of the map of my home town 200 years ago from one of my sisters. CDs of one of my favourite [modern] artists, Bruce Hornsby, and Caro Emerald - a recent discovery I've mentioned before. A DVD box set of one of my favourite Fifties TV programmes - The Phil Silvers Show, starring the inimitable Phil Silvers as M/Sgt. Ernest G. Bilko, and a Steampunkesque computer game round it out. I shall be entertained for some time to come, methinks!

As I look forward to a quiet New Year's Eve in, I wish you all a happy and healthy 2011 and look forward to another year in Blogland. For now, tinkerty-tonk!