Bell tent chandelier

As anyone who has been to this blog before will know, I'm obsessed with my beautiful bell tent. So for my birthday my siblings got me the most fabulous tealight chandelier to hang in it. It can be used in the house too of course, but it's all about the few times each year I get to bling out the tent like this:

 

 

 

image from www.belltent.co.uk

 

Below, the chandelier hanging in my living room, just begging to be let loose in the great outdoors.

 

 

 Thanks Helen, Colm and Maria.

The Bell Tent at Kinnagoe.

Despite the mammoth trek to our secluded beach, and with some help from our friends, Danny and I carried the famous bell tent and all the necessary accessories needed to make things really comfortable on the beach.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blankets, blankets and more blankets.

 

The guys kept a fire pit going fairly steadily from Thursday until Sunday and produced copious amounts of meat to keep us all sustained. There was even proper coffee with rum for breakfast and locally cut turf, my favourite smell in the world.

 

 

 

The Thai triangle cushions I carted all the way back from Bangkok were worth the extra weight, and having Bob the dog around made it feel like a proper camping trip. On the second night another group of friends arrived and we happily discovered that our tent can easily and cosily shelter ten people from the rain for a solstice party. We woke up to a lazy sunny Saturday.

 

 

 

 

Natural alcoves in the rocks were perfect for holding teacandles.

All in all the air was fresh, the beach was all ours, the company was beloved, the scenery was spectacular, and I'm pretty sure the rocks were magic.

You should go.

 

adventures with a bell tent

 

 

e

A full seven months after buying my beautious bell tent, Danny and I finally got a weekend with decent enough weather to get out and use it. We went to Tullymore Forest Park in Newcastle, Co.Down and got a spot with a view over the forest and the tallest mountain in Ulster - Slieve Donard.

 

Bell tents are pretty easy to erect because the central pole does most of the work of holding the tent up, and I brought lots of throws, thai cushions and a proper feather duvet and pillows to make things comfy.

It's not quite the sumptuous game-of-thrones style tent I've been planning but it's halfway there and there's another camping trip planned with friends for the summer solstice. And next time I'm bringing board games, nights in a tent with no entertainment can be very long!

Carry on camping

 

They may not be the glamourous surroundings I had envisioned, but Danny and I finally put our beloved bell tent up for the first time in his mother's back garden at the weekend.

 

We were really just checking that all the bits and bobs were there so that we're primed and ready to go on many a spontaneous adventure once the sun finally decides to grace us with its presence.

 

It's four meters across and you can stand up inside which is so refreshing compared to the pop-up sweatbox of a tent that we were using before.

The fundamental question is how to decorate it? I'm taking inspiration from the examples below from nativeoutdoors , greenunion and dappercampingclub

Because who goes camping without a full bar in their tent?!

 I know I'll never make that mistake again.

 

 

shopping for twigs

 

Christmas is upon us once again. So Danny and I went out to the Cave Hill Forest near our house at the weekend to collect some branches, added a vase, some decorations and a random assortment of christmassy bits and bobs around it, including the obligatory animal skull. Merry Christmas y'all!

 

 

 

Introducing Melanie

 

 

This is an original 'Melanie' by Louis Shabner. I found her in a charity shop recently and swore to myself that I wouldn't spend any more than a tenner on her, but I found that I couldn't bear to pass her by even at the £20 they were asking. A bit of ebay research though leads me to believe that she's relalatively rare and worth about £150!

 

I hung it up in my sister-in-law's salon to have a gander at it and had to admit that it looked good there against the amazing wallpaper; so there it stays until I find somewhere appropriate to house Melanie in my house.

 

Isn't she a little sexpot?!

 

 

 

Here are a couple more pictures by Louis Shabner which were printed in their thousands and hung in every stylish home during the 60s and 70s.

 

 

And they're contemporaneous with the more famous work of Tretchikoff, the 'King of Kitsch'. Original prints of these used to be thrown out in their dozens but it's near impossible to get your hands on them now. I'd sell a kidney in return for an original 1950 'Chinese Girl'.

 

But for now I'm satisfied by my girl crush on Melanie.

 

width="640" />