For the love of Vintage

It's not only the vintage style I love so much but also the history behind it.
I have a lot of vintage stuff at home but one in particular is very dear to me , the dressing table that once belonged to my grandmother ....

Though it's a very long time ago, I can vividly remember how I, as a little girl , sat down at the dressing table and played hairdresser.
I remember the cape of lace to protect clothes from hairspray. I felt like a princess when I wore it around my shoulders. The perfume bottles whose granny didn't mind if we (her granddaughters) used, happy memories about a granny who allowed almost everything.

Maybe because my mother is not so well at the moment that I think a lot about my gran (my mother's mum) and today especially since it's her birthday.
Although she was for a very short time in my life (she died when I was eight years old ) in many ways she always stayed present in my life.

When I was a lot younger, I often felt her presence .
It didn't felt weird at all , I even mentioned  it to my husband that my granny was visiting as if it was quite normal.
As I got older those moments were becoming less without having more thoughts about it.

I would like to share a story with you and I hope after reading it you still see me for what I think I really am .... pretty down to earth.

About fifteen years ago I got on my former job a new colleague, Marion.
A sweet sympathetic woman who immediately made a great impression on me.When she introduced herself to me I was a little swept of my feed and I didn't understand why.
Gradually we got along very well , we had children in the same age , so plenty in common to talk about without getting to personal.

After a few weeks while we were at work together , she said suddenly out of the blue .... there is a woman standing next to you, she's there for a couple of days now and I really need to know who she is because I can't concentrate on my work.
She gave me a description of a woman with an accent and who was wearing some kind of costume. That description wasn't really necessary because I knew immediately that it was my gran.
Maybe this picture explains it more ....

My grandmother was born in Volendam but left the village
when she fell in love with a young man from
Amsterdam , my grandfather. For that time a very adventurous
decision because very few people, even now, leave the village.

I got very emotional and went strait to the toilet to calm down . I was so upset about the whole thing that I didn't want to talk about it with my colleague, at least not at work. So we both left it by that, at least I thought so.

A few weeks passed and my colleague (which I had become very friendly with) asked if I came by for a cup of coffee.
So a week later I went unsuspectingly to her home and after some chatter while sipping our coffee she wanted to show me around in her house.
That's how I ended up in her attic where she (so appears) always gave her readings
It was therefore not only a social visit but it also became a "get together" with my gran , really needed according to Marion.

It was a revelation, there were things mentioned that Marion just couldn't know. Where I particularly was impressed by is that my gran was so happy to have finally found someone to make contact with me.
I've been disrupted for days after this event but what prevailed was a completely blissful feeling .

I'm still so grateful for this experience and what I already knew was confirmed , my gran is always with me.
What people often said to me, I now (as I grow older) see myself , in appearance I look like her.
But most of all I hope I once will be just like her .... a very sweet gran!

So that's why this is such a special vintage treasure, lovingly restored by my husband, with precious belongings on it that I've collected over the years.
But above all , with one of the few pictures of us together, as a little girl on Gran's lap ....

Anita xo