Wow isn't Monica the most delightful, enthusiastic and smart larker ? Every video she features in her bright smile and warm eyes just draws you in and you cant help but wish to be in the same room to hear her tales. 😃🇨🇦
Went to London two weeks ago, I couldnt help to longily look at the foreshore, sadly knowing as a tourist I'm not allowed to mudlark. Luckily there are the heroes such as you to excavate these little treasures!
One of the highlights of my trip to London two years ago was mudlarking on the Thames. I'm so glad they were still issuing permits then. Maybe you'll still get the chance.
They have stopped issuing them as people are crowding there and they are worried the shady people are taking away historic items and selling them instead of getting them checked etc
The little toddler leather shoe is absolutely stunning and bittersweet. Makes my heart ache for the little darling who wore it. She did such a wonderful job in restoring it. Thanks so much for another excellent video. Looking forward to the next.
I loved seeing Monika’s preservation of the shoes, especially the little baby shoe you found in the Thames mud. Such dedication and what an amazing talent.
From someone who, like that bone tube you displayed, "used to be something," Nicola, thank you for this extra long multi-part video! Monika is an absolute treasure, and she rightly featured in both your video and Simon's this week. What a great Valentine's gift from both you and Simon, uploading videos on Sunday once again. A real joy to watch.
Lots of great finds. The shoe is adorable! Wonderful work Monika!! Loved seeing her collection of other shoes too. You can tell she really enjoys restoring them. A cobbler in a past life for sure 🙂
The restoration on that beautiful precious toddler's shoe was so well done and the whole segment with Monica was fascinating and so interesting. And I especially loved the Goose conversations. Beautiful creatures. I loved it all Nicola, thank you so much xx Teresa ❤🇦🇺
I found a British "Penny Ink" pot all the way over here in Mississippi, USA! It came out of a bayou they call "Dutch" because it was settled by Danes and a few Norwegians and Swedes and in the Nineteenth century all Germanic peoplrs in America were called "Dutch". The Danes paddled down that bayou in small boats to work in the sawmills on the islands in the river or the shipyard owned by the D'Angelo family. A Union regiment from Wisconsin burned it all down in 1864 but it was rebuilt and one sawmill renamed the "Phoenix" afterwards. ❤😊
Hello,, Nicola.. bonjour..!!🤗 Thank you for this little trip..'it's great to also film the waves and the gills of my dear London..👍 it was a poetry of the day. Bye.!🇫🇷🇪🇦
🌟 ✨Nicola✨ You are so very kind to take us out for a wonderful day on The River Thames ❤❤ The outing was spectacular! A ton of fun…. I enjoyed every minute of it, and certainly the history that you shared with us! ❤ your videos and the priceless, devoted personal time that you put into each video! ✨Nicola✨ You certainly are one very special gifted woman in this world today! Thanks for sharing your joys of life with us!! You are a shining STAR 🌟 on RU-vid!
I loved Monica’s presentation. I used to work sewing at a boot shop. I loved the job.the owner was very interested in the old ways and we had big sewing machines that you used a hand crank on.
What a beautiful little shoe!! Great find Nic!! And Monica did a fantastic job on the restoration. Really stunning. And love the little worn spot on the back. ❤❤
Love Monicas mudlarking room, its awesome. Another woman of many interesting talents. Beautifully done. You can "bore" us with anything, we will lap up your knowledge and interesting finds. Not ever boring at all.
This was a fantastic video, Nicola. As always you found a few interesting pieces in the Thames mud but the wee shoe has to be the best find. Monika did an excellent job of restoring the shoe to near its original condition and it is lovely. I remember tiny shoes like that with those buttons! Thank you for sharing your adventures with me. ❤🇦🇺
Monika had me thinking I was watching "The Repair Shop", until she took us on a tour of her private museum. Quite interesting to see all the old shoes.
Many thanks Nicola. That's how far passion can carry you, I love it.. Thank you and your friend Monika for sharing these treasures from the past. For my part, I still wear wooden and leather clogs in my garden, they are very confortable! Cheerio for now 🩰👠👡🥾
Hello from Prescott, AZ! I so look forward to your videos. Your channel is part of my average Sunday morning tradition, along with Si-Finds. Please thank Monika for sharing her amazing leather restorations.
I just wanted to say how much I enjoy the quiet scenery that you show and the beautiful birds. Along with the treasures you find that just brings a beautiful calm to my day. Keep up the good work. From the USA
Absolutely wonderful transformation of the shoe you found. Monika has some amazing cobbler skills and as always, informational and educational video. Thank you so much for sharing!
Oh Nicola! We are new subscribers Tom and Peggy Poeta! We have watched probably 20 of your videos you make me so happy. I knew this Little shoe Was going to be the find of the day! Remarkable! Thank you for being you. I hope to hear back from you.
What a darling little baby shoe! Monika did a beautiful job restoring it. I love the little pheasant piece. You should absolutely get Wendy to fix it up with some rhinestones or semi precious stones and pin and you should definitely wear it. It would be gorgeous! Lovely treasures for today's video. I love Sundays, where I get a video from you and one from Si! They are the best Sundays. Oh, I came back to add something. You always include film of the ducks, geese and swans on the foreshore. I thought I would share. My mother and I have been watching a live stream of a nesting pair of bald eagles on RU-vid, FOBBV (Friends of Big Bear Valley), in San Bernardino, CA. They have three eggs. Mama Jackie and daddy Shadow. Then the other day we found/saw a bald eagle's nest with a nesting pair fairly close to our home. We are so excited to hopefully get to see chicks hatch with Jackie and Shadow and hopefully see some young in a couple months in the nest here. Hope your weekend was great.
It was absolutely fascinating seeing the process Monika went through to restore your little shoe. She is so passionate about preserving history and I loved listening to her. What a delight she is.
Great video. Always like to see your mudlark adventures. The part of the video with the leather conservation is very interesting. Thank you for showing us Nicola and Monika. I would love to see more of Monika's leather collection. I would watch a whole hour or more.
Another great video, I can’t believe how much the Thames just keeps giving..People lost / discarded quite a lot back in the day..The baby shoe is fantastic, makes me wonder if the baby grew up and had a good life..Fantastic find..
This popped up and I thought for a moment it was filmed this afternoon, but no one could be that quick, could they? What a fantastic day. The river is so beautiful.
I am so glad that you were able to have the little shoe restored. I would have never thought it would have been so interesting and she did an amazing job!
Oh that little shoe is the sweetest thing and in such good condition ,Monika did an amazing job. I think you should get the pheasant made into something you can wear, its really pretty. xx
Omgosh, the tiny shoe is so precious, what a lovely find and the little part at the end, i was welling up imagining a small child wearing it all those years ago. Well done Nicola and Monika
About the split bullets - if an aircraft crashes and catches fire, any ammunition on board 'cooks off' in the heat and the shell case of the bullet splits. If you're finding these all in one place, it could be the site of a WW2 plane crash.
What an absolutely fantastic and most interesting, addictive end to this larking adventure Nicola. The little baby shoe ened up so lovingly put back together and preserved. Great job done there by Monica. I loved seeing part of her collection. Who else wanted to look in all those draws to see whats hidden within. I can tell you, i certainy did. I also wanted to see what was on the shelves too. Absoluty facinating. Thank you Nicola. I so much enjoyed this post. I can even go as far as saying a favourite. Thank very much for sharing your finds with us Monica. Plus thank you too Nicola for another entertaing lark on the shores of the Thames. She can be so generous at times. Re giving them back to the shore line. The things that lie beneath all the mud, baffles my brain. Such wonderful things hidden from us all. Unless the Thames decides its time to shift them out. You never know from one day to the next, what will appear next. 😊xxx
What a shot of a lifetime Nicola at 2:26!!!😂😂😂 I love you and your larking adventure videos my dear!!! Take care and hope you're having a most lovely 2024 so far!!❤❤❤
I saw the restoration on Instagram before I watched this video, so I knew what was coming, but that doesn't make it any less amazing. I also saw the camera restoration Monika did on Si's video. She definitely has a knack for bringing things back to life.
I like to think that the wearer of that lovely little shoe lost it by being naughty and running away from mom into the mud, where the shoe was pulled off. And then that child grew up to have their own naughty children, who bred their own, who also brought little ones into the world, who grew up to be parents of parents who now wander the shores finding old shoes while their children have set out on adventures of their own!
Hi Nicola, this was a wonderful film, i really enjoyed seeing the repaired mudlarked shoe and all the other shoes collected on the London foreshores. I have made similar style baby shoes but not from leather just from Calico but i much prefer a found shoe brought back to life any day. I also liked the beer bottle with the enormous bubble, oh just to be able to go back in time and watch the process. Thank you so much and i hope your week is a good one.
Thank you once again, Nicola, for another fascinating video! I’ve been in hospital for nearly four months, and when internet connection allows, my ‘go to’ has been your channel. Your opening good wishes have always resonated, but they mean all the more these days. Again, my thanks.
I loved how happy your friend was showing off her collection. I know exactly how she was feeling. Once in a while someone will shows real interest in my collection and its makes it a joy to share your knowledge.
I had no idea so many shoes had been saved out of the Thames!! And how many different kinds! But that stands to reason how many different items of various kinds are found, and how far the history layers go. Just interesting beyond imagination. Monika is just wonderful and I would love to just sit and listen to her stories! As we listen to yours Nicola, which are always interesting. So much more history than they tell you in school. I think it would have made going to history class much more interesting! Take care Nicola! Happy Valentines Day!! ❤️❤️❤️🦋🦋💐💐
Monica did an awesome job on that precious shoe. Perfect looking. Enjoying to see items never heard of before and learning what and why they were made and their use.
I can't tell you how much my sister and I have enjoyed your channel. Given the way you make sure that we have time to see the pieces as you claim them but you include great audio, sounds of the water, the birds, and your occasional "Whoop." I found this today whilst looking for an ancestor, Thomas Dunn, who imigrated to Virginia in 1624 as an indentured servant to Gov. Yeardley at Flowerfew Plantation now near Richmond. This was an archeological study of a North Carolina colonial town and would you believe the first thing they talk about are PIPES!!! Enjoy!! “Little Tube of mighty pow’r, Charmer of an idle hour, Object of my warm desire, Lip of wax and eye of fire: And thy snowy taper waist, With my finger gently brac’d; And thy pretty swelling crest, With my little stopper prest, And the sweetest bliss of blisses, Breathing from thy balmy kisses…” (reprinted in Mackenzie 1957:196) Originally published in 1736, the beginning lines of this verse extol the pleasures that a pipe of “fragrant Indian weed” could bring to those who partook in the social rituals of smoking. HET REGENT PIJPESTELEN AT BRUNSWICK TOWN: A QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF WHITE CLAY TOBACCO PIPES AND SMOKING BEHAVIORS IN COLONIAL NORTH CAROLINA by Thomas E. Beaman, Jr. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/www.rla.unc.edu/Publications/NCArch/NCA_54.pdf
Thank you so much for this. Monika is a star! In the 1980s I worked in a shop called Clogs and Wellies - wood-soled clogs with either irons or rubbers on the bottom of the wood. I also saw terrifying duelling clogs though they weren’t for sale!
Monika's most amazing abilities and devotion to excellence in restoration is museum worthy. And her love of shoes is so fab. So beautiful. Thank you again for sharing your adventures Nicola.
I've often wondered why mudlarks get so excited when you find old shoes. Well, now I know! Thanks to Monika for her work on restoring this precious little shoe, and for sharing her passion with us all. Cheers from NE Florida!
I wonder how all those shoes got into the river. Fascinating that they have survived, and that clever Monica has restored them. Some look almost like new. Such a personal item, really bridges the centuries.
Wow, that was enthralling, what a talented lady Monica is. Of course these treasures have to be found !; now theres a gift that you have. Nicola I was thinking the actual 'impressions ' left are just so evocative. A fine art photo series. ' solid shadows from the past'
Love the enthusiasm of these collectors and protectors of our history. Makes me emotional sometimes, especially the baby shoe. Greetings from a Brit in Romania 🇷🇴❤️
This was such a pleasure -- from Foreshore to Studio to Monika's. Every step a delight. Thank you, Nicola, for sharing the adventure. Thank you, Monika, for sharing your knowledge and reconstruction expertise. Loved spending time with you both as we got a chance to see some of Monika's treasures...and all those soles! What a wonderful, soulful experience.
