Just a few blue-ish recent favourites from my flickr for you today since I don't seem to be managing to take many photos these days. I am poo-ooped tonight after a long day's charity shopping. I didn't get much, but then we did only do that route about ten days ago! I did get a pretty, stripy top for £1.49, a bag of embroidery thread and some very pretty blue aida for £1.20 and some secret vintage goodies to send to someone who might read this for a bargainous 60p all in! So I can't really complain! Tonight I had planned to go to the super exciting designers' preview of Made in the Shade's new Maisonette but didn't quite get back from charity shop town in time. I will go tomorrow instead, like a regular old member of the public... Ha! If you're in Glasgow, you should go too. They open at 10 (I think?) and rumour has it they are giving away free cakes to celebrate it being their opening day. I got a bit of a sneak peek at the Maisonette last week because I was dropping off some of my Dot and Pat notecards for them to sell (yippee!) and it looked super lovely, even in its unfinished state. I can't wait to see it. Incidentally, the leafy crown in the top left picture reminds me of their leafy logo. Do you see what I mean?
Since I have no other news (and am fond of wittering away here at the moment) I will share the long story of last week's charity shopping adventure, when I saw lots of things to photograph but had left my camera at home by mistake. Grrr. OK. We have a regular route of amazing charity shops that we follow. It involves getting up early and trying to be on the bus by 10am. We travel by bus for around an hour to our first destination, which has five sizable shops in one tiny stretch, so we stay there for quite a while. We then get back on the bus and travel to our next destination, making a very necessary toilet stop at the Tramway en route. (Today we saw such a fun exhibition while we were there, combining culture with peeing!) This is our only stop until 5.30 when the charity shops close and we go for pizza and a beer and rest our weary feet and bladders until we get the bus back home again. However, the Tramway is not open to the public on Mondays and it was Monday that we decided to go charity shopping last week. We had to form a plan B to pee! The last few times we've been charity shopping, we added a stop off in a really nice little coffee shop with the best chocolate cherry brownies ever, so I suggested a visit there so that we could use their toilets. However, Graham said he would rather use the toilets in the charity shop just beside the really nice coffee shop. (Are you following this?) Now, the thing is that to use the charity shop toilets, you have to use the charity shop tearoom. Yes, the charity shop has a tearoom in it. And it's not up the stairs or through the back. It is IN the charity shop. A strange concept, I know. Usually it is frequented mainly by the older ladies who volunteer in the shop but we have had tea there once or twice before, mainly for the privilege of using the toilet. I said I would really rather sit in the nice coffee shop and eat the best ever cherry chocolate brownies and pointed out that the cups in the charity shop tearoom always smell funny, making it hard to drink your tea. Graham counter argued, saying that the nice coffee shop had too many chairs. Eh? Obviously, I had the upper hand argument wise (tea from smelly cups in a charity shop vs. delicious cherry chocolate brownies in a place with plenty of seating) but somehow we ended up in... the charity shop. I thought maybe a scone would help the tea to go down so ordered a scone and jam for me, a cake for Graham and two cups of tea while he went to the toilet. The lady behind the counter took the cakes from under their plastic domes using tongs, put them on saucers with little napkins, spooned some jam into a side dish and prepared a pot of tea. Lovely, all going well so far. I decided to be polite and wait for Graham to get back from the toilet before starting. When he returned, I was still delaying the inevitable and hadn't quite summoned the courage to smell the cup yet when Graham said, "Enjoy your ashtray of jam." What? I looked closely at the plate before me. Napkin: check. Scone: check. Jam: check. Jam dish: ashtray! Yes, the jam had been served up in an ashtray! And it was a chipped ashtray at that! I was genuinely horrified at first and whispered that there was no way I could eat the scone or drink the tea now. Graham said he wished he hadn't mentioned it. I said I was glad he had. I looked very glum and thought about the cherry chocolate brownie I could have been eating... All of a sudden we made eye contact and started laughing uncontrollably. Graham had tears streaming down his cheeks and everything. The charity shop and the tearoom were practically silent so we bit our lips, buried our faces in napkins, tried to think of sad events, but to no avail. We couldn't stop giggling and I still couldn't bring myself to touch the tea or the scone and ashtray of jam but it would have been really obvious if I had left it all uneaten so... I went to the toilet and told Graham I hoped the evidence would be gone by the time I came back. Well, the brave little soldier ate his cake, my scone and the jam (trying to leave a protective jam barrier in the bottom of the ashtray!) and forced down the whole pot of tea. What a trooper! I did my duty too, though, by going up to the counter to pay. It was so hard not to laugh. I'm sure the poor woman working there thought I was a loony. We left as quickly as we could and I popped into the nice coffee shop and bought myself a cherry chocolate brownie to take away. Poor Graham was too full up to share it with me!
Still here? I hope you enjoyed that super long story of our strange experiences in the charity shops of Glasgow. It has been entertaining me all week. I'm still giggling away as I type. Ashtray of jam... What a hoot! Right, I'm off to play Trivial Pursuit again. Wish me luck :)
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I haven't been online for a couple of days and my reader is bulging. I have been skimming and skipping throuhg my unread posts, so glad I took the time to really read this one! Brilliant, ash-tray jam!! I take it next time you'll go to the establishment with too many seats (what kind of an arguement is that anyway)?
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In fairness, I should point out that Graham is trying to claim misrepresentation but "too many seats" is a word for word quote of his argument, I swear! Glad you managed to follow the LONG story and enjoyed it :)
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