Tesco to the Rescue!

Sunday didn't start too well. We set off for what we think was supposed to be the last regular boot fair for the year, but alas, it was cancelled. It was a gloriously sunny morning, but it had rained the day before and the field was too wet. Wimps, lol. As if a little bit of mud mattered. So we turned round, went home, and had a cup of tea and another look at the paper. And there it was, a little ad saying that there was going to be an afternoon boot sale in the Tesco's car park. Hurrah, maybe the day wouldn't be a complete loss ( boot fair wise that is ). I had only been once to a boot fair there, they are not on regularly, and I wasn't all that impressed with it. Still, anything is better than nothing to a confirmed car boot enthusiast, lol.

My goodness, it was heaving! It had started somewhat earlier than advertised, and because all other boot fairs in the county seemed to have been cancelled due to the weather, it was packed! Great news, of course. It was mostly what I had expected to see, lots of modern stuff like toys, clothes, general modern family stuff, but at least there were a few stalls with older bits and pieces, and I managed to find a couple of sweet things. Nothing that I was really coveting, like lace or buttons unfortunately. But here we go, I'll just show you.

This was the first thing I bought, a really lovely old Maling ware soap dish. I haven't seen this combination before, with the two bowls, I can only think that the smaller bowl was for the soap and the larger one for a flannel perhaps. If anybody knows, please do tell me -


Next was a stall with lots of bling bling. I spent ages there, because the lovely old coot who's stall it was, was sooooooooooo slow taking things out of his little boxes to put them on the table, and he wouldn't let anybody near the box in his hands, lol. I picked up a few bits and pieces, some of them missing a couple of stones, but that doesn't matter too much. I have badly broken bits which I use to repair other pieces with. I picked up three beautiful old medals as well -


I probably spent even more time at another stall, because the stallholder had THREE shoe boxes full of postcards! Most of them were very recent ones, but I did find a couple of cabinet cards and a bunch of lovely old postcards, mostly from 1910/1920s -


The next one really surprised me because it is a French piece, and the last time I was in France I picked up a very similar pen rest and inkwell set, but with the Louvre in the middle. This one has the Sacre Coeur as the centrepiece -


My next find made me smile. It was the perfect colour for the kitchen in France ( light green ), and metal! I hate the plastic ones. What am I talking about? Dustpan and brush set, of course.
This one has a smiley face, isn't it just so cute -


I went back to the first row again, to have another look at the bling bling stall, but there wasn't anything which took my fancy. However, next to that stall was the stall I bought the Maling set from, and I noticed that the soup tureen which I had admired earlier was still on the table. That was it, it was obviously meant for me after all. It had sweet little rose decorations, how could I resist that? It even has a little rose decoration in the bottom of the bowl. Condition was really good as well, and when I turned it over, I saw that it was Wedgewood! Needless to say, I snapped it up and brought it home. Another lovely piece for France.


Bit of an eclectic collection of boot fair goodies, lol, I know.

I also went to a jumble sale on Saturday. There is a good reason why I don't go very often. These sales are the hunting grounds of young mothers with pushchairs, and old ladies with shopping trolleys, in VERY confined spaces. And they develop killer instincts when they are at a jumble sale. They push and shove and elbow you as if their lives depended on it, and getting to a table is nigh on impossible, lol. I only picked up a couple of bits and then beat a very hasty retreat to safer ground outside.

A silver plated tankard, very heavily tarnished, but it had the sweetest engravings, not sure you can see them properly -

Silver plated and monogrammed soup spoons -

A sweet little dressing table ring tray with rose decoration -

This is a bit kitschy, but it appealed to me somehow -

A very old dictionary with beautifully aged pages -

And an autograph album. No autographs in it, but the pages are beautiful, gilt edged and the prettiest pastel colours, pink, blue, yellow and beige. They'll be lovely to use in collages etc -


That's all, folks. And now I am going back to crafting for a little bit. Toodlepip, xxx