Antique shop prices . . . think of a number

We had a little wander around the antique shops in town this morning, just window-shopping. These days, the antiques shops are often set ups where lots of different dealers rent a space (according to their pocket) and stock it with what they think will attract a buyer.  In an ideal world, we'd do this too, but we can't afford take a chance on paying a regular rental and perhaps not selling anything for weeks.

Anyway, we had a wander round and there was only one piece of Torquay pottery - a big mug with a good long motto on the back, but at £25 I felt it was all the money and more, and think it's probably a good few pounds more than it's worth in the current market.  Sometimes items for sale are old stock, bought at the top of the market a few years back, which still haven't sold and I can quite understand folk not wanting to sell stuff for half of what they paid for it!

There was a rather battered copy of Eden Phillpotts' "Widecombe Fair" too. As I picked it up part of the spine fell off (that sort of battered condition). That was priced at £10 and bears absolutely no resemblence to general market value (which would be £3 or so in good condition).  I collect Eden Phillpotts and would have bought it at a sensible price, but this was obviously one of those "Oh it's old so it must be valuable" pricing decisions.  Personally, I do my research before I, say, list anything on e-bay where if it's that much over-priced it just won't sell. 

I have decided to sell my collection of Portmeirion pottery (wedding gifts originally) as after having them wrapped up for 3 years, and now collecting the Torquay pottery in its various guises, I far prefer the Torquay pieces and would rather put the money from the Portmeirion into some good pieces for my collection.  I did my research - found out prices new, saw what they went for on e-bay (where there will be P&P on top) and priced them at e-bay prices and they will later be offered for sale on there if I don't shift them locally.  Several women have picked them up, saw my marked price, and despite my offer of a very good deal if they wanted to buy the set of bowls or plates, they loftily remarked that they are "over priced".  It's that old car boot sale ethic - if you're trying to sell at a car boot sale, then you have to do so at give-away prices, even if what you are offering is desirable, yet in a shop setting, it's often "think of a number" . . . Everyone has different levels of knowledge - if it's something a dealer has never come across before, they may price it high and hope to be lucky.  Sometimes the price is a blistering one from sheer ignorance, but on the odd occasion we have picked up a bargain because it's in our area of expertise!

Ah well, we came home empty-handed but I did buy myself a pretty little circular wicker basket with handle yesterday at the boot sale (for blackberrying), and I was given a water-damaged (as in it was still soaking wet!) beautifully-embroidered picture when I expressed an interest in it.  I have it currently soaking in Ariel and hoping I can get the dirty marks out and the mould just starting to form on one corner.

Visit from a little ghost cat . . .

I was laying in bed last night, having just stopped reading and turned out the light.  I felt a cat jump gently onto the bed, walk across me and then down into the hollow between me and my husband.  Having been convinced all "lurkers" had been put into the kitchen, I sat up and said to K, "I thought you said all the cats were downstairs - yet one's just walked over me."  I put my hand out to see who it was - and there was nothing there . . .  He hadn't felt anything (well, I suppose he wouldn't, it was me that was walked across).  I can only assume it was a little ghost cat, visiting, and giving it some thought, I think it must have been my darling Lucky, as the strides were very short (she was a little short-legged cat).  Bless her - coming back to say hello.

My eldest daughter has spoken of a ghost cat on her bed before now too.

I am sure the pragmatic amongst you will think - daft woman, it was just her imagination, but I am sure the animal-lovers may think differently . . .

Cats and Crumble . . .

I did some baking this afternoon: a pizza for supper; an apple crumble and a small loaf of bread.  I left the two latter, covered with a clean teatowel, on top of the oven to cool. 

Anyway, we have just been seeking out lurking cats and putting them in the kitchen where they sleep overnight.  Fluff trotted across the kitchen floor, leaving wet footprints behind her, and she had a wet hind leg.  I looked about: no grey cat in sight.  Sheba (aka Misery Guts) and Fluff don't get on, so I assumed they had had a spat and Fluff had ended up in the water bowl.  Yet there was no spilt water. 

I went across to the cooker to put the bread and the cooled crumble away, only to find out that Fluff had attempted to make a bed on top of the lovely warm apple crumble, and THAT was why she was wet - she was covered in apple juice!  Ah well, just as well we have plenty of apples!

Snap!

The Weaver of Grass has just written wonderfully about her fear of spiders.  I can quite sympathise with her - around this time of year there seems to be a population explosion - or they all come into the house to keep warm over winter.  I am afraid I don't care for them either, and have to deal with them with the working end of the Dyson pipe especially when I am decorating - as I am in the kitchen at the moment.  I say sorry to them before they go to meet their maker but I am sure a Dyson-death is fairly instant and preferable to drowning in paint.

Anyway, there was a time when I wasn't too bothered about spiders.  I can remember my friend Tricia had one with yellow markings on its back which lived in her dad's toolshed and she had hysterics every time we had to go in there.   At that time, I was OK with spiders, as long as no-one required me to pick one up.

Anyway, this went on until we were having Sunday lunch one day.  Bear in mind this was the cusp of the 1950s into 1960, so there was linoleum on the floor and just a square of carpet in the centre.  We were all sat down to our roast, and I could hear a sort of scrabbling noise over the lino.  I said about it to Dad (mum was too deaf to hear it) but he didn't think anything of it.  Anyway, a few minutes later something tickled my neck and when I put my hand up to rub my neck, the biggest spider this side of the African jungle fell into my gravy.  I have never screamed so loudly before or since, and neither have I liked spiders.  Oooh, it gives me the heeby-jeebies just remembering it!

If I ever write that book . . .

. . . the one about living here, I finally have a title.  My son called me out into the hall tonight, and said "Look at this."  It was a young newt, going for a stroll up the tiles in the hall.  I picked him (her?) up and carefully put him (her) back outside, but as there is a big gap beneath the door, it may just come back.  We have had lots of young newts/frogs/toads on this particular pathway over the years.  Perhaps it is genetic memory.

Oh, and the book title?  "A newt in the house is worth two in the pond . . ." or something like that!  Author:  Gussie Finknottle (of course!)

When packing for the car boot sale . . .

. . . make sure that you don't pack a cat too!!  Banshee decided this was a good billet . . .

A Normal Saturday

 The cover picture shows Barley being carted at Rickling Green in Essex. 

The day started as most Saturdays start, dragging myself out of bed as the alarm insists it is time to get up.  Which wouldn't be so bad, except it was 6.15 and I had been awake between 3.40 and 5 a.m.  Sigh.  I really did NOT want to get up and my OH was like-minded!  Still, car boot sales wait for no-one so we had breakfast and set off, and indeed, were early enough to bag a few bargains.  I spent all of 20 pence (!) on a lovely little book which was just waiting for me to happen along: The British Countryside illustrated.  It has a soft cover (a little like an old exercise book), and illustrated throughout with black and white photographs and probably dates from the 1930s.  The previous owner has noted beside certain places, when they were visited.  London was the most frequently visited - Oct 1927, Aug 1936, July 1937, July 1942, Aug 1945 and Aug 1950.  I should have thought the July 1942 "holiday" there may have been a bit hairy!  Ilfracombe, Land's End, Tenby (twice), Llandudno, Blackpool were also holiday destinations, some of them quite late in the season - October or November.

 Tenby, bearing more than a passing resemblence to Victorian Whitby!  It has been polished up a bit in recent years : )

The photographs show the British countryside which I can just remember little snippets of when I was growing up in the 1950s.  The Botany Bay gypsies still used one or two of their heavy cobs for ploughing, and still drove them to a "trolley" to get about to the bits of land they had.  Horses pulled the milk floats, though milk was in bottles by then of course, and there was a little rag and bone pony called Sally - a chestnut with lots of white on her legs and splashes on her tummy and the filthiest greasy coat you could imagine.  Shires pulled the Corporation dust carts in Shirley in Southampton.  Country lanes were still largely quiet with traffic, and the  photographs evoke so many memories of unmodernized farmhouses still being lived in by actual farmers, barns being used for storage of hay or straw, and although I remember a small-bale harvesting of hay (unlike the big wrapped bales common nowadays), no-ne was still using the old-fashioned reaper and binder any more.   It was a peaceful countryside I recall, one we could safely run wild in.  That's why I am enjoying the Wartime Farm programme so much, as it is so reminiscent of my childhood, and I recognize things like the Tilly lamps (which we used in powercuts), open fires, chopping wood for kindling etc, a "copper" for washing day, and a mangle for getting the worst of the water from the clothes and sheets.

A scene from a byegone age, though I can remember seeing a field of stooks like this in Dorset before we left.  It had been grown specifically for thatching, I believe, using wheat which was much longer in the stalk.  It was like stepping back into Thomas Hardy's Dorset.  The above photo, however, was taken near Ipswich, in Suffolk.

Anyway, this won't get anything done.  I have chutney all prepared and ready to be cooked, so I had best get changed from my decent clothes into ones which need t be washed and will be once they are reeking of Green Tomato Chutney!