a sick Harriet
and two sick children
I felt a compulsion to further load my shelves with op shop ephemera.
I had been meaning to investigate some op shops since the big soccer final when I had to drive past a lot of them with Grandad and the kids in the car. Flossy and I hit the 'Northern Beaches' leaving the Big fella with assorted pick up instructions. What joy to have a free day unhampered with schedules to be places by! 
Beach booty included Scooby Doo thongs,
a pretty plate for Broadhurst England (the designer was Kathie Winkle and I believe I may have bought it more for her pretty name than her pretty design), a great cache of colourful knitting needles (mine have been modded into the weapons of mess destruction),
and a flashback hand recorder. My engineer Dad used to have one of these for talking into as he drove around inspecting bridges, etc. There is still an 30 year old recording of my little sister talking into it when she was Flossy's age. This one has a variable speed button so you can make yourself sound like a chipmunk or a zombie. Your I- pod touch can't do that now, can it. For $2 I think they'll get some fun out of it.
There was an abundance of pyrex including a set with roses on it but I resisted and just got this little aqua gratin one and some glasses for the children to break at dinner. I already broke one on the way home to get them started.
There was this shadow box which is a bit too rustic and will have to be painted. More aqua? Clean white? Suggestions welcome here.
Then as we took a short cut through the back of one shop to another I spied this little Christmassy thang.
I love those back straps- so Enid Blyton. Floss hates it so I will have to hide it till she forgets.
After a few hours of sweaty op shopping we needed to cool down
and blow off the cobwebs from the op shops and last week's chaos by chasing birds,
grey shadows,
and purple shadows,
trying to stand up in the waves
and running away from them. This all sounds like a metaphor for why we went to the beach in the first place!
There were also the dear old beachy weatherboards along the waterfront, some the colour of kitchen stools
and old survivor beach houses with 50's triangular bits and picture windows and names like 'Keeloway'.
Then I was taken aback to see this big, bolshy blight on the landscape.
This mirrored sphincter of bad taste is either a gateway to a wormhole in the fabric of space and time or the lamp room of an unfortunate lighthouse! What dear old weatherboard died that this may live?!
Ah, progress!
Thank you for the escape and the day beside the sea.
ReplyDeleteWe both needed that.
Annie, Annie, Annie...those glasses are kekkerit iittala glasses, I think...very good purchase and very collectable. Love those old beach houses. xx
ReplyDeleteDmc: A calmer, altogether more pleasant woman is tapping to you right now.
ReplyDeleteBrismod: I had a suspicion those glasses might be Iittala. I've come across a lot of them lately but wasn't sure if they were the real deal. How can you tell? Can you believe I broke one already!!!?
Flick them with your finger and if it rings it's crystal, if it has a dull clunk it's glass. Also Google images is a girl's best friend. I think yours are water goblets. Buy them up. They are incredibly cool and sought after by modernist types.
ReplyDeleteAnd you can break as many as you like if you bought them at op-shop prices!! xx
The problem with blogging is that if you post daily, and then you don't, your readers may worry for you. So I'm glad you're ok. Love your day at the beach pics. And that aqua house would be extreeeeeemly rentable, me thinks. Can you imagine what that leadlighting cost!!???!
ReplyDeleteAnnie - those glasses are Iittala Kekkerit for sure. How to tell if they are real? How esay they broke! True. I would say that Kekkerit breaks a lot easier than any other Iittala glass... I hate to say it but I know from experience...
ReplyDeleteWe used to play with my dad's dictaphone as kids. I remember doing the chipmunk and zombie thing. Hours of fun. Your kids will love it.
ReplyDeleteBrismod and Helen: I will try and get back to that shop this week for the rest of the glasses now that I know they are the real deal. I just saw some on e-bay and am appalled at my rough treatment of them with the beach bucket in the back of the car! I thought bloody Murphy had left my place!
ReplyDeleteAnna: I was just having a lie down- you know the kind, where everyone keeps coming in to lie down with you? I believe that lead lighting cost them a place in good taste heaven!
CC: I am considering setting it off during the night on zombie mode in the boys' room..."Pick up your shoes....pick up your shoes...."
Are those op shop finds from my op shop? I miss it.
ReplyDeleteOp shop is opportunity shop, yes? Oh to have the opportunity to pick up such goodies. But I never see anything worth buying in the charity shops hereabouts. Except old knitting patterns, there seem to be a lot of those.
ReplyDeleteLove the plate, and the pyrex, and the frilly bloomers on your gorgeous girl and the shadowbox- I think that glorious knitting needle green as a makeover would be superb. melx
ReplyDeleteDo you live near the beach? I'm so jealous! I love that little apron by the way.
ReplyDeleteLove the "mirrored sphincter" description - completely apt. Well observed. Looks like a beautiful day - lucky Flossy x
ReplyDelete