old buildings, old clothes and a surprise gift

I’m still playing catch-up when it comes to blog posts, and this one should, by rights, have been put up a couple of weeks ago. But, the whole eBay business seems to be taking up a lot more time than I’d anticipated (how boring and time consuming is wrapping ten packages? Yawn….), and so here we are with pictures from something that happened a few weeks ago. But better late than never, right?

On Easter Saturday, we decided to go off on one of our usual meanderings, and walked past an old abandoned Church that I’ve seen a million times, but never really paid much attention to. I don’t know if it was the lighting, or if one part of it caught my eye, but I stopped to take some quick snaps – if I didn’t think it would be full of a) spiders and b) squatters, I’d love to get inside and take some pictures. I’ve got a thing about old abandoned buildings anyway, but an empty Church would just be amazing – in my head it’s just covered with a light layer of dust, and the sun shines through cracks in the roof, highlighting the floating dust particles. The whole thing would be amazingly ethereal, and lit perfectly for taking photographs. I suspect the reality would be fairly different….

The ‘old clothes’ part of the post doesn’t refer to thrifting, as you might think, but to an amazing vintage shop that we found, called ‘Anything Goes’ – I’ve walked past it before, but it’s always been closed, so when I saw the display outside and the door wide open, I practically ran in.
The girl who works there said they’d been open for a while, and we soon got chatting about clothes and suchlike. She told me that they go to vintage fairs, both home and abroad, and that the clothes encased in protective plastic at the front of the shop were all bought from the same woman – apparently she had a really rich husband, and went to vintage events abroad dressed in her fabulous clothes. They bought them from her for £100 each, so I didn’t bother to even go near the rail!
The shop was amazing; one wall was covered in pictures torn from fashion magazines, and music played on a vintage record player. From the giant retro floor lamp to the dresser covered in jewellery – it was basically how I’d like my house to be furnished!

The next day was Easter Sunday, and my Mum presented me with a large, fairly hard, package. A few weeks before, I’d seen an amazing tapestry satchel in a charity shop when we’d been out shopping together, but I decided that at £10, I really didn’t have the money for it. A couple of days later, I walked past and saw the bag had gone, and commented to Mum, “I really wish I’d bought it now, it was a real one off,” and wandered off with thrifters-regret – that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you realise you should have bought something you’d deliberated over after all. So imagine my surprise, and sheer joy, when I opened the package and there was…. the tapestry satchel! Mum had gone back and bought it secretly, and kept it for me – the only thing better than a good thrifty find, is a thoughtful thrifty gift from a loved one. Happy days!

Blouse: Vintage
Skirt: Paul Smith
Boots: H&M
Bag: Wonderful thrifted gift from my wonderful Mum
Jacket: So old that I can’t remember