Friday 5 February 2010

Tooth Paste and Cold Cream

I'm hopeless in charity shops...
I get disorientated by the muddle of them
and the claustrophobic clothes rails
Antique shops are quite different.
I don't mean smart, expensive galleries
but small, dusty shops with piles of old plates,
faded prints of unknown places
and cardboard boxes of miscellaneous items.

Unfortunately, MrM does not share my passion
and waits impatiently outside the door,
studying the opening times in the window,
and then cunningly suggests that
we could 'come back later'
knowing that the shop closes in half an hour.

Imagine a delicious morning with MissM in Cornwall
when MrM was safely 250 miles away!
We shopped to our hearts' content
and bought all sorts of frivolities
until our arms nearly dropped off
carrying the boxes and bags.

Finally, we went into an Antiques Emporium
and in the last wooden display case,
on the bottom shelf,
was a selection of porcelain jar lids.
I would have bought more
but I also had an armful of china
and MissM had some essential books
and I had NO MORE MONEY.

There is a post script to this story
because Diana lives in Cornwall
and I emailed her to ask
if she would mind going into the antiques shop
and buying any lids that were left.
Imagine! The nerve of it!
(Isn't it wonderful to have Blog Friends!!)
And that is how the Cold Cream lid
with the beautiful Gothic writing
arrived by post on a spring day last year.

This post is for Diana,
because I meant to write it last year
to thank her for her kindness
and for Cathy, who loves fonts.

13 comments:

  1. That font on the cold cream lid is just spookerific. I imagine that it's the jar that the Evil Queen used to carry deathly face cream to Snow White's cottage in the woods. SW might have turned down an apple, but a beauty potion? In a beautiful jar? Never!

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  2. Just lovely - thank you so much for sharing these with us - where did we all go wrong? Btw Nigel is equally impatient outside shops he's not interested in - perhaps we should send them both to the pub :o)

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  3. Alice, I'm touched! Don't they look lovely all together - I'm wondering now how you decided to display them. I do keep my eyes peeled for more....

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  4. MY NOSE IS PRESSED TO MY SCREEN, THEY ARE SOOOOOOO GORGEOUS. I have a fragment of one that was uncovered in the garden and I just adore it. Thank you for this post Alice, they are so very, very elegant. I just wish I could talk to the designer of the gothic style one and ask "why THAT font?"

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  5. What a beautiful collection.

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  6. I think that this counts as constructive notice.

    Whilst the cat is away ...

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  7. D'oh Alice! Did you forget he has the address here?

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  8. Alice- I too, love poking around in dusty shops for treasures. Happening upon these beautiful lids would have made my heart skip a beat, and what IS the point of having one when you can so easily have them all? Quite opposite of how I feel about cookies. It is the vision of you and MissM together in Cornwall, the time, the chatter the delighting that gives me pleasure with a slight longing as well.

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  9. A fine collection you have there. I too am hopeless in charity shops, but almost as useless in antiques places. Salvage yards, on the other hand, make me squeal with joy. Sadly, the opportunities for impulse purchases within are fewer. Perhaps I need to buy a truck...

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  10. Beautiful, as always. Wish I coudl visit one of those shops.
    Paola

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  11. I am enamored of fonts as well. And things that are black and white. And lids! I like lids.
    And having my husband wait outside whilst I plunder a dusty thrift shop spells disaster.

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  12. Those are fantastic, definitely a reason to go into antique stores more often!
    x
    ps. word v = nessie

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  13. Oh they are absolutely wonderful. I can see why you couldn't stop thinking about them. And Diana is pretty wonderful, too! K x

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