Sunday, March 30, 2008

 

30th March Buying and Selling.

It has been Sunday and we have bought and we have sold - not a great deal in either of those categories.

The weather yesterday evening and overnight was dreadful and of course this put potential stall holders off from setting up their wares.

The roads today, long after the rain had stopped were hazardous with a lot of surface water - puddles and larger expanses. The road sides were like mini streams as water flowed fast down the hills. But the rain did stop and it looked like a pleasant afternoon, but as were in the shop until half past five we saw very little of it.

But it was good that the sun shone to make us feel joyful and aware of that extra hour of daylight at the end of the day - not dark today until gone quarter to eight.

Our buying was in Dorking and Horley.
I am specially pleased with an old wooden storage box with a paper advertsing strip along the side for Oakey's Wellington Knife Polish.
We have owned a knife polisher for many years. This museum piece was a wonderful find - not at a sale, but found thrown on the council rubbish dump in the days when it was just a patch of waste ground where you could deposit unwanted items from lawn trimmings to ... well, to knife polishers.
People were free in those days to help themselves to anything potentially useful.
So the knife polisher cost us nothing. I actually paid £5 for the polish box - they just seemed to belong together.



We were home again by 9 o'clock and pottered the morning away.
Bill looked through all the large mounted photographic prints he did when he was in the camera club. Some may be used to decorate the house and others just are not needed anymore becasue they no longer have any meaning to us. And then there are others which will find their way back into the cupboard.

The afternoon in the shop was quite pleasant, but Bill and I were not as busy as Rose and Di had been in the morning.
One customer was from South Africa and glad to chat. The conversation eventually got around to families and she told us that her grandfather was William Gunn who had played both cricket and football for England in the late 1800s. And it was he who set up the cricket gear company Gunn and Moore, who still produce the most sought after bats today. Much of the ephemera and sporting equipment that had been his is now housed at Lords cricket ground, because she felt it should remain in England.
Conversation with another customer didn't flow so well. I gather he suffered a brain injury and now has the memory span of a gnat!
He asked what a certain item was and we told him - and a just a few seconds later he would bring it again and ask the same question - until he was bored with that item and moved on to another.
He has a "minder" who brings him to the shop because he loves it so and he is given some money to spend. He didn't seem to be able to hold money or figures in his head, but is obviously a reader -at least he said he loved books and bought 2 about Surrey (where he lives).
He also wants to be loved. He likes to keep checking that we feel he is a good customer - and he knows how to bargain. I told him that a £2 book shouldn't really have anything knocked off but he pleaded that as I liked him so much and he was a very good customer that he could have it 10p cheaper. Of course I relented.
He took his prize purchases and a receipt out to his minder and they drove back to Merstham.

Strange that on the Antiques Roadshow - a sort of look back edition - the experts were saying they had to be much more than an expert knowing values and at times had to act a kind of social service, just as we had done earlier.

Well, time to put the kettle on and then get to bed.
Tomorrow I shall visit the dentist at the 4th time of asking. The first time I just felt too fragile after all the hospital stays. Then I had the awful sinus bug and cancelled twice. I guess the sinus bug has gone - but I still feel claggy and cough and splutter.
I shall, of course, wish that I could miss the dentist again tomorrow. It won't be comfortable, but if I am to save what is left of my horrible teeth then I must put up with the repair work.

So, another weekend over.