At the invitation of R&T we spent a very enjoyable but frankly quite surreal Saturday morning at Nettlebed Hospice, which every month hosts the mother, father, aunt and uncle of all charity jumble sales.
I had in fairness been forewarned by R, who explained that there are many sheds and outbuildings, and each has a specific function. There is the curtain shed, for example, and the record hut. But nothing can quite prepare you for the reality... hundreds if not thousands of people swarming through these incredibly beautiful grounds in the middle of nowhere frantically buying a million different kinds of tat. Second-hand duvets -- you just wouldn't, would you?
The sale is staffed by (mostly) elderly men and women in aprons, who spend much of the month accepting and sorting donated goods. Forks are separated from spoons, ribbon from elastic, shoes by size, books by genre and author, furniture by room. Then on the day they look sidelong at your selection and say '50p the lot, my dear'.
I bought some curly metal shelf brackets (£1) which can be used in the garden to hang lamps, bird-seed etc. I bought a right-angle measurer (there's another name for these) (50p) which I need for plumbing. I bought some hooks-and-eyes and some press-studs (10p) which I need for minor clothing repairs. And I bought some books (4 for £2.50, not sure how the maths worked there). There was a narrow escape over a mustard coloured armchair for a fiver, and a beautiful old lump hammer.
I couldn't face the clothing huts, as they were so busy they were working on a one in one out queue, and at one point I slipped away from the vase stall and went for a little sit in the gardens, which are stunning in an old country house Capability Brown sort of way, all mature trees and many shades of green.
On the way back in I passed a big metal cage against the wall. When I peered in I saw it was full of empty medical oxygen cylinders. All this mayhem is of course to raise funds to help the people upstairs die a good death. What an amazing country we live in.
joella
2 comments:
right-angle measurer (there's another name for these) = Set Square
You're the second person in four days I've had to tell that to.
I thought a set square was a triangle (though even writing that down makes it sound ridiculous)? This is a bit of wood with a perpendicular bit of metal. But maybe they are called set squares too.
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