Shopping in a cold climate - day 1

I've learned a lot this week, starting with that I'm too old to stay awake for 36 hours at a time and still be expected to think.  Damn you, midnight horror flights.  I'd planned to sleep but unfortunately Qantas was showing Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law in the delicious Sherlock Holmes II and that took up the majority of the flight.  Sleep is for the weak, I thought.

The second thing I learned is that the sleep deprived have little resistance to retail spending at 5.45 am in the airport, when you have 3 hours to wait for connecting flight #3.  I found myself seriously thinking about buying Pandora beads, because it was that or eat Hungry Jacks for breakfast.  I wasn't hungry but luckily, neither was I cashed up.  I've done this sort of thing before and I'm well aware of certain...character flaws.  Some would say why bother opening at that ridiculous hour, but I can assure you I was not the only one wandering around stretching my legs and browsing.  I napped on flight #3 over Bass Strait.

After a nice cup of tea with the Sister, we adjourned to the local tip shop for a quick browse.  I intend to make more visits because you can, to a tip shop. We located not one but two new op shops - well, new to me, here. I got some knitting needles (can't really take them on the plane, and I'm on holidays in a cold place - emergency knitting may be necessary) - and a Jo Nesbo book for holiday reading.

After 12 hours reasonable sleep - for me - we mooched to Latrobe, where there were some interesting little shops open.  We spent quite a bit of time in Reliqueware - partly because its possible to just go round and round and keep finding more interesting things.  The dolls and repros aren't really my thing but as sheer display they are fantastic. The handmade things were great. The free fudge on entry was a bonus. 

The pop-up shop of my dreams is vacant, in the main street.

Bolstered by the sugar hit, we surged onward to one of the perennial favourites -the Antique Emporium.  Again, the imports and repros don't do it for me but there are always bargains to be had and the owner, like me, is a fan of the rusty and dusty.   The first thing which jumped into my hand was an Australian Monthly magazine - a kind of girly magazine from 1951 - but how can you not buy a mag with an article entitled 'Scientists explode bomb in woman's brain'?  It did not disappoint.

Two bags of steampunk pocketwatch bits, pocketwatch faces, an antique frame,  - oh the excitement.  On the way out I saw some brilliant cameras and illustrations - I shall return with expendable cash.  The Sister bought a lovely old tin car and a vintage Australiana tin - very nice. 

The bonafide antiques were lovely, of course, and the prices are generally pretty reasonable but unlike some I know I don't want to have to ship furniture from one side of the country to the other. But then I've only been here two days.

Power tools, glue, paint and soil and a girl's night out in Toyland.

Ouch, my hands hurt.  I've been up to my wrists in paint and glue and soil and sawdust for 3 happy days and even managed to do some housework.  My fingers are dehydrated from being immersed in chemical cocktails of paint and turpentine, poked into garden beds and pots, splintered, cut, sandpapered, and sawdusted. 

They feel like dehydrated chicken claws.  Now was NOT the time for my several tubes of ultra-soaking hand creams to have run out.

I found this little item yesterday.  It was sad, sad, sad but I replaced the legs with a set I picked up from the Denmark Tip Shop a couple of weeks ago.  I made the weird pointy things and some very ugly varnish touchups go away. Thanks to Gilly Stephenson's Dark Wood Scratch Remover, it's now looking smoooth.  I need some sort of teeny tiny knob for the door but I'm sure it will show up. 

I introduced my new friend to the other tools, and they seem happy to co-exist.  As drills go, this is a Drill.  I can make new, bigger things. It's orange.  My other new but slightly older friend is a multi-tool, it sands, cuts, slices.  It too is pretty cool.

I found these little girls on my rambles last week, they're really lovely.  When I arranged them on an old Scrabble board for photographs, I thought they looked a bit like a Toyland jailhouse lineup, perhaps after a big night out.  They certainly look as though they had a good time.  The clothes are hand-sewn  and  sweet vintage fabric.  The hair can be reglued and I love that the ones on the left and right have eyes that open and close in that very intense 'my eyes are open now' way.  

I'm watching Stephen Fry's Planet Word while I write this.  I love Stephen Fry, he's truly wonderful on every level.  The program is brilliant,  but I keep having flashbacks to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

I have to remind myself that the voiceover is not going to mention Slartibartfast and the fjords. 

Probably. 

My new word du jour is omnishambles, by the way.