As I have often said, there is nothing so sweet as the Sunday of a long weekend.  And when the Sunday dawns clear and cloudless and most importantly, windless, it is to be appreciated even more.

I'd no sooner crawled from the nest and had some breakfast, when the girlchild arrived, bright of eye and requesting scrambled eggs.  After she had demolished her breakfast, we re-upholstered the seats of two dining chairs, and I repaired two sun lounges.

For, it has been announced, she entertains a lot and needs to upgrade the furniture component of her soirees.  Luckily, as in most things, I try to be prepared.

Last year I got two wooden sunlounges from the boutique d'verge - they were each missing one bolt, but otherwise just fine.  One had been given one (bad)coat of white paint,but I anticipate that a couple of spraycans and the judicious use of some sandpaper will have them looking very smart indeed.  There's a red deckchair kicking around from the same collection, and some red and white cushions will tie the whole lot together.

I also have a 60's white metal lounger which I scavenged in Perth about 10 years ago, but I don't know that I want to let go of that permanently, yet. It's California-funky and a sentimental favourite, being that I was on foot at the time and nearly killed myself carrying it across a very busy road. 

Yesterday, the first real day of verge trawling for this year, turned up 2 dining chairs in need of TLC which met with the girlchild's particular specifications.  Get me the staple gun!  It literally took about half an hour to cover the seats and screw them back on.  Total cost was $zero - I used some fabric from the stash, my staple gun, and some long screws from a jar of screws, assorted, from the tipshop last week.

The annual verge collection of rubbish, furniture, etc has started, despite the late or non-delivery of flyers.  As a result, things have been a bit slow, but I expect it will pick up gradually.  There have been a number of finds so far, but I haven't had time to sort them or photograph them, due to getting home after dark. 

Those of you who have read past posts will know that this is my favourite time of year.  The sun is shining (mostly), the streets are full  of discarded items... what more could a girl want? It's like Christmas, without the cooking and the angst.

We filled the back of the 4WD yesterday (although the packing was a bit random) so today we unloaded halfway through, but managed to fill it up again.  The big item today was a stack of jarrah boards, perfect condition, assembled into -well, I'm not sure, lets call them panels - but my verging friend needed same for her daughter's back yard and there they were, already assembled and pre-painted. 

Some more of the enticing finds included a retro desk fan, mint condition; vintage binoculars; tools, various; a container for growing potatoes; a wooden rocking horse; a garden bench; brass drawer handles, 5 matching; glass louvres; fishing accoutrements; a quilt rack, wooden; wooden tables, various; a starburst clock, mint condition; and a small friction driven ride-on motorcycle, which has been claimed by a very excited small boy(his daddy asked us to pick him up a Harley).

Thumbs up to those who mark items as 'still works well' or 'please take this', but thumbs definitely down to those few individuals who deliberately smash everything into little pieces.  Apart from wantonly increasing their contribution to landfill, the broken glass and metal is dangerous for local pedestrians and kids and pets, and will lurk in the grass forever.
 

a modicum of self satisfying sulking....

Some weeks, its all good, even the bad bits.  In this case the bad bit was bad, but not in a serious cataclysmic make-a-documentary-out-of-it kind of way.  More a disappointing, 'bugger' sort of bad.  But when the thing that isn't earth-shatteringly bad happens to something that you've been looking forward to for ages, a modicum of self satisfying sulking seems appropriate. There is a lingering air of feeling hard done by.  I am less than gruntled.

The small god of good things has been mostly smiling this week - and not only on me.  Even some friends were doing the happy dance this morning, for various reasons. The flowering-pink-blossom tree is.  The stuff behind it is blue sky.

Some excellent finds from Vinnies this week (although I am beginning to have second thoughts on the tartan skirt - too school uniformy?) were topped of during our Friday round, when I managed 6 nice wine glasses (nice weight and balance, and as a friend remarked, not too small) for a pittance.  A pile of books - see previous posts on that obsession - including a 1925 Sunday School prize with cute drawings of rats.  Apparently Sunday School was different in 1925.


 Some more picture frames for the little fishes, and one for some vintage postcards.  A positive pile of bits of jewellery, chains, crucifixes, rosaries, beads, and other raw materials.  A wooden shelf thingy.  A hat, amazing in its fabulousness.  Teeny vintage glass bottles for secret project #3275 (still to be unveiled).  The basis of 4 new steampunk starships.  A summer linen shirt, pre-ironed. 

Unfortunately, the garage sales were boring, overpriced and unimaginative.  Oh, well, not much money left anyway.

I spent Sunday re-arranging, sorting, tidying (a bit).  I FINALLY finished a small shelf thingy which was made from a lone drawer from the verge last year, and some 'firewood' from the neighbours, delivered yesterday.  Whatever the firewood used to be, it involved a jarrah fame and some french polished panels.  At least some of it got re-used.  I've kept some of the other polished bits too, just in case.    

And I also finished off something with the coral I mentioned a week or so ago - at least now its  protected a bit.  I couldn't help myself with the 60's tin fish.