A recycled lifestyle…

Just a quick post to let you all know I’m still here! Just busy looking after my young PGs, my stall at Molly’s Den, and planning a little holiday in France at the start of September. I’m beginning to see the point of package holidays… by the time you have sorted out transport there & back, transport whilst you’re there, insurance, somewhere to stay, whilst trying to please as many of the people as much of the time as possible, you can quite see that travel agents really do earn their keep.

But what’s on my mind today is stories. One of the things I love about doing a stall at Boscombe Vintage Market is the sense I share with my elder daughter that all the things that pass through our hands have stories of their own, or play a part in other people’s stories. And when they come to us, we play a little part in those stories, whether we mend them, clean them up, re-purpose them somehow, or just find new homes for them, albeit usually at a profit, or that’s the idea. When you sell something to someone face to face, you usually have some sense of where the story is going; part of the fun of it all is chatting to your customers & getting to know their likes & dislikes. But when I leave an object on my stall down at Molly’s, I don’t know what happens next. Sometimes I almost feel a pang of guilt when I place things on the shelf; it’s as if I am leaving them to their fate, which may just be to be an on-trend ornament for a few months, then thrown out without a second thought when the “vintage” fad passes. I have no doubt that many people will value & look after their carefully-chosen treasures, but not everyone thinks like me! Which is probably a good thing, or no-one would ever throw anything out, in case it could be mended or the parts come in useful somehow… I know I have regular customers down there, but I don’t know who they are or what they’re looking for.

I might just put some cards on my stall asking anyone who’s interested to leave a comment here about their purchases and what they intend to do with them. I wonder if anyone would respond? It would be good to hear, sometimes, what happens next…