Brooch Overload.

It's been a few weeks since my last post and my excuse is I have been seriously lacking in motivation. I have most definitely slumped and you'll be pleased to know that due to this my house cleaning frenzy is over, for the time being anyway!

The sitting room looks like we are packing up to move with 2 dead televisions, a bubblewrapped tea trolley, a shrink wrapped amp, an electric guitar in it's case and various other piles of crap filling what floor space there was. I'm hoping the majority of it will be gone before our next house inspection in 2 weeks time! Hopefully by then the tv's will have been taken to the tip and the amp tested to see if it actually still works or it's going to the tip as well. Himself was rampaging a bit yesterday because he got his beloved Warlock (electric guitar) out of the loft and what was once white is now yellow......seems it's not unheard of for the lacquer to go yellow with age but still, he was not a happy bunny.

As it turned out Soo was unexpectedly free yesterday so I took the opportunity to escape the house and go browse the charity shops and have a good catch up. This was also where the title of this post comes from. Seems I went a bit mad on the brooch front whilst we were about it.

The most expensive one was £1.49 and a couple are for other people so it's not quite as bad as it appears! I love the little scottie dog and the white heather with a tartan ribbon (not that you can really see it's a tartan ribbon unless you are right up close and personal.)

I also got another navy blue handbag which I need like a hole in the head *but* it's real leather rather than faux, it is in immaculate condition, the snap is a little heart and it is so solid & heavy you could seriously brain someone with it when empty let alone with contents! It's a proper clout 'em round the head handbag, oh yes! Finally it was made for Boots that great British institution. There have I justified it enough yet?

                                                    Handbag £4.99 scarf £1

I found a lovely navy blue crimplene jacket by Miss Lady Bird for £2.99 which I very much doubt will fit me  but I didn't want to leave it!

The big excitement of the day was there is a new charity shop in town!! so of course we went to check it out and there I struck hideous ceramic gold. Behold really rather horrible elephant planter for 50p, he's going straight out into the garden.

    Bizarre fruit print cat 50p, yes those really are pears and grapes painted on it's back!

Little piggy with fascinator 20p

and a fruit print glass for my sister's cabinet. As you can see I have a habit of putting strange ceramic creatures in my house plants!

All in all not a bad haul.

 I also finally finished reading 'Serious Pleasures' Philip Hoare's biography of Stephen Tennant.

 It's a funny one because though it is incredibly well written I really struggled to finish it, mostly I think because it was quite hard to actually like Stephen, especially in his later life. I became oh so slightly obsessed with him in particular when I became fascinated by the Bright Young People of the 1920's. He was one of the major figures of that set, a real trendsetter and the kind of person I know I would have slavishly followed if I would have been around at the time! I think I felt sad that instead of being the incredible person he had the potential to be, as he became older it's like his bad character traits took over and mostly outweighed the good and he became very embittered. I still would have loved to have met him in person though!

I have added some of Philip Hoare's other books to my mammoth reading list because I do like the way he writes and if they are all as well researched as this and his biography of Noel Coward, which I have also read, I suspect I will enjoy them.