Archive for November, 2010

To recover from all the bagging, tagging, and saying goodbye to my things I took a trip to St. Keverne in Cornwall. I stayed in a cottage on Well Lane.

On the other side of the road there was a ‘shop’ where a man was selling off all kinds of junk (pottery beer tankards, ornamental garden frogs, a train station weighing scales) in his back garden.

It wasn’t your typical shop, things for sale seemed to be mixed up with his work tools and personal belongings. There were quirky hand-written labels, with descriptions of the objects : “Nice heavy claret jug”, and “Interesting station platform scales with nice brass face. Unusual.”

I followed a sign which said “More items in shed”. Inside he had a notice on the wall: “This shed warmth laughter light happiness sunshine open”. It felt like he was giving people a narrative for what they should be experiencing.

But then there were the things he didn’t tell.

Were the two ancient tubs of flea powder for sale or still in use? Who was the girl in the photograph? Which beer tankard should I buy?

I never got answers that day because I couldn’t find anyone to ask or give my money to. The owner didn’t favour the hard sell and it seemed like he wanted to keep some mystery. If you are ever in St. Keverne see if you can find him and ask him some questions for me… Click here to see the shop.

I was recently trying to co-ordinate with my mother about visiting her. We were both on the road and I didn’t have a key, so I wanted her to reach her house before me. I texted to say I was nearly home. My mother sent a reply saying “I am also nearly hmmm”. Hmmm: a full fridge, a garden, an attic, a dog.

On the way to her house I took a detour and cycled through a local park, near the Dodder River. I found a blue hoody on a bench. I have a weakness for blue hoodies and for discarded things in general. (In the Help Me! Help Me! shop I had a whole table – actually a discarded sink – full of things I had found and collected, for people to rummage through.)

Anyhow, I stuffed the top into my rucksack and left quickly. In my mother’s hmmm I tried it on but we both declared it a QFM* and I decided to take it back as soon as I could. When I say that I decided to take it back, I mean that I decided to let my mother take it back. My mother has a helping disorder which I gladly benefit from, and anyhow she walks her dog a lot so it seemed convenient.

I gave her a detailed description of what bench I had found the hoody on, and she, liking to get things done, headed off that evening with the dog and the hoody and the mission.

An hour or so later she rang me and here I will use the word ‘aghast’ to describe her – it’s not often you get the chance to…. When she walked into the park she saw there was a football match on and the players were dressed identically. “Guess what they were all wearing?” she said? “Hmmm” I said, “not the blue hoodies?” She dropped it on the first bench – not the right bench – and ran. She did not look back to see if a bare-chested man clutching his returned hoody was running after her, shouting about finders not being keepers at all. And she swore once again to run no more errands for me, or anyone else she knows.

*Quelle Fashion Mistake, as named in the book Generation X, by Douglas Coupland.