You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'shops' category.
Today Steve and I went to the Crediton Farmer’s Market. It’s on the first Saturday of the month and virtually everything at the market has been grown, raised, harvested, baked, cooked, smoked, or processed well within 10 miles of the market site. It was a bit drizzly so I didn’t get my camera out. On the way back home, we stopped at Proper Job, a recycling yard in Chagford to drop off some cardboard and paper. I also sought (and found!) a piece of tempered glass to use as a cutting surface with my new soldering iron. Our day of foraging didn’t end there.
We saw signs for a Rag Market in Chagford and went to investigate. Held in the Jubilee Hall, it was stuffed full of stallholders selling vintage hats, clothing, textiles, jewellery and haberdashery supplies.
I met Liz van Hassett aka The Washerwoman and bought some vintage tweed samples in warm autumn colours from her. At 32″ x 10″ they are just the right size to make some silk lined obis that I’ve had in mind now that the weather is turning cooler. I get a chilly tummy! I have some pumpkin, moss and rust coloured dupioni that might do well for the lining and am thinking of either buckled leather straps or grosgrain ribbon to fasten the ends.
I also got this sweet little nursery rhyme hankerchief.
Steve and I went to Brussels last weekend. We travelled on Eurostar from St. Pancras International in London and were door to door in two hours. We breakfasted on fresh croissants, Wiltshire ham, Emmental and mimosas (half fresh orange juice, half champagne). Such a civilised way to travel.
I didn’t have much chocolate, just a decadent, chocolate-enrobed, juicy strawberry from Godiva. And of course, the obligatory gaufre belge (Belgian waffle), this one purchased in the metro station and slathered with chocolate sauce.
We had some very good meals. One standout was at La Vilette (Rue du Vieux Marché aux grains 3, 1000 BRUSSELS) where I had medallions of pork cooked with Orval beer and topped with Orval cheese and Steve had rabbit leg cooked with Lambic beer, plus a mountain of frites each. La Villette serves traditional Belgian cuisine and is a sweet little place with a good atmosphere. I also had lots of dark Trappist ales – Chimay, Duvel, Westmalle, Orval to name a few.
La Villette
On Saturday we got up early-ish and went to the flea market in the cobblestoned Place de Jeu de Balle, Marolles.
It features a lot of junk unattractively dumped in old cardboard boxes or on blankets, still it’s a lot of fun and good for people watching and finding the occasional bargain. I bought a copy of Survival in Auschwitz by Primo Levi which had come from a used book store La Buena Nota in Costa Rica.
The Life Cycle of the Honeybee
buddha
We got caught in a rain shower just before the final row and dived into Chez Mamie (Place de Jeu Balle 14, 1000 BRUSSELS) a tiny, funky corner crêperie with a great vibe and good cheap fast food.
Grégoire cooks up crêpes to order in a place stuffed chock full of art, lingering locals, dogs and passing tourists.
buddha
The best seat in the house
buddha
buddha
A man happy in his work . . . . .
buddha
Crêpe avec le chevre et les épinards
After the rain stopped we went back to the final row of the market and made our first purchase for our new home. A clock identical to one handed down into Steve’s family from his grandparents. We turned our wallets inside out and got it for €50. All we’ve been able to find out so far is that it is a German box clock, probably made in the 1920’s. Not too packable, but we managed to get it back to the UK and we had no excuse to miss our train.
A cool place in Digbeth is the Custard Factory.
The former Bird’s Custard Factory has been converted into a hive of creative companies, galleries, fine artists, independent shops and restaurants.
I went into Fragile Design, a vintage 20th century design shop in search of some Lucienne Day fabric to cover a couple old wooden chairs that we rescued from a skip and refinished. This place has everything for the home from the 50’s and 60’s, including some of Day’s fabric, but it wasn’t quite what I had in mind.
Sarah Preisler’s Atelier has a small collection of works (Aug – Sep 2008) by Textile Designer Alison Moger.
Moger takes well used tablecloths and napkins for the starting point in her art pieces.
“All my art pieces have previously been domestic items . . . . . The tablecloth played a significant role in my childhood and even to this day when I see a tablecloth being thrown open, warm memories come to mind of being brought up in a loving family, having Sunday tea with Grandparents and aunties. I loved to sit quietly listening to adult conversations whilst running my fingers over beautifully starched linen, memorizing its detail and technique, whilst seeing stories within the textiles, these items are uniquely a human experience and each one will tell a different story.”
Some of them she embroiders with quirky little designs.
This tablecloth was cut into squares and reassembled.
Ideal Skate Shop – a sk8ter and his scooter, a vintage Lambretta
Oh yes, there is also the Custard Factory Sunday Flea Market. Supposedly, on a good day there are around 50 stalls offering everything from ‘fish to fashion, hand cream to ice cream, bungee jumping (?) to jewellery”. But this Sunday was a washout, maybe 5 or 6 stalls with some second hand clothes, bric- a-brac and ephemera. I did pick up another souvenir from Birmingham – a very tiny china jug with the Birmingham coat of arms (from 1936 to 1976) emblazoned on it.
Birmingham – Forward!
This July, Exeter lost one of the coolest independent shops in the Northern Hemisphere – Otto Retro. But happily, it turned out to be a hiatus and by mid-August, Otto returned better than ever. The owner Sarah trawls markets, estate sales and God knows where else to bring us the cream of ‘Choice Junk’ and at very reasonable prices too I might add.
I’ve picked up some treasures there over the past couple of years . . . .
My first portable typewriter
Beakers – good for measuring cocktails
most of my Observer’s books
My collection of First Aid Cases
Including my most recent acquisition and the crown jewel of my collection, an “Ingot” All British Complete First Aid Outfit.
With compliments of Dried Milk Products, Ltd.
Iodine Paint & Sting Lotion. Love the cute little brush!
Sticking plasters
Otto Retro is at 127 Fore Street, Exeter in the West Quarter, a thriving specialist shopping area with plenty of nooks and crannies, and around 60 independents to explore.
With a name literally translating as ‘the street before’ — as in ‘the street before the main road’ — the area between what is now Fore Street and Bartholomew Street was once occupied by Exeter’s earliest inhabitants. The assorted fishermen, hunters and tradesmen who peopled the city in the days when it was little more than a pre-Roman native settlement are thought to have lived on the lower slopes of the hill, using what is now Fore Street as their main route to the east.
And it’s still the best part of Exeter to hunt down unusual bargains and get away from the chains!
This morning I went to the Sunday Market at Marsh Barton in Exeter for the first time in over a year. I really like flea markets, street markets and car boot sales. You never know what you’ll find. When I was growing up in Southern California, we used to go to the swap meet most Sunday mornings, usually located in a drive-in theatre, with our red Radio Flyer wagon in tow. I learned how to drive a hard bargain by the age of nine. I used to buy things like deer skulls, MAD magazines, old chemistry sets, and once, a fox fur, complete with head and feet.
Today I bagged some sweet bargains.
A mint condition Royal portable typewriter with Touch Control. It was last serviced in 1991 by the Wigan Business Equipment Co in Lancashire and types like brand new. These were manufactured by the Royal Typewriter Company, New York, NY, USA and distributed by the Visible Writing Machine Company, Ltd., London, England.
If you’ve read my last couple of posts you’ll be as thrilled about this one as I am . . .
A brand new, never been worn Beskyttelsesmaske M/45.
That’s correct, a genuine, unissued WW2 dated British Army Lightweight (Para) gas mask & haversack.
This pattern of gas mask replaced the hose-type mask, and was first issued to Paratroopers and Airborne units, hence the fact that most people refer to them as the “Lightweight Para” issue. However, as time went on they became issued to all units, including Infantry, Corps and the ATS. These masks were made in England during WW2, and carry a variety of dates on them – usually 1942-1944. They were sent to the Danes after WW2, where they were carefully kept in storage for emergency use. The instruction manual that comes with the mask is written in Danish.
Very trippy, because this is the exact model of the gas mask I got in Digbeth AND I am this far (thumb and forefinger 2 mls apart) from planning a trip to Copenhagen for a few days.
And there’s more . . . . . . .
A set of 11 Mapograph relief map ink rollers of world countries; India, Italy, Asia, France, et al. Just ink ‘em up and roll ‘em out for a 5″ x 6.5″ map of your choice.
India North America
Includes three Mapograph Major – World Mercator map rollers.
I couldn’t find any information on these. Just a post on General Pattern, a blog by James Brown – illustrator and print maker. I suspect that they were used in schools to teach Geography or Cartography.
The Mapograph rollers came in an ink stained box from guess where?
Yup, Philip Harris Ltd., suppliers of scientific equipment and resources to teachers and technicians since 1817. The company was originally based in Digbeth, Birmingham. The company traded as a wholesale Chemical Laboratory Company occupying its Bullring site until 1889. They moved to 144-146 Edmund Street at some time around the turn of the century.
In its heyday the company was known to all science teachers in the UK (and many world-wide) as one of the two “first-call” suppliers for the peculiar needs of school science. Philip Harris Ltd. has now been subsumed into a succession of larger, more anonymous corporations.
Last but not least, a complete set of 25 ‘Trees of the Countryside’ Ty-phoo Tea trading cards. Ty-phoo Tea was created by Birmingham grocer John Sumner Jr. in 1903 to sell in his shop.
Gosh, lots of roads leading to Brummie these days!
Here’s a link from the Special Branch pages of The-Tree – a resource and meeting place for tree lovers and green activists, which shows each card in this series in full detail.
The man who sold them to me said that when he was a boy in the late 1940s he and his mates would play a game in which they’d pitch marbles, conkers or trading cards at a wall and the one whose landed closest to the wall would win the lot. I used to play a similar game called ‘Pitching Pennies’.
The next time I go I’ll take some photos at the market to give a feel of the Zeitgeist, the spirit of the place. I realise that I tend to get very up close and filter things through a very tight lens. Could it be time to look at the big picture????
Polka Dot is a gallery in Exeter which sells fine art and craft from a range of media – photography, painting, ceramics, textile, sculpture, glass and jewellery. It’s the perfect place to go to find something unique and finely crafted. . . .
. . . and here’s the very exciting part. They’ve just started to carry some of my work!! The gallery in Exeter has my accordion books and brooches and the gallery in Taunton will carry my obis.
I’ve had one of my ‘Le Voyage Sacré’ books matted and framed and John made me a plinth from sycamore to display a book in 3D. BIG gold star to John!
I am going to submit a portfolio with a few of my photographic series so that customers can choose a bespoke book and have it either framed or for display on a plinth.
This is giving me the opportunity to focus on multiple production, marketing, pricing – yikes! and paperwork – ugh. All goals that I had set for myself in the New Year.
