Thursday 10 September 2015

Ingrid's charity shopping on tour


Over the summer, we spent a few weeks in lovely Wells Next the Sea on our holidays and had a fab time. Lots of time on the beach, a bit of crabbing, plenty of time spent in the lovely pubs in the town and a bit of dancing and singing at the annual carnival. Along with all this frivolity I was able to spend a morning with my mum having what we call a “mooch” round the numerous shops in Wells. After a bit of time in a gorgeous little jewellery shop called Mine, we stumbled across not one but two charity shops. One was for a local hospice and the other was a Sue Ryder. The first one we went into was crammed full of all sorts of clothes and brick a brac. The layout was chaotic to say the least but it did have lots of seaside charm and felt like a bit of a treasure trove, first appearances can be deceptive… I don’t know if the stock was from locals or bits that holidaymakers had left behind but considering Wells seems to be a fairly affluent place but the clothes were anything but great. It didn’t help that some guffawing students who seemed to find great delight in taking the mickey out of the clothes joined us. I did however buy two lovely bracelets, one was made of shells, which in turn had been made into little flowers, and the other was made of large silver flowers. I will be having a play around with them and restringing them so watch this space for the photos.

The Sue Ryder was a better layout and was much better arranged, it was however absolutely rammed with people and was only quite a small shop. We struggled in and had a quick look round but the space was limited and again the clothes didn’t look that great.
They had an area outside at the front that had rails of scarves and tops for a £1. There were plenty of books (probably to stock up the reading shelves of the many rentable cottages in this neck of the woods!) and had we had more patience and a bit more room, we would probably have been able to find a few bits and bobs..

A few days later, we had a trip to Holt, this time it was with the In-Laws and as they all wanted a coffee, I took the opportunity to nip off and have a quick “mooch” round the charity shops in this delightful little town. Holt has a lovely feel to it; there are lots of crafty shops, some v expensive clothes shops and 4 charity shops. There was one called the African Charity shop which seemed to focus primarily on crockery and there was soooo much of it. There were only two clothes rails and they were full of dated stuff to say the least! I do think the welcome you get in any shop is important, whilst the volunteers in many charity shops do a great job, some really do need a bit of customer service training! One shop I went in (on my own and not a child in sight!) the lady behind the counter was definitely aggrieved that I had made it through the door. A quick look round and I felt inclined to leave – such a shame. I did come across a wonderful Sue Ryder shop (again?) the chap behind the counter was lovely once he had stopped looking in the mirror at his new glasses. I bought some lovely birthday cards and one quirky idea they had was if you bought a shopping trolley key ring token thing, you got to chose from some jewellery. I chose a necklace which on the surface looked a bit naff but I will take it apart and make something else a bit more special with it – again photo to follow.

So my sour Jon into charity shops elsewhere was a bit of a damp squib, I think I like the familiarity of the St Neots shops, the layout, the size and maybe the time I have. It was worth a look but I’m quite looking forward to seeing my old favourites when I’m back xx

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