Chocolate Rabbits

 You just never know what you are going to find at a car boot sale and last weekend I found 3 chocolate rabbits. Actually I could have had more but decided that maybe 3 were enough.

Someone had a whole tray full and selling them for 3 for £1. They are only just out of BBE date and being Lindt are sure to be good .

My plan is to eat the chocolate (of course) and use the ribbon and bell on some Christmas decorations that I just have to first stitch!

I made a few of these years ago and still have a couple that go on my Christmas tree most years.

Better get stitching.

(I went off chocolate in the heatwave of 2022 and hadn't eaten much until recently getting hooked on Maltesers! which I count as supporting local industry as the malt for Maltesers is prepared at Muntons maltings in Stowmarket!.)

Elvis is in the Building!..............

..................... I found him at the Sunday car-boot sale.

For the princely sum of 50p, he has joined the other three looking out of my bedroom window.

That's a cobweb on the outside of the window - not cracked glass!

He is one of the originals from dcuk. A company started in 2004 (which must be when I got my original). My second was a charity shop rescue in 2017 and the third was from a boot sale last year. In between then and now I could have bought one for £5, but that would have made me a serious collector! Whereas at 50p I'm just a duck rescuer. 😀

The company are still in business, still using bamboo but now all the ducks have painted wellie-boots - I'm not keen on those, there are lots of copies around too. The originals have dcuk stamped on the sole of their foot.

Other Boot Sale Finds From July and August

Car boot finds this summer weren't very exciting. So many people just bring the same old stuff every week and it's often just the House Clearance people who have different things each time.

I've already mentioned the most interesting but these were the other small finds.

Two books - one for Grandchildren (because I'm sure one of our children enjoyed one of these Usborne Puzzle books  when they were 8 or 9 and yes, that is possible because this is dated 1990) and a book for me that I used for pictures for my scrapbooks as it had lots of pages stuck together but enough interesting pictures to cut out. Paid 50p for both -  from house clearance boxes as usual.

A bundle of postcards with pictures of commemorative stamps . Some of these were also for the scrapbooks. 50p for the bundle.

Another 50p on this suet block for the birds - I'm only feeding sunflower hearts and Nyjer seed at the moment but this will go out for them in Autumn. This also came out of a box of house clearance stuff.

50p again for this new jug, a replacement for a very old one that no matter how often I gave it a scrub, it still looked nasty.

The book below I bought because it was only 20p. It's all about the old businesses in Stowmarket. I could have borrowed it from the library there but now there's no hurry to look at it. At another boot-sale I saw volume 2 but the girl wanted £3 - I said " No Thanks"

Christmas Wrapping Paper 50p

Pack of notecards 50p, a couple will be used in the scrapbook and the rest for birthday cards.

An old crime fiction book  and a small watercolour pad 50p each again

And finally this little pack of three turned wood garden cane toppers were £1 which I will add to the hanging plant pots for my sister and her husband for a Christmas gift.

Which makes a total spend of £5.20 for all sorts of useful bits and bobs

It Was £24.99 ...............

At a recent Sunday car boot sale I picked up this book just to see what it was. Good Housekeeping was a magazine I sometimes bought back in the 1970s BC (Before Colin and Before Children)- in the days of newly-married and still earning. Looking inside I saw some lovely photos and several recipes.

 Turned it over to read the blurb on the back and saw it was £24.99 when bought new and when the guy selling said £1, I thought it was worth buying for a better look.

Not sure I agree with that final sentence "Because everything is housekeeping - and housekeeping is everything"! Really?

I'll let you know if there's anything useful inside and if it was ever worth £24.99, but somehow I doubt it because there are dozens of secondhand copies for sale on Abebooks and Amazon. So maybe everyone who was given a copy for Christmas soon gave them away! 

£1 Addition to the 'Art Wall'

 I rarely buy anything at boot sales nowadays that I like rather than need (actually I rarely buy anything that isn't something to use Full Stop!) but spotted this little original water colour of ducks a couple of weeks ago and for £1 it seemed like an inexpensive addition to the other small pictures I have.

The photo has made the picture look a bit faded but it isn't.

I can't read the artists name but a label on the back says it was framed in Glamorgan, so I'm guessing the artist is Welsh.

There's still room for a few more pictures. .............. That is the cane topper in my summer display - it hasn't gone outside yet.

(I wish I'd caught the guy who fitted the Carbon-Monoxide alarm when he did the wood-burner  before he put it there, right where I didn't want it!)

Car Boot Sale - £1 Spend

 Found a few weeks ago = Top Trumps Marvel Heros cards for next visit  of any of the Grandsons and brand new George (Asda) Sunglasses labelled at £5. Both of these were 50p each

The sunglasses are good but when MGS was here he said he'd didn't like Marvel Super Heros anymore! 

 Eldest daughter and the boys stayed  by the coast for a couple of nights and then came here for a night before heading back to Surrey for their hectically busy summer holidays. Neither OGS or YGS were into Super Heroes either - 50p wasted! It's complicated keeping up with changing favourite things!

YGS  is off to proper school in September. That's all five at school between reception and year 6 and all growing up so fast.

 

A Nice Find

 I love these Oxford Black n' Red note/account lined books - they have hard covers and are casebound like a book so last well and are very expensive if bought in a stationery shop.

I found this one for 50p...car boot sale of course. The person selling had lots of new stationery items but nothing else I needed  or even wanted.

It's A5 and will be my new accounts book when I have filled up the one I'm using.

Stowed away I have one of their books with the A-Z pages and when I get around to it I shall copy all the 1,000s of books in my old and tatty Book-of-Books-Read into the new shiny one but as that will be a job taking weeks (months?) I've not started yet.

******************

Yesterdays tennis saw Sinner win easily but Djocovic had to battle through 5 sets, including tie-breaks, and I thought he was going to start moaning again as he started to limp and had the trainer on.

Today it's Arthur Fery playing again - can he get through? We shall see. He is playing someone he has previously beaten so there is hope. I'd missed seeing Julian Cash and Lloyd Glasspool are into the quarter finals of the men's doubles, that's today too and Henry Pattern and his Finnish partner, who are ranked#1 are already through to the semis. I've been watching mostly on Red Button for choice of courts and that means I seem to have missed the newsy bits that are between matches on BBC1 and 2. 

Another Bundle of Someone's Leftovers!

 I fished these things out of the boxes of one of the house clearance people who were at the nearest car-boot sale on Sunday - they are always at Needham Market but not often at Stonham.

There are two packs of small freezer/sandwich bags - handy for keeping things like an opened pack of cheese in the fridge. Two part used packs of scourers and a new and sealed box of 100 Twinings Breakfast Teabags. I paid £2.50 for the lot.

All useful although I've gone right off tea while the weather is so hot......I'm OK with coffee (and lots of water). It's a good thing teabags keep for years because this is the second lot I've found this year and I already had a big box in the cupboard.

*************************

The only Brits playing yesterday at Wimbledon were in the Men's Doubles. I watched Dan Evans and Henry Searle  lose and but missed the other pair winning then saw Sinner win although I wouldn't say he won comprehensively. Decided to be patriotic and watch football instead, except England were so bad I gave up at 70 minutes and went back to tennis. Then I heard huge shouts and cheers from somewhere in the houses behind me and knew England had scored and then again a few minutes later - a win then................ eventually. I see they play Mexico at 1am our time next Monday, actually in altitude in Mexico City - it will be deafening and England have no chance! 

Back to tennis and geared myself up to watch moany Djokovic play in the hope he would be beaten by the Greek Tsitsipas.............He wasn't.

My latest Pet Hate (and there are many!) is the interviewer after the matches saying "sum up your emotions!" .....Every.........Single........Time.......Grrrrr.

Other May and June Car Boot Finds

Apart from the £5 wasted  on the card making stuff, car boot sale finds  have been useful or interesting  and mentioned already but several times I've come home with nothing except knowing I've had a bit of early morning exercise!

There are just a few find photos that got left on the camera............

£1 for two pairs of ladies gardening gloves - Xmas presents for sister and sister in law to add to the hampers.

4 Plastic Sundae glasses were 50p each. 

The grandchildren have had "ice cream sundaes" from ice cream sellers that are just ice cream and a sauce. "That's not  a  sundae" I said, "One day I'll make you a proper ice cream sundae" . So now I can.  ( Except  when all 5 are here at once!)

Pack of razors 50p - I used to have an Electric Lady-Shave but it's recently died - it was only 25 years old! I need a new one.

A new pack of 20 notecards with The Edwardian Lady paintings were £1, from house clearance people again. They will probably be a Christmas present.

Almost full pack of sponge scourers 50p.

That's about it.

Back Tomorrow

Busy, Busy, Busy Boot Sale

 Last Saturday's car-boot sale was huge and extremely busy.I found a few useful bits which came from the boxes of four different house-clearance people.

The bundle of cards which  include three 'Sister' Happy Birthday cards [I only have one sister and there was one in my card box already, so very well stocked now!], more than a dozen charity Christmas cards and two packs of postcards for my scrapbook were £2.50 and all from one seller.

From another box I found the large book on the right which has colour plates of decorative tiles through history for 50p, it was bought for cutting up for my scrapbook but it seems too good to cut up so now I don't know what to do with it.......back to a boot-sale or to a charity shop.

The Charles III Coronation commemorative tin was also 50p, I didn't buy it for the tin but because it had 40 tea-bags sealed inside. Now the tea bags are in my tin and the Charles tin is in a box ready for when I sell at a boot-sale.

 I'm not a big soup eater but the pack of 4 cup-a-soups was 50p and they've got a very long date so will do for winter.

Luckily early Saturday morning wasn't too hot - after that the temperatures here - like most of the country - just went up and up until records for May highs were broken.

Back Tomorrow

Two Books and a Scoop.........

 .....were my car boot sale finds on Saturday.

Unusual to find two books at a boot sale that look interesting.

I dithered over the 'Back of Beyond' as the man was insistent on wanting £2 -  hate paying that much! I wasn't 100% sure that I'd not read it but knew there was an interesting, old  book about trees by this author on my shelves and thought that on Amazon for 'Back of Beyond' it would be more than £2 for sure. 

Thank goodness it wasn't listed in my book of books read and would be between £5 and £22 on Amazon so £2 was OK after all.

The other book was in a house clearance box so just 50p and is also about someone who bought an old cottage but this one is in Australia - that's a bit different.

The 50p scoop is for the greenhouse for compost - had one just like this but it split last year, which I only remembered after spending ages looking for it a few weeks ago.

Back Tomorrow

The Strange Things Found ............

...........at Car Boot Sales.

A group of us from Stowmarket Grammar School  went on an Educational School Cruise on board the SS Nevasa in October 1969  but I  have nothing left to remind me of it - and very few memories .

So spotting this among the house clearance stuff at last Saturdays car-boot sale was a Huge surprise. 

It's a  scrapbook by Sally-Ann Rogers, a Bury St Edmunds Silver Jubilee pupil (a girls Secondary Modern school that amalgameted with the boys school in 1971 and no longer exists) who went on an educational cruise on the SS Nevasa in 1966.

She had kept a lot of the brochures they must have been given - I don't think we had any of these.

I kept my log book - like Sally's below for many years but don't have it now.

Her cruise was two weeks and they went to different places to our cruise (except for Gibralter). She even received letters from her mother and a friend sent to the ship and they did lessons everyday too. I don't think we did and certainly no one sent letters to the ship. From what I can see there were also other adult independent passengers on the cruise apart from the various school groups and their teachers, that's something I don't think happened on our cruise.

I'd not thought about my 1969 cruise for ages - I have no photos. My dad was into slides for photography and so any photos I took were made into slides and I don't remember seeing them. I do remember my camera going wrong somewhere so maybe I didn't get any photos at all.

I googled SS Nevasa to see what I could find online  and discovered a facebook group HERE just in case you are curious!  By the time of our cruise there were just two ships doing Educational Cruises - The Nevassa and the SS Uganda.

I spent £2 on the scrapbook and it's been interesting looking at all the pages and finding things online about the ships and the cruises.

You just never know what's lurking in boxes at boot sales!

April Car Boot Sale Finds?

Apart from that mistake of the shelf unit, purchases have been virtually non existent. .

A pack of charity Christmas cards for £1 and that's  it!  [except from a few plants].

I bought a red pepper plant for £1 when none of my first sowing germinated. [Now they've eventually appeared I'm going to have plenty!] I wasn't going to bother with aubergines as my preferred way to use them is in a aubergine and tomato pasta sauce and just one aubergine makes quite a few portions but then someone had aubergine plants also for £1, I just bought one. Finally two courgette plants again for £1 each as I hadn't got around to sowing any. I have got enough cucumber and tomatoes through so won't need to buy those. Someone was selling 3 sweetcorn plants for £1 which I thought was a bit expensive but I'm sure there will be some cheaper later..... for some reason I forgot to get seeds....or peat pots to sow them in......

I'm not sure why my gardening mojo has vanished this year - maybe it's due to the years of having everything ruined by next door's cat, pigeons and slugs.

My 'fill a blog post with weird you tube things' yesterday brought several comments and Steve's comment of "how much peanut butter can a person stockpile" immediately brought to mind a vision of someone having cupboards full of jars of PNB and at the time of dire emergency opening the cupboard and being killed by getting hit on the head and buried under 100's of falling jars!! 

I think this could be a plot for Midsomer Murders!

I think I might have been reading too many crime novels!!

Back Tomorrow.......... unless..................!

Boot-Sale 'Treasure'?

 It was a frosty morning on Saturday for the car boot sale but nice and dry and sunny, it was good to be out early.  I didn't walk all the way round this week as my back was telling me I've not done any back exercises lately.

All I spent was £1. The pack of dishcloths and pack of Christmas serviettes were both from the same house clearance man and cost me 50p. The book was 50p and is another to add to my collection of country poetry.

I'm still using my own knitted dish cloths, but they don't last forever and I'm out of craft cotton to make more, so 4 cloths for 25p is handy.

 I noticed diesel at the Co-op garage as I passed on my way back from the boot sale at £1.57 a litre and on Sunday when I went over to the coast another petrol station had it at £1.66. It was around £1.37 - £1.43 ish a couple of weeks ago so has gone up but not by the amount that heating oil has shot up. Government are going to help with heating oil costs for the most vulnerable - that's doesn't include me, I'll just be hoping for prices to drop before I need to fill up again in September. 

Back Tomorrow

And So It Starts

 First car boot sale of 2026 - nearly as big as a summer day - but a lot chillier. Plenty of sellers and buyers.

This is one of the house clearance people, impossible to rummage through the boxes for very long without getting a bad back! A huge stack of dressmaking patterns there on the left, perhaps someone will snap them up for reselling on line. 

I didn't spend much. £3 on two bunches of flowers and 50p for the washing soda (which I use along with a Smol capsule in the washing machine) and 50p for the full roll of baking paper. 

There is no sign at all of the crocus and tulips bulbs that I replanted last year in the big pot out the front of the bungalow, so I also spent £3 on a pack of 6 Primula plants to cheer things up.

I popped them out in the top of the pot when I got home............... after I'd had my breakfast.

The One-Off Christmas Car-Boot Sale

 It was very busy at the one-off Christmas car-boot sale on Saturday. Very chilly but that hadn't put people off. The rows of people selling was almost as big as the summer and the car park filling up - you can see cars filling the field below

I'd been looking forward to it and there are usually lots of Christmas bits for sale that the house clearance people have saved up.

But this year it seemed to be the same old junk, rubbish and tat that had been for sale all summer. There wasn't even anyone with charity Christmas cards.

 

The only thing I bought was this............

A brand new hot water bottle in a soft warm cover for just £2. This will be a Christmas present for next year as the three I've got already should see me out!

Then  home for breakfast.

 On Sunday I found I hadn't tried all the different flavour coffees in the coffee advent after all because the 14th was Amaretto and yesterday - the 15th- was called Holiday Blend  - there was no discernible flavour so that's a mystery!

Yesterday was a very grey day, half dark all day. The window cleaner came round again and I renewed my car insurance - that was the 5th big bill after the boiler repair, the car repair to the suspension, the dentist and the hygienist. The 6th -  the annual boiler service - has been put off until January as they are really busy.

I finished all the Christmas wrapping after BiL's present arrived - The amazon delivery people never ring the doorbell or knock on the door nowadays, they just leave things on the doorstep. Luckily I remembered to look! It's no wonder things go missing. When I put all the wrapping stuff away I had a sort out of the Christmas drawer and found some things - badges, labels etc. that had been in the drawer for ages, so they've gone into the charity shop bag. I also came across a Christmas Past Memorabilia Pack that I'd forgotten about  - I've no idea where and when I got it but the things in it hadn't even been unfolded. There was a facsimile of Christmas Day TV guide from 1973. We reminisce about TV back in the day but I'm glad I no longer have to watch two circuses - always hated them - specially the clowns and there were also the programmes with some famous person visiting a hospital and handing out gifts and (shudder) Danny La Rue in a pantomime!

The other things in the pack are copies of  older ephemera.

Now I've unpacked, unfolded and looked through all the bits, they might go off to the charity shop too.

And More!

 Yep, another piece of Portmeirion Holly and Ivy china.

A tea-light holder. Car boot find - of course. £2. I was walking by just as the lady selling was unwrapping it and swooped in quickly. It's less than three inches tall so not taking up a lot of room in the cupboard and I can use it on the bookshelf for December, with my other winter bits . That's my excuse for the purchase of my tenth item.

I had three years between 2020 and 2023 when I didn't find any - there are many pieces on ebay but much more expensive than I would pay. Mine are just from charity shops or boot sales - mostly the latter. So finding two bits in the last couple of months is odd.

Back Soon

Out and About Last Weekend

 It's the start of the Autumn Fayre season. Fundraisers for villages all around. From November they will be called Christmas Fayres, but basically the same thing! 

At the first one I went to in the United Reform Church in Debenham I found a crime fiction new-to-me author, I've read it already as I was out of library books. It was slightly cosy-crime but readable. Also bought a home made lemon cake to take home which has lasted me all week.

At the second Autumn sale in Thornham Magna village hall, I just bought a jar of lemon and lime marmalade from a local small business but it will be the last one I buy from them as they're now using 8oz jars whereas they used to sell in 12oz jars, but charging the same price for the smaller. As well as selling at all the craft/autumn/Christmas sales, they've just opened a shop in a unit at the hardware/gift place - maybe they had to put prices up to cover that.

Lots of people selling Christmas bits at last Sunday's boot sale. I have enough really now I only do a Christmas tree and the seasonal bits on the bookshelf but I liked this Christmas Goose and bought it for £1. The man had a whole box full of these and similar new tree decorations, originally from The Range and originally priced at £1.99 or £2.99. Maybe he bought them in the January sales last year? 

Also splashed out 20p on another crime fiction which I wasn't sure if I'd read or not as there are a whole series of these short story collections. Luckily it's one I've not  read  so that's added to my shelves for reading 'emergencies!'

I do like to get out and about at the weekends while I can.

Back Soon

More of the Old Suffolk Photos

 More of the old Suffolk photos I found at the small Sunday boot sale. More information on yesterday's post.

The next two I knew. The first is at the top of Bent Hill in Felixstowe, one of the few places in Suffolk with a town by the sea and this bit is high above the sea which is why there is nothing in the distance.

And below is Woodbridge. The loading/weighing structure thing is still there and the building is a pub called 'The Old Bell and Steelyard". One of the oldest pubs in the UK. It's a Grade 1 Listed building

The one below could be almost anywhere in Suffolk, although the building left of centre could be a chapel which I thought might be still there. It was recognised by someone on the East Suffolk in Old Photos Facebook page as being Chapel Lane, Gt Glemham. So both church and chapel in Gt Glemham have featured and I've not seen either.

Another below that I didn't know, luckily again someone knew it as Hollesley church. Not far from the coast and another church I've not visited yet.

Below is Wickham Market, the road through the village that I now use when going back and forward to the Auction yard at Campsea Ash and one of the ways we used to go from Suffolk Coast to Mid Suffolk when we lived at the small holding. The road layout is still the same

Another photo of Wickham Market, just a bit further on from the one above. I got the magnifier out to read the name on the delivery bike! The houses on the right of the road are still the same, as are those on the left but the garage on the left of the road in the centre of the photo has long gone.

Another mystery photo but recognised by several people as Martlesham, another village now bypassed just north of Ipswich.

Again I didn't know this one but others said it was Alderton, a village I have visited for the church but don't know well at all.

This one below was labelled as Ufford, another church I have visited, tucked away in the village .

All the photos except the one in Essex and the two of Felixstowe, are near the A12, the main road from Ipswich to Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth. 

I had fun looking at them all and finding out where they were, lots of people looked at them on the East Suffolk in Old Photos Facebook page and said it was a good find and they were glad I'd shared them all.

Back Soon