Car boot sale booty

So, we did it. We woke at 6.00am on a Sunday morning and dragged ourselves and a few suitcases full of loot up to our local car boot sale - this is the only time I wish we could drive/had a car. We didn't do badly, coming away with around £25 profit and a nice batch of sunburn from our £6 pitch.

Annoyingly, we didn't manage to shift many books or magazines, the heaviest items to haul back to the flat, and the heat paired with the indecisiveness of our potential customers brought out the Bernard Black in Irish - at one point I thought he was going to tell the young boy thumbing through his copies of SFX and Empire to "get a job" or perhaps inform him that our stall wasn't a library, mate...

Fortunately the reminder that his own mother used to leave him to amuse himself in bookshops, in which he never bought a thing, prevented confrontation with disgruntled parents, though there were a few angry old man/bulldog growls from him when punters disturbed our DVD display.

Of course, as our early morning motivation had granted us entry to the magical world of car booty, I had to make the most of it, meaning I had to spend my profit on trinkets and old things. But really cool trinkets and old things...


My most exciting find was a working Roberts RM20 radio, apparently produced between 1976-1983. I've been looking for a classic one for an age since I resigned myself to the fact that I couldn't justify treating myself to a new retro-look Roberts. However, I imagined I'd have to spend a bit more than £6 when I found one.

The radio is the perfect addition to the bar - the iPod speakers weren't really of the right era - and helped provide a suitable soundtrack to my afternoon of gardening. You can't beat 'greatest hits of all time' on Gold and the comforting tones of BBC4 on a Sunday afternoon *TURNING INTO MY PARENTS*.


I've also been on the hunt for eclectic charm bracelets on eBay and Etsy of late, but as I'm only in the market for costume jewellery, wasn't prepared to cough up many pennies. So I was very pleased to find a woman selling off her collection for £1 a pop. We now have teddy bears, hearts, Disney characters and a host of more traditional good luck charms, oh, and a rather special amethyst gold cuff - £1 from another stall.


My other two finds were a WW2 propaganda poster - now taking pride of place in our bathroom - for 50p and five cute checked and polka dot cake plates at 20p each.




I feel that I was quite restrained - I could have bought twice as much - and I'm very happy with my haul. That's me car-boot-saled-out for another few months though...cue sigh of relief from Irish...