Raggedy Rag doll, yes please!!

Charity shops,boot fairs flea markets and old musty smelling vintage shops are literally my favourite kinds of places in the world.  I could spend whole days just wandering around them marvelling at all the little random bits and pieces that once belonged to other people.  I go into these places knowing that no matter how broke I am I will have to buy something.  Its like when you get an itch, no matter how much you try to ignore it, it will never go away until you actually scratch it and thats how I feel when I go into a charity shop and come out with nothing.  No matter how much I try telling myself I do not need anymore candle stick holders or broken miniature animal figurines, I know I won't be able to stop thinking about what I could have bought in there until I actually go back in and buy something.

The blame for my obsession with bits of tat and second hand shops etc can all be put on my grandad, he was the one that opened up this whole new and magical world for me.  A world where even a 10 pence piece can buy you anything you've ever dreamed of.  At seven years of age I stood in the midst of my local British Red Cross charity shop holding a ten pence coin that my Grandad had just handed to me.  He told me that with this one shiny coin I could buy any one of the thousands maybe even trillions of toys that were on the shelves and in the boxes lined up before me.    For a moment I just stood there whilst my eyes scanned the shelves until I saw it, the most beautiful raggedy old rag doll I had ever seen and it was sitting right at the top on the highest shelf.  I knew then and there that this dolly was to be mine and all because of my grandad, who had brought me into this magical shop where you could swap a silly shiny coin for something as wonderful as this doll.

Even now I love looking around charity shops, searching for the cheapest thing tht I can buy so that I can take it home to treasue.  It makes me smile thinking about what my Grandad would say about it, how happy he would be knowing that his love for tatty second hand treasures had been passed on to me.