210216 Friperie

 Feb. 16

I found this most charming "gypsy" ceramic at the St. Cajetan Church Flea Market in Mansonville, which is open Saturdays during the summer, (covid protocols in place summer of 2020). It is 19th century Staffordshire, (my main collection), obscure, and not a beautiful piece perhaps; still, Staffordshire and of great interest to me, priced at $1.00. 

Friperie, n., French: thrift shop, second-hand shop.

Thrift shops, flea markets, church sales, garage sales are my passion. It is so satisfying to find a treasure - a sweater, pair of shoes, a vintage mug, that cost a few dollars and are now one-of-a-kind finds rather than one of 20, or 200, pick your size and colour, in a big city mall. At the price, you can enjoy your purchase for a few months or a few years and let it go on to a new home without thinking of all the money you might otherwise have paid that would make it hard to part with. It also benefits the environment since you are re-using instead of buying new, and saving something from a landfill at the same time. Shopping at such places is a learn, however, and intimidating or even discouraging when you are starting out. But with practice you develop an eye for things, can spot a particular clothing manufacturer on a rack of randomly hung dresses, a Staffordshire dog across a junk-crowded church hall. (Only junk to the person who doesn't want it.) The poor man's (person's) antique store! Sometimes chipped is just pre-loved. 

Friperie Karma is a charity shop in Knowlton about 25 km north of here. The owner, Tammy, and her daughter run the place: they take donations of used items and sell them to raise money for local schools and needy institutions. They are lovely generous women who put their hearts into the work. Since the lockdown in December they post on-line for shoppers, with curbside pick-up five days a week. (Except when there is a snowstorm, like today!) I met them in September when I was here, and Tammy saves me broken items for mosaics. I reserved a batch of delightfuls last week and picked them up on Friday. Tammy had a box of brokens for me too.

These are the brokens: 

I have put together a mosaic project at last, having brought out everything for a good look. The mixing bowl (at the back) makes a perfect base for the collection of bits below. I am always surprised to find how pieces match themselves up: the beautiful red vase in the foreground picked up colours and textures from these other bits which had assembled themselves into a thing, the bowl and vase both came today and suddenly here is my next mosaic. Bought mastic for sticking things on the base, but I have one concern. I don't have a diamond cutter for a dremel, although Tal will lend me the dremel. A diamond cutter will cut ceramic and I use one at home for getting the right shape or part from a piece. I could wait until I can track down or have a cutter delivered, or I can go organic with a hammer and chisel. I lose some advantage of control but I often get exciting serendipitous pieces. One develops a feel for the different ceramics, how they break, what angle and pressure will encourage a good break. The haphazard way this art form works is a good part of its fascination - shapes match to shapes, a signature piece becomes echoed in the unintentional placing of a second, colours and textures compliment each other, often without conscious forethought. Delightful.

Some purchases as well, practical kitchen items and a rather nice duck. Miniatures are lovely for mosaicking (and individual servings of very expensive, very runny maple syrup!)

For Fig, two pairs of baby mittens with strings for boots for Fig: ploves, or pawttins to keep his feet warm when the temperature goes below - 10. The strings wrap around and tuck in for a not-too-tight hold to keep them on.

By coincidence I found these real dog boots, with leather soles and velcro fastenings, at another friperie on Saturday - $2. I haven't tried them yet since the red and purple ones are quite good and easy to put on. (Very little growling.) Does he know what they are for, I wonder? That friperie, Reilly House, in Mansonville, opened for the first time in weeks on Saturday and I was able to enjoy a lovely search of their nooks and corners for things needed, and a few not needed!

Reilly House is a volunteer organization that offers second-hand everything at bargain prices, plus a pricier room of treasures. They have books, blankets, clothes, skis and boots, telephones (almost  anachronistic!), cups and spoons. They have a cafe and do take-away meals, the former closed for covid, the latter perhaps started for covid. They are also kind, thoughtful, polite. All their income goes to charity. They are doing on-line sales for pick-up as well, but on Saturday they had an open day: customers were able to visit, masked and one per room. It is a real house, so there are several rooms to visit including the open basement area where you can rummage about to your heart's content. (Didn't find a dremel or a diamond cutter... maybe next time.) 

More finds:  

Oversized coat (size 22) long sleeves for warm hands, fake fur, but soft and warm, full-length too, deep secure pockets - big plus. I have a head, but wasn't smiling, looked fierce!

Two large wine glasses - my small ones (on right) weren't cutting it.

A mattress from a lounge chair, I think, only three inches thick but it works! And an old-fashioned sleeping bag, with working zipper, dry-cleaner's tag still on inside label, best of all that wonderful plaid flannel lining. Saturday night slept on both in front of the fire. Yesterday, I found they made a great mattress on one of the beds in the spare room opposite K's room. Slept very well on them last night. The pink blanket is one of a matching pair that I found at Reilly House in December. Very cozy old heavy flannel. 

  

Boots for me, perfect fit, mukluk style but all man-made materials, warm and light to walk in. Also perfect for snowshoes.

A a small, somewhat weathered wooden duck. Am I now into eclectic ducks?

And, snowshoes! K has been out a couple of times already. I have had to wait due to a bad arthritis flare-up on Sunday, in my wrist. (Well, a doctor said it was arthritis, when I had it once before, but another doctor, when I had the same affliction in my elbow said "tendonitis, "tennis elbow". Since I have had the same thing in my knee as well, I am not sure about tendonitis since it gets better in 48 hours. The doctor who named it arthritis was working from an X-ray of my wrist. My treatment? Heat and ice, arnica cream alternated with tiger balm, a home-made wrist bandage made from socks, and Advil, last resort when the pain was bad.)

And this impressed me: I had requested the duck last Tuesday for pick-up, and in a separate message asked if they had any snowshoes, only my third or fourth message to them ever. I heard back about the duck but not the other. When I arrived on Saturday I said I was picking up the duck. One of the volunteers asked if I was still looking for snowshoes - she remembered me and brought this pair out! Of course I was able to find a good sized pair of poles in the basement, $5. The shoes were more, being in perfect nick, and certainly worth the price.

It is late afternoon already and getting dark with the snow closing in. Yes, it is snowing again. Four words that I seem to write almost every day, although this is part of a storm, not just the daily fall. We have had about 15 cm, and then light freezing rain or fine snow off and on all day. The valley came and went. The nice part is that it's been warm today, 2 degrees above. 

Something else surprised me. Fig came out with me this afternoon and went trotting off down the driveway to the barn. Before long Blackie turned up and proceeded to leap about little Fig like a horse playing with a goat. Fig kept trotting on down to the lower parking area: the snow is deeper than he is high and he can only walk where the plow has been. (Haha, we can only walk where it's been plowed too! That's why we need snowshoes!) He seemed to be exploring! I believe he knew where I was and he must know the difference between going down the hill and up, and that the house is up. He just has to follow the road. But here he was, being his old looking-around self - I have seldom seen him like this since his fall. I think it may be the weather! It is finally warm enough today for him to enjoy a nice walk down the road and smell all the smells. A dog's sense of smell being what it is, I imagine it to be a whole extra "visual" of the world, as if a visible grid were superimposed on everything you and I looked at showing the scents that were on and around everything. So Fig has this whole other frame of reference with which to navigate his world. What I have been interpreting as inability or disinterest, may just have been that it's been too f-freezing out there! I feel quite happy to think this is so. It has been sad seeing him getting thin, even though he eats lots, wanting lunch as well as breakfast and dinner; and I worry that he sleeps so much. Is it just the winter cold? I remember that in the heat of summer I used to worry that Betty (first Bouvier cross) was getting old, and then the first cool autumn days would come and she'd be her puppy-energy self again. Every summer I forgot again until September. Unlike Fig who was never good in the cold, Betty loved winter and snow. Her size and double coat kept her warm. 

Mumma's tea today is one bag green tea, one bag Tetley's "Immune" blend, plus three slices ginger, 1/4 tsp turmeric, although root, sliced, is better, half a red thai chili (what it says on the box...) sliced.

 Be well. Make some time for yourself if you can, or at least pile on the couch with whoever is around and everyone can just breathe and be warm for a few minutes. 

Mumma Yaga

Friperie Karma and Reilly House Mansonville are both on Facebook.