Garage Gems

You never know what you might pick up at a garage sale.

This morning, Beth and I walked down the street to check out our first GS. CA had left home much earlier for the monthly Working Bee in church. As we crawled along under the hot sun towards the house (which stood out because of the balloons waving outside), 3 cars zoomed past in succession, all headed for the same place. A couple of burly men emerged, one puffing away on his cigarette (I started thinking secondhand smoke => SIDS and wondered how I could avoid him without being too obvious). The men started checking out the tools laid out on the driveway. Beth made a beeline for the children's books, while I took note of the heavy chocolate velvet curtains (they sure looked posh), floral bedspread, tea set, various toiletry items....

And an almost new ironing board. Just the thing we need! CA had been about to go to BigW to get one, and I reckoned this would do nicely.

"It's $5," said the lady, looking at our party, "and I can have it sent round to your place if you pay now."

I hadn't brought my wallet (because I had only meant to browse), so we had to troop home. That meant an hour's delay, because J started fussing and had to be changed and fed. Took photos of Beth cuddling J. Then Beth decided to do some drawing...

When we got back to the GS, the ironing board was waiting for us. One of the ladies offered to help us carry it back to our house when I said we lived just down the street. Her name's Margaret and we had a lovely chat about GS and opp shops, where she lives (Wyndham Green), the trouble with estates that have natural lakes (snakes!), why you should keep your porch light on if you live in such an estate (snakes!) etc. Invited her in for a drink but she said no thank you, she'd just had a lemonade.

"What a kind lady," commented Beth as we entered the house.

I second that.