Treasure hunt part 1: books

One of my favourite things about England is that every town no matter how small will have a few charity shops. I was talking to my childhood friend Blair about this when we visited him and his wife in Norfolk. They live in Wymondham (leave most of the letters out when pronouncing it), a very sweet little town near Norwhich. It comes complete with abbey ruins (pics coming soon), pubs galore and, you guessed it, charity shops! Blair thinks there are almost too many now in England and after two weeks of popping into every single one I came across I kind of see what he means. You see a lot of the same, but I always check out the homewares for nice vintage mugs and plates, and the books, oh the books!! Isn't it great to think that you can visit a town and indulge in a series of mini flea markets, often finding a bargain or two that double as a souvenirs? All while giving money to charity! 

So this is my loot. Does it look interesting? It's going to take several posts to detail it all, but I'll start with the biggest bargains: the books! I came back with 19 or 20 books, most of them bought for £1-2,50 each. How much does an English book cost in France? A LOT. One of the books even came from a church in Lavenham. You walk into the church and there are rows and rows of bookcases and you leave as much money as you want and take a book. A little surprising at first, but when you think about it, it does make sense. I didn't enjoy having to pay to go inside cathedrals, but buying a book to pay for the upkeep of a historic building is more than ok by me. Some of these books were totaly free: I swapped them at our hotel in Brighton (Snooze, more on that later). I'm not embarassed to admit that I indulged in the purest chick lit rubbish on this occasion. I won't pay for those kind of books but now and again I'm quite happy to read one so as they were free (swapped for books I had sorted and brought over from home, I had all this planned you see) I thought: what the heck, go for it, Shopaholic only lives once!

I'm particularly looking forward to reading When God Was a Rabbit, which I bought for the title (and not from a church!). I was really pleased to complete my Sue Townsend collection too. After reading the Adrian Mole series I'm on to the royal family series and it is hilarious! If you haven't read them, what are you waiting for? But why pay silly Amazon prices when you can get them all for a fiver from Oxfam?

It just occurred to me you might want an explanation about the flags. Well, boyfriend seems to have a thing for them, and because he really loved the UK, he insisted on buying the English one on our last day at Bexhill-on-sea. The union jack we've had for ages and just whipped out as an extra fun photo prop, in fact I'm pretty sure Boyfriend nicked it from a school where he worked as a security guard about 10 years ago. A bit strange now I think about it. He's threatening to hang them up in his office. I'm threatening to get my backstreet boys posters back out if he does.

What shall we talk about next? My fixation for brass or my new vintage royal porcelain? You decide!