Dreams of Treasure

Do you have dreams about finding vintage treasures? Real dreams, at night when you're asleep, and your subconscious takes you to the perfect shop where they have shelves stacked full of beautiful old things for 10p a time? It's usually toys and clothes for me. In these dreams, I usually end up with armfuls of beautiful vintage fabric, cool toys and kitsch ornaments. Well this weekend... No, it didn't quite come true, not that dream, but another lovely vintage-hunting dream came true. I got to go round a jumble sale before it opened to the public.

You see, earlier in the week, London Friend had come to visit us, and we'd taken her over to her parents. I think I've mentioned her mum's wonderful homemade cakes and jam, and her dad's home-grown vegetables, in a previous post. There was chocolate cake time this time. Oh yes. Anyway, they are involved with every activity you can imagine at the village church, and it just so happened that this week there was a jumble sale at the church hall. " Come to the side door, and we can let you in early." Let me in early? To a jumble sale at a village hall? Aren't those about the sweetest words you've ever heard?

And so, twenty minutes before the jumble began, I was able to saunter around and take my pick. My chief worry beforehand was that there might be a lot of stuff I wanted, and I'd clean them out before they started. Of course that didn't happen. There was just enough to keep me happy, without making me feel too greedy. I paid more than they asked, and I still felt I got bargains. So it was a very happy and excited treasure hunter who took her swag home.

Best of all was a tatty and cracked Ferrero Rocher box with lots of buttons in it. It didn't seem too promising, but it looked like there were a couple of interesting things in there. All the way home I was looking forward to going through that box of buttons. And I wasn't disappointed. As I sorted them, I discovered beautiful buttons in mother-of-pearl, glass, art deco plastic, flower shapes, and so on.

Looking at them again, later on, I started to wonder at the seemingly endless variety of designs for such a simple object. There's something very beautiful about each little variation. I love the process of sorting - examining, comparing, grouping. It's quite a meditative process. A moment of zen in a button box?