Thursday, July 20, 2006

I love those red and white stripy cards...

You know, the ones that pop up in your post (or mail) box telling you there's a parcel TOO BIG TO FIT IN YOUR BOX! Of course I don't have a photo as I swap them ASAP.

In the old days (like last month before the wonderful Kevin at my local Post Office retired) I could go ring the buzzer on the Post Office back door anytime between 5am and 8:30am and I'd be able to swap my card for a box of goodies (if I was lucky) or a rather large edition of one of the magazines I subscribe to (if I was less lucky). Hell, Kevin even occasionally offered to carry my parcel home for me if it was very large (and dollshouse looking). Not that I ever needed to take him up on the offer.

But now, alas, I have to wait for the Post Office itself to open at 8:30 am and collect my bounty over the counter.

Which is a bit of an issue when my bus leaves at 8:39 am. And has meant many mornings when I've had to dump a very interesting looking parcel on my staircase and spend the day at work looking like I have ants in my pants because I want to go home and rip into it. (
Example here)

But I seem to have my timing down to the split second now and this morning the trip to the Post Office, the sighting of The Card, the swapping of said card for parcel, the trip home, ripping it open, getting excited, photographing the contents and getting on the bus all happened pretty seamlessly. (Yeah, OK, the bus was three minutes late...)
Today the stripy card turned into a goodie parcel from the very busy Sew Thrifty. A bit birthday, a bit stuff I was expecting and a lot wonderful!

Let me explain. First pic includes lovely scarves (the middle one is now tied round my handbag handle in the vain hope no one will notice it broke and I had to glue it back together), some funky buttons which are a welcome addition to Use What You Have Month (not that I'm managing to do much using), a handbag card containing earrings (not photographed, alas) and a very very cool Vespa model to add to my scooter toy collection (which I'm not sure I've mentioned round here...) These were all sort of unofficial vintage swap meets birthday.Then there was the Arne Jacobsen Brio dolls house kitchen. I have an eBay "super search" which hasn't been used in a while but when I had the money to check it every day I'd find gems like this collection of Jacobsen Brio furniture not identified as such.

In this instance I knew Sew Thrifty was after some pieces and so was I so I contacted her and suggested we combine resources just in case the bidding went too high. And then I accidentally mentioned the score we'd found to a fellow Lundbyite and the bidding went up $100 in the last 30 seconds care of you-know-who. I'm kicking myself to this day about me and my big mouth. But we won, the items were shipped to ST and the results were delivered this morning. I'm loving the stool with the wire legs and the kitchen study area (which also works really well in the actual study). I also got my first taste of the Irwin Interior Decorator Set threesome that Sew Thrifty, Elisabeth and I took part in. We each had incomplete sets so bought another set between us, had it delivered to Sew Thrifty's and took it in turns to chose what we wanted. Here are some of the accessories I chose. To help you with scale, the bowl in the front right is 3 cm (1 1/4 inches) long.

I'm planning to show you some more of this set over the coming weekend, assuming the light here is good enough to take decent pictures...

1 comment :

Anonymous said...

great gifty goodies!