On Tuesday, we set off from Aidan’s dad’s house in Barnsley to make the not inconsiderable trip up to Bygone Times near Chorley.  The reason for the visit was this:

How amazing is that? And that’s not all of it…

Not only was the stall itself absolutely amazing, but Stuart was lovely and imparted some invaluable knowledge onto us: how to actually pronounce the names properly, for example! I just wish I’d taken a notebook with me or something.

We could quite happily have spent hours and hours there, (I think we did spend two in total…), but the rest of the centre was also calling to us.  Here are two pictures of the new pots in situ:

We already had the one on the left, bought from a car boot sale a couple of years ago. The new one is the one on the right, complementing it perfectly! This one is Aidan’s favourite of the two: he even likes it more than the giant original we had, because of the brighter colours.

This photo is already up on the entry before this one, but I prefer this pic of the pot to others I’ve taken. This one is my favourite of the two. I think it’s a bit more understated, and I love the combination of colours.

Thank you very much Stuart for the pots, knowledge and your time! It was lovely and fascinating to speak to you, and I’m sure we’ll be there again soon…

The rest of the – warehouse? antique experience? not sure what to refer to Bygone Times as really – place  was equally an interesting wander round. When I say wander, I mean a genuine meandering, “what’s this? what’s that?” look about. We were there for five hours in total. Five hours! Many items took our eye. Although there were a few more German pots to be found, none were as good as Stuart’s stall:

We did um and ah over the purple Roth one at the front for a while, but decided that neither of us particularly liked the pinky purple colour. I will admit that we rearranged the items in this glass cabinet to make a more interesting photograph…

Here’s the sum total of our finds from the day:

Some of these are to keep, some are to sell on Ebay and the car boot sales next year.  The little green deer on the left and the tiny glass Italian donkey at the front are mine to keep! The deer is looking at me as I type, actually… Also, note the Tretchikoff style head – I said not so long ago that I’d love to find another one! After a few minutes of thinking, I decided I’d rather Aidan Ebayed it and put the money towards something we’d want more. Most of these bits and bobs cost £1 or £1.50 – hopefully there’s some profit to be made.

So, a fantastic day out and some pretty fabulous finds to be coming home with. All in all, another brilliant Christmas holiday… day!