Tip treasures

The last couple of days have been spent having a major clean up in my large garden, neglected for a while as I stitched and nursed my previously frozen shoulder, in case it froze up again. It seemed fine, so I could avoid my overgrowing jungle no more. I pruned trees, removed two large shrubs that were in the wrong place, pulled out mountains of spent annuals, and generated piles of weeds - all far too much for my compost heap, so a run to the local tip was required.


Now I'm not good at backing a trailer, and not knowing the current state of our local tip, I enlisted a friend to come with me in case I needed help, because we all know one of the essential skills for a good bloke is the ability to back a trailer in restricted spaces without damaging anything. There was a problem initially in that we found one tyre on the trailer was flat, so I had an impromptu lesson in wheel changing before we set out to successfully dump an enormous load without having to back the trailer at all. Feeling very pleased with ourselves, we decided to check out the "tip shop" before returning home. Now that is really an euphemism for tired junk that no one wants, but might be useful to someone else - a bit like a really bad garage sale.

I found two items - a dirty and dusty bottle with its stopper, and a small bedside table. The bottle cost 20 cents, and the table $4 - bargains both. The bedside table needs to be cleaned, and perhaps given a lick of fresh paint, but then shabby chic is OK too. When I got the bottle home and cleaned it, it was in perfect condition, no chips or marks. It is very heavy glass, with a ground glass stopper, and I think is probably Swedish. My good friend H has an identical one which she thinks was made by Orrefors. This is it now filled with a very delicious muscat.