Monday 19 July 2010

for a handful of pretties


This weekend I've visited my hometown Nyköping and enjoyed myself a lot doing all sorts of summery things. Not having a driver's license or a car makes it a bit hard going outside of town, but me and my mum were fortunate enough to have one of her friends doing that for us. The first night we stayed in the city though, and took a short walk down to the harbour for some very delicious dinner at Rökeriet, The smokery. I took enough pictures to fool everyone I was a tourist, so those might get posted later. After dinner I was excited to find the curiousity shop was still open, I've made some nice finds there over the years. This time I only found two small books though, for 5 kronor each, and I mainly wanted them cos the covers are so great. With a little help of google translate the title "Yrhättan som förlovad" would in English be "Hoyden as engaged" (correct google if it's wrong, don't blame me!). With some more help from Wikipedia, I've just found out that Emmy von Rohden should actually be Emmy von Rhoden, who's real name in turn was Emmy Friedrich (1829-1885), although to make things even more complicated: this sequel was written by Emmy Friedrich's daughter. This Swedish translation in it's third edition was published in 1933, as you can almost guess by the lovely cover. Will report more after I've read it, I'm sure it'll have some good tips for a modern married woman such as myself.



This is an edition of "The sorrows of young Werther" by Goethe from 1968 that I simply could not resist. I just love that he looks like a Hollywood moviestar. Interestingly enough, the books is both in Swedish and German, and I have no idea why because there's no explanation anywhere. It's not one sentence in German, then the translation in Swedish after, it seems more random and it's not about translating at all. A mystery indeed. And maybe a good way for me to brush up on my mostly forgotten German knowledge reading a classic that I really liked when I read it in my late teens.



Yesterday we were driving around in the countryside, stopping at most places along the road, and I thought it was fitting to buy some old fashioned candy in an old fashioned country shop, Åstugan. My two favorite summer flavours as well, wild strawberries and raspberries. Åstugan is a very idyllic and romantic little café by a small stream, and I haven't been there for some years now but it looked the same. Except that the little shop used to carry more antique stuff as well, now it's mainly new things, although most of it is looking vintage and old fashioned. I do prefer my candy new rather than antique however.



In another little shop I just had to buy this supercute bat soap box, no matter how unnecessary it might be. And expensive ... 40 kronor is a bit much for a small piece of soap actually, but I decided the bat was worth it. Or Vespertilio auritus in latin.



What blew me away the most during this little road trip was a huge fleamarket we found. I'm seriously considering going back with a small truck in order to be able to buy all the great stuff I found but couldn't buy this time for obvious reasons. That is carrying a 40's arm chair on the train isn't exactly ideal ... And that was just one of the many pieces of furniture I found for maybe a third of the price it would probably have in Stockholm. I'll admit I'm no antiques shopper of course, so maybe the furniture you can buy in the antique shops in Stockholm are better somehow, but to my eye it looks very much the same at least. Carrying a few brooches and a necklace is no problem on the other hand, so I took what I could carry in one hand. This filigree flower I think is the one I'm most happy finding. It's gorgeous! Have no idea when it's from, not even gonna guess, and don't really care either.



This simple black three stone piece I'd take a wild guess is from the 40's, and maybe the stones are onyx? Either way I love the classic look it's got and know it's gonna look good with a lot of things in my wardrobe, and together with my onyx necklace, a 40's replica.



This little cutie is a clip earring that was all alone, so I got it for free. Thank you very much! I'm pretty sure I can make use of it as it is, or simply put a pin on it, or sew it onto something like a fancy button.



A beautiful red necklace was the last thing I decided I couldn't leave behind, it's nice and heavy and glitters perfectly in the light. I'm gonna guess 40's with this one too, why not? It's just a tiny bit too long to be perfectly perfect though, so I'll see if I can do something about it. Otherwise I could of course just wear it with lowcut clothes.



For this handful of pretties I paid, after a bit of a hesitant reply from one of the ladies at the flea market, which made me slightly nervous: 50 kronor. Afterwards I suspect she was actually hesitant about pricing it too high, expecting me to haggle, but that's not really my style, and obviously 50 kronor for this lot is a steal, so I quickly paid and tried not to jump around with happiness cos of my great bargain! Like I said, it was a very good weekend.

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