Fine china

In January of 2018, which is the middle of our Summer, we (my clan and I) house-sat for three weeks for some extended family members of a member of our extended family (if makes sense if given some thought!)

The home was on 100acres of land in a part of the world we'd never spent much time in, so, besides being a sort of "working holiday" (lots of animals and gardens to care for), it also gave us a chance to explore the surrounding region in a leisurely, off-the-beaten-track manner (not "Tommy-Touristy" where you generally only spend a few hours or days anywhere but also not in the nonchalant manner of those who reside in the area and, often, never check out any of their local attractions. I stand guilty of the latter, myself.)

We had the time of our lives; it was memorable and blissful and so revitalising.
Even mucking out the animal areas took on an aspect of enjoyment, even fun. We loved that holiday, every single moment :)

I'll post some photos of the holiday in a later post but, for now, I wanted to share a part of the holiday that I particularly (and peculiarly) found wonderful: Op. shops.

I love op. shopping.
A large part of my wardrobe consists of clothing found in second-hand establishments, as well as quite a portion of my yarn stash! I've also got paintings, ornaments, books and various other sundries from these little places of pre-loved goods.
But, during our house-sit holiday last January, my focus was on crockery; plates, to be precise. You see, the owners of the home we babysat had mismatched dinner plates.
I don't know if this came about due to natural attrition or whether they just liked an eclectic look when they sat the table but, once I got over the ingrained "everything should match" attitude, I began to really enjoy setting the table at mealtimes, thinking about who was going to get which plate this time around and which plate I wanted to use myself today/tonight.
By the end of the first week of our stay I was so enamoured of the mismatched crockery look that I decided to adopt this idea for our home; and so began the "Great Crockery Hunt" of 2018!

I browsed every op. shop I could find in every town we visited during our three-week sojourn and, thank you, Lord, I found some absolute treasures.

Let me introduce some of my favourite finds:

I'll never forget the day I bought this plate: It was a Saturday morning in a tiny rural town, so small that their op. shop only operated three days per week (Saturday being one of them, thankfully). The outside temperature was in the high 30s (Celsius, that is) and the temperature in the op. shop, an unlined, windowless shed, must have been pushing mid-40s (110+ Fahrenheit). I stood in line in sweltering, airless heat for about 5 minutes (only two ladies behind the counter and half of the district wanting to buy something that day, or so it seemed!), clutching my plate close to my heart before handing over a whole Aussie dollar for its purchase. I was ecstatic! 

I knew nothing about crockery manufacturers (still don't) but was happy to discover that my plate was made in England by a company called Alfred Meakin (one of my buying criteria was no mass-produced "Made in blah, blah, where everything seems to be made nowadays" plates, unless I really loved the pattern).

Then, a few days later, I came across some lovely saucers in a gift shop (in the same tiny, rural town), also made by Alfred Meakin. I bought the lot for about $5-$6 (can't remember the exact amount). I didn't need saucers but I loved the painting on them.

I also found a dinner plate made in Portugal in an op. shop in a bustling regional city; all white but I liked the idea of it being Portugese and so it made its way into my Great Crockery Hunt (GCH) stash. There were some other lovely finds, both in plates and saucers and, occasionally, bowls and cups (some of which, alas, have now gone on to crockery heaven) but I didn't want to bombard this post with umpteen pictures of plates so they will wait for another entry.

I do want to share this one last treasure, though.

Technically, it does not fit in the GCH category because I did not find this until after we'd returned home but I think it is worth sharing because I was still in "eclectic crockery" mode and when I saw this plate in a local op. shop I immediately clasped it to my heart (like my first one) and made it mine, after parting with the princely sum of $3. 

I love this plate; it is beautiful, possibly my absolute favourite plate (though sometimes I look at the other rose one, above, and hum and haah over that title). But, no, I think it's this one and it was not much of a surprise for me to discover it was another Alfred Meakin. 

Both dinner plates feature roses which, I've recently realised, I am drawn to when featured on crockery.

Rose is my name and china roses are my jam, it seems!