Expensive beads

On Thursday I played hookey from work and went down to London to see Julie aka Floribunda. We went to Borough market which sells food but I was delighted when three steps into it Julie shrieked, "Textiles!" and pounced. OK. It was teatowels and aprons but if you look carefully Textiles are everywhere like this piece hanging over a fish stall.

From there to Tate Modern which frankly is full of trash but I did like this painting by Chris Ofili which as Julie pointed out has an Irish Chain background. Then to lunch at Gabriel's Wharf and on to Liberty home to overpriced handbags and scarfs (our sample choices £650 and £216 respectively) but also to Liberty Lawn fabric.Not actually my taste but Julie went home with some. I was happily surprised not to be charged over the odds for the one skein of stranded cotton I parted with money for.

Then through the Carnaby Street area where we came to the shop which inspired the title of this post. A sale was on. These beads had to be bought. Bags raged from £0.55 to £0.80 and the fish were 10p each. Score.

Dinner was at Tas with Julie(centre) and Kate North (right) and her mother Kathy who took the photos. Sadly as I had a three and a half hour journey from Tas I had to scuttle away before desert. A nice day though.

Although, the next day I could not find my glasses. I had them on on the train because I was stitching and I was sure I hadn't left them there. I rang lost luggage to make sure. No glasses. We hunted all over the house and the car. Three times. Nothing. And since I had broken my spare pair, fast action was required. So, to the optician, where I bought a complete pair, got a free frame if I bought a second set of lenses and the optician kindly said they would mend my old ones for free. Then I came home and decided to tidy up. Including putting the beads away and... yup, you guessed ....there in the paper bag of beads - one pair of reading spectacles. I must have put them in there when I was showing the beads to Dennis. Why?No idea! But those sale beads... ended up costing me £189! Ah well.