Genuinely did not need it. Genuinely glad it's here. That's the whole story. Well, there's a bit more to it than that.
It was a small hand-painted ornament, the kind of thing that's easy to walk past on a car boot table full of other people's old belongings. No obvious value, no maker's mark, nothing that would catch a collector's eye. It cost £3. I nearly didn't pick it up.
This is exactly the reasoning behind Lucy's £5 Find, the one rule I never break. Every week, one find under £5. Not because cheap is always better on principle, but because it proves the actual point of all of this: interesting things are everywhere, if you're willing to look properly instead of scanning for the obvious stuff.
The ornament sits on a shelf in my kitchen now, next to a candle and a small stack of books. Nobody who visits has ever asked about it, and I've never brought it up unprompted either. It's not there to be talked about. It's there because I liked it enough to spend three pounds on a whim, and a year later I still like it exactly as much.
That's the test, really. Not whether something's a good story, or worth something, or matches anything else you own. Just whether you'd still want it on your shelf a year later. Most cheap car boot sale bargains fail that test eventually. This one didn't.
← Back to the journal