Signs and Signifiers

The signs are in the Prince Rupert, old, metallic and hopefully to the owners who probably scan every episode of Antiques Roadshow and Flog It, valuable.

The signifiers are the signs. They signify a more innocent age, where it was cool and ok to hunt foxes, where cigarettes did you no harm, and having a drink actually made you drive a car better.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 17.01.18

A Flower for my 45th

So yes I'm another year older, certainly no wiser about anything, but a lot lazier. I've done nothing today other than have a couple of gentle walks around town seeing if there was anything I wanted to buy myself.

There wasn't so much as a sausage. Actually, if I'd seen a nice sausage I might have bought one, but there wasn't even that.

When you want to buy yourself something, you never actually do.

Any good ideas for £20 worth of something for an outdoorsy type to buy himself other than a new waterproof running jacket. I also have love to shop vouchers, Argos has a camping mat, but the sleeping bags have terrible reviews.

Either that or I'll just buy myself a large bottle of rum.

Really, have done nothing today, it hasn't been special, and it won't be until midnight either!

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 09.10.17

More Rupertian Signs

As promised, I've moved into the pub interior to catch their metallic beauty and catchy slogans from a time where liver failure and cancer were concepts either totally unknown, or totally covered up.

Also they illustrate the innate conservatism of the country, the fact that Craven A cigarettes "Never vary" is seen as a positive thing, even though their major inertia is due to them never varying in their ability to clog up lungs.

There's a lot of money on these walls, that's for sure. Some of these signs would go for a fair whack to collectors, appreciative of their vivid colours that you just don't seem to get on modern signage.

Bit like bicycles I suppose. Steel carries colour better than aluminium for some reason.

This morning was freezing but beautiful as I rode into work. A waxing half moon looked down on a ground hugging mist, through which the teasels prortuded like fossilised trees. Lovely.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 20.01.17

Antique Land

Newark is supposedly well known for its antique trade; indeed there are almost as many shops as there are nailbars and hairdressers, perhaps even more. Added in there are now the vintage clothes emporiums, of which there are at least three I can think of, and regular trade fairs out at the showground where a lot of the dealers are as rough as guts and not at all like the nice folk you see on "Bargain Hunt".

Today, while out mooching about this morning before going to by this weeks supply of noodles for work - hello duck hoisin! - I decided to investigate the two buildings that have been converted into antique type outlets.

Well, not quite. Kingsman Interiors is just furniture and not really antiques, but it does have a coffee shop inside what was once the Christ Church on Lombard Street.

I didn't go in, but I did find a nice old ghost sign at the back.

However, I did venture into the Newark Antique Centre next door, located in an old congregational church, which consists of some tiny little shoplets crammed in with another, rather less antiseptic looking cafe - the one in Kingsman put me off with its very obvious neon blue fly killer.

Most of it wasn't of much appeal apart from the Beswick birds, a shop about the size of a phone box crammed with bits of military uniforms and all manner of oddities, and a bookstall with handy tomes telling you to build animal traps. Lovely.

I wanted to have a cup of tea, but didn't, determined as I am to spend less money at which I am failing miserably. But I will do soon, amid the hunting books and police helmets.

Si

All text and images copyright CreamCrackeredNature 05.12.16