shopping

I'm no shopper when it comes to gigantic Westfield type shopping centres. In fact, those places make me feel nauseous and I only go there if I absolutely MUST and if I need a kikki.K fix. My idea of shopping is stumbling across a small eclectic town with a few nik nak shops, ANY op shop (especially those in rural places down really small side streets where you still find fantastic things super cheap), markets or I don't mind a dabble in a bit of online shopping.

If I stumble across a shop that has oilcloth bunting draped across the front I will most definitely go in. I wouldn't care what it sold. I glimpsed this place driving past in the Blue Mountains, got myself a wee bit excited, found myself walking down the winding path to the door.....
....saw a quilt hanging there, excitement has now reached a new level, enter to find three rooms filled with an abundance of buttons, fabrics, ribbons and all my favourite things inside. I was in heaven!
I also really love these kinds of shops. This was another fabulous find in the Blue Mountains. I get really jittery when I enter shops like this as I feel like I'm not going to be able to get to every nook and cranny and panic I'm going to miss something really special. Shops like this make me really miss my mum. She takes Kitty off my hands and lets me take all the time in the world. And I need a lot of that in shops like this.
I quite love shops like this too although I do find them a bit samey after a while. This was in my favourite newly discovered town I visited back home, Stamford. It was just me and my gorgeous girlfriends from university days, milling around, a little bit hungover, taking all the time we needed to browse every little nik nak shop in town. With lots of food breaks ( I refuse to shop with anybody that does not need to do morning coffee, mid morning tea, lunch, early afternoon coffee and a late afternoon tea with some sort of cake involved).
I lived in England for 28 years and never looked up. But back home recently, I had a permanent flip top head on, checking out all the beautiful architecture, like these super ornate shop fronts.I totally took all that for granted before I came to oz. I did lots of 'oohs' and 'aaahs' and drove my girlfriends mad who were confused about their new touristy type friend.
Speaking of which, I'm sure they also found it quite ludicrous that I wanted us all to pose for a picture outside this shop because I loved their faded, whimsical bunting. Quite a sweet oldie worldie shop front it is too! OOOHHH, AAAAHHHH!!!!

(That's me in the pink hat).