Mamalade

It is 33 years since our World Vision Club started holding  jumble sales  twice every month.  Over the past years must have sold mountains of second hand clothes, books, bric-a-brac and plants.

A couple of months ago, we were notified that the hall where we hold our sales will be closed for at least a year for rennovations and we had to have everything out by the end of June.

We’ve been making the most of it during the past month, holding jumble sales every week. Last week we had a final 2 day “Fill a Bag for $4 ” sale. Our ad in the local paper and posters around the local district worked. The hall was packed with eager bargain hunters.

jumblesale

This is a photo from the previous week. We were too busy and crowded to take one last week.

We have always suspected that a one legged thief has been taking one shoe. We were never sure, because there was always the possibilty that the missing shoe might turn up amongst all the stuff – but now I’m sure someone takes them. Last Friday I paired up all the shoes and put them on the table out the front. By mid-morning, one brown shoe and one sandal was missing. There were customers wanting both pairs, if  only we could find the missing shoe. We hunted high  & low, but they didn’t turn up, not even when everything was cleared away and our store room emptied out at the end. And its always the left shoe that is missing! The woman who wanted the sandals insisted on taking the odd one with her in case we ever found its mate.

“Who would take one shoe?” asked the  women who wanted the brown pair.

“Well, the lady with the sandal did!” I replied.

When we finished on Friday, a man from St Vinnies came in a van and took away what was left.

Everyone asked “Where will you go now?”  There’s really nowhere we can hold jumble  sales in our area.  There a a few local halls we could hire, but they are not near where people do their shopping, so it  wouldn’t be worthwhile.

“We’ll go on the street,” I tell them. We have salvaged a lot of the books, and some of the better bric-a-brac and clothes. We can sell them on street stalls. But it was no use keeping all the other stuff. It would be too messy on a street stall and there is no where to store it.

We’ll keep going as long as we can.