A one-of-a-kind bargain

I love thrift stores. In the UK we call them charity shops. I have inherited this love from my mum. When I was growing up, most Saturdays I'd accompany my mum to the local jumble sale. Jumble sales are pretty rare nowadays, having been superceded by charity shops and eBay. But when I was a kid, jumble sales were everywhere. Looking back, there's a tendency to romanticise about such things, but I remember the jumble sales I went to as being great things. They were often held in old church halls, run by volunteers, the items having been donated by members of the local community in order to raise funds for the church so they could send a bunch of kids on some or other trip.

Jumble sales always had that sense of wonderment about them. You never knew what you might unearth at a jumble sale. When you shopped in the high street you always had a pretty good idea as to what each shop held, but not a jumble sale. Admittedly, a lot of the stuff I saw at jumble sales I didn't want - and couldn't imagine anyone else wanting either. But every so often, I'd come away with a treasure. For example, the tin of gorgeous smelling tanning butter I bought when I was in my early teens (this was when subathing was still fashionable).

I've never been a great believer in a bargain, and so shopping in charity shops and thrift stores has never been so much about saving money ('getting a bargain') as it has about other things. Similarly, the word recycle wasn't heard that often back in the 1970s. And while I do recycle now and am committed to the whole reduce, reuse, recycle way of living, shopping in thrift stores is about more than just saving money and recycling (as important as these are): although buying something I really like that's recycled does add to the satisfaction I derive from the purchase.

Apart from the hope that I will find something truly wonderful, I just find the whole experience of shopping in thrift stores way more enjoyable than shopping in the mall. I like the idea that there's a story behind everything that's sold in a thrift store. I like the idea that I may find an item of clothing that no one else, or very few other women are going to be wearing (yes, I know there are two ways of looking at that!). But sometimes when shopping in thrift stores you do find a one-of-a-kind. And that's what I did today. I found this lovely cushion cover. There was another smaller one in a similar design, but it was spoiled with paint, not a lot of paint but enough for me to leave it on the rail (something I'm regretting a little now I have to say).

I have a feeling that this cushion cover is hand made. There's no label in it and no sign of there having been one. It's amazing to think that it found its way into the thrift store after someone has obviously put so much effort into it. My husband likes it so much that he's asked me not to put it in the basement, which I'm in the process of kitting out having recently moved into our new house, but to leave it upstairs. "It's cheerful," he says, and he's right.

This cushion cover cost $1.99, and the cushion I found - also in the thrift store - to put inside it also cost $1.99. Maybe there is such a thing as a bargain.