ffutures | Today's School Fete and Charity Shop Bargains

Went to my old school's fete today - a bit disappointing in some respects since I didn't find anything useful for Birthday / Xmas presents (usually it's a good source of suitable tat and toys), and they'd phased out the old bottle tombola (that gave an approx 1 in 5 chance of winning some sort of booze or soft drink etc.) in favour of a thing with bottles covered with black paper - you might get a bottle of wine, but you were more likely to get a wine bottle filled with water which they kept. Since there was no way to assess the odds or see what the prizes were like, and since it was a pound a go, I only tried it once.

Fortunately they did have VERY cheap DVDs, and for a total of £4 I got The Losers, The Complete Fingerbobs, The Complete Bod, Fast and Furious 6, and a Sharpe boxed set, 14 episodes with two specials.

After that I went on to some charity shops in the area which I hadn't been to in a year or so. One of them turned out to have four laserdiscs, unfortunately priced at a fiver each - when I queried this (since none of them were rarities) they said they'd had them for ages and I was the only person who'd even looked at them, and offered to let me have them for a pound each. I ended up giving them a fiver since I felt a bit mean for haggling, then found another one on the shelf and gave them £2 for that. So I ended up paying £7 for Face/Off, Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, Naked Gun 33 1/3, Sneakers, and Ghost. Nothing I was especially looking for, but worth having at that price. Sneakers turns out to be a duplicate, and will go to a charity shop for a small karma boost.

Lugged that lot home then went out again to Portobello Road but didn't get much. I really must get some housework done before next weekend, when I have guests, but as usual sloth is currently ruling. Maybe I'll start tomorrow...