Brighton Part One: Crap From The Street

Greetings from Brighton. Work is going very well. The play, Keep Taking the Tablets, has been well received in previews, now to kill two weeks doing nothing while I wait for the next show!

I love being in Brighton. I've visited twice before, but in January both times so the weather this time is a massive improvement. I enjoy looking around the fascinating shops and sitting on the beach. The nightlife is pretty vibrant too and we've had a few nights out already.
One thing I've noticed about Brighton, is that it has an interesting "culture" (for want of a better word) where people leave their unwanted stuff on the roadside and others can pick it up and take it home. For instance, if you're cleaning out your bedroom and you no longer want those books, or clothes or furniture, you can just leave it outside your house. And someone, somewhere will find your junk a good home. I've never seen anything like it. The house of my friend Shaun (where I'm staying) is full of cute furniture, interesting vases and other knick knacks, all from the street. Its brilliant!

So when we were walking home at 2:30am the other morning we came by one such by-product of a clear out. Shaun, now a seasoned "recycler" began to look through the piles of stuff. We found:

a set of beside drawers
a candle stand (for the garden)
3 board games
a big rug
a small display cabinet (to hang on the wall)
a vase
some hatpins
one of those fancy jars with the metal handle and rubber seal
a pile of material, including a scarf
an ornate table filled with...bobbins!

AND

a Singer sewing machine


And the sewing machine works! It does something funky with the stitching on the underside of a piece of fabric, but it sews and the light works too. It was a pretty profitable raid. My cut includes some of the hatpins, the handbag (a brown mock-snake-skin affair) a couple of the bobbins (of course), the scarf and the fancy jar (I've always wanted one). Obviously I have to consider what can be brought home in my suitcase. But you can bet that once we get the sewing machine running I'll be knocking up a "street skirt" with the material, sewing machine and bobbins we found.


My cut of the loot :) a handbag, a scarf, a jar, some hatpins and some fabric

The Magenta Machine now has a Brighton counterpart - but I still love my pink pal, all alone in Sheffield. And I thought I'd have to give up sewing for the month I was down here!