I Saw You Coming!

Fans of Harry Enfield will know exactly what I mean by that. For the uninitiated, in a nutshell, Harry has a sketch in his comedy show in which he plays a Notting Hill antiques shop salesman who sells utter junk to gullible wealthy women for extortionately large quantities of money. I found myself in a similar place today. No not a Notting Hill antiques shop but – bizarrely – a garden centre. Well I’d call it a garden centre it calls itself a nursery & I won’t name it as I don’t want trouble. But seriously. This place was FauxRusticExpensive in the extreme. Located on the edge of London in an area clearly filled with people with far more money than sense (well someone must buy this stuff or they’d go under – surely??) I had to be told to close my mouth and behave on numerous occasions!

Firstly – the coffee shop. Self-service & eat in a garden shed with a leaking roof. So we got dripped on & it was freezing. Slice of cake – very nice cake admittedly £4.50. Cup of coffee £4; glass of wine £6.50 (you’d need alcohol to buy soup - £7.50). Now if I was eating said cake & drinking said coffee in a warm, uber designed sumptuous café with white glove service & silver teapots maybe.

But to sit on a hard, metal, rickety, paint peeling, ancient garden chair (that’ll be £65 if you want to take that home thanks) I don’t think so! My handbag got covered in mud as I foolishly hung it on the back of the ancient rickety chair …. the even more rickety table upon which we were enjoying our eye wateringly expensive coffee & cake was a mere £350.

In the shop more joys lay ahead - £40 yes FORTY English pound coins for a fairly ordinary, not even clean terracotta plant pot; Mmm hmm. £4,500 for an alleged Swedish antique chest thing which looked like it needed a good wire brushing & a coat of paint. £450 for an old (i.e. seen far better days vs. gorgeous well cared for antique) metal garden bench. £30 for a small wonky plate. Yes a side plate. Whoever was doing the pricing clearly kept putting the decimal point in the wrong place…!

Now I am not tight fisted, I’m all for splashing the cash; I own Mulberry bags and love drinking Krug & collect gorgeous things for me & the house darling many of which are also quite expensive in the grand scheme of things but they are either artisan, or precious (i.e. made of precious things … can’t resist a diamond!) but there are limits! Old cr*ppy furniture is not nice! As I said to my coffee mate; I may be gullible but not THAT gullible!

You know what I think? Depressingly given where we were, I think the really really rich come & buy it to pretend that it really has been in their shed "for years darling. Oh that old thing". What a world …