The Quarter Life Crisis

Grandad’s Kitchen

thelifecrisis


My mum and I recently set up a Vintage market stall.

Not only did it upgrade my fashion ‘look’ from “help me, I’m a 20-something on a budget and a victim of the Quarter Life Crisis” to “help me, I’m a 20-something on a budget and a victim of the Quarter Life Crisis with a ROCKABILLY QUIFF” – it was a great excuse for my mum to shift the china collection she’s hoarded. 


In reality, the stall was less to do with me and mum and more concerned with the endless ‘stuff’ left by my Grandad after his death – books, ties, tea-sets and the entire contents of his kitchen – with us wondering what on earth to do with it all.

Nobody really talks about the admin after someone dies, you just sort of get on with it. 


In the weeks leading up to the stall, mum and I ventured into the unknown depths of the loft, did more dusting than I hope to do in a lifetime and (thanks to my Grandad’s sweet tooth) put aside more tea-sets than needed for an entire series of the Great British Bake Off. 


Admittedly, my naive dream of selling everything in one go and somehow ending up super rich didn’t quite go to plan……

On the day itself, the market was quieter than usual and the distraction of the best cake stall you’ve ever seen (cake scotch eggs and cake PORK PIES – from Stuart Thornley Cake Design) meant we probably came home with more than we arrived with! 

But I like to think that for all our efforts and hard work my Grandad would have been proud, mostly for our impressive cake-scoffing if not for setting up the stall in the first place. 

Find out more about about Stockport’s Vintage Village – we’ll be back again, you know – when I’m not too busy eating treats or napping.

18 thoughts on “Grandad’s Kitchen”

  1. I’ve got one of those ‘folded hanky’ dishes – in red! Thanks for liking my short story. The QLC is a long way behind me, having occurred in the mid-nineteen sixties! You are in the same demographic as my grand daughter.

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  4. I’ve enjoyed reading this. I’d have bought the Girls’Chrystal album if I’d been there. I was eleven in 1959- just about the right age to read all about the jolly japes they all got up to in boarding school. In those days, no “heroines” ever went to state school or lived further north than the Watford Gap 👍

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  8. I would’ve bought lot of stuff to be honest! I like vintage stuff ‘mostly clothes, but I find all of that stuff very interesting ♡

    Hope you’ll have luck for the next time!

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  10. I love that dish! I’ve been enlarging your picture to see what childhood china designs I recognise – at least one, I think. Personally, I chose to regard being 25 as my Silver Jubilee. It avoided any thoughts of crisis. However, that means my last birthday was my Diamond Jubilee and that DOES feel like a crisis. How did that happen?

    Thanks for visiting The Glasgow Gallivanter.

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