Discover

I was looking for something special over the weekend, a gift for my guy who has been away for a little while. I'm not a person who shops for the sake of it, I like to browse and love to discover something purely by chance and over the weekend despite knowing I wanted something to give him when he comes home I didn't know what. So I browsed and waited for inspiration to come.

After a drive to a small town not too far from the city I strolled along the main street and into the various shops I found; some were antique, second hand and curiosity shops and others sold new products. I find old things fascinating and quite often the gifts I get my man come with a past, a patina of age and with stories attached to them we'll never know. I think items like that have character and so does my guy; there's a history to something old and most often those items are made much better than items today that are made to fit a price rather than a purpose more often than not.

I found what I was looking for in a shop that had a mix of old and new things and felt the item would be perfect for his office at home, something to sit on the shelf and look good, bring character and remind him of me. It was a photo frame, one from the 1930's, and into it I've put a photograph of myself.

Society seems to value volume over quality which leads companies to sacrifice quality for speed of manufacture and distribution and people simply adjust their expectation of the items they buy accepting that quality is poor, they convince themselves otherwise though. My guy and I are not that way inclined. Yes, we have new items and products but we focus more on quality than volume and if possible we find something old to bring to life once more like the photo frame I purchased. I can't wait for him to discover it there in his office.