Junk in the trunk
Oh how I fantasize about making my living by buying charming old tat and selling it on, either at a market or in my imaginary shop. Well I’ve just got addicted to a blog by a girl who’s living the dream.
Jo Waterhouse lives on a narrow-boat in East London and runs a market stall in Spitalfields. So hunting out trossle* is part of her job. And just for our delight she also posts pictures of it, as well as, occasionally, the fascinating houses of the people she buys it from.
(*Trossle – Trozzle? – is what my Dad calls assorted bric-a-brac. I can’t find the word on the internet. Did he invent it?)
This is from a book of Easter Egg foil samples she bought. She’s also got a way with words that just tickles me, nicely summed up in her comment connected to this picture: “this plant did a dance without it’s trousers on.”
Plus she knows good graffiti when she sees it.
If you’re a lover of old toot, get over to her blog Tootasinfoot for more.
“Trozzle”, it’s either a Cornish thing, or a thing someone in the family made up once, ’cause mother says it too (and I think I do, as well. eek.). Much like “teasy” is Cornish?
Hey Frances, great to hear from you. It sounds kind of Cornish, doesn’t it? Or maybe it’s a (Great) Grandpa-ism, like ‘taradiddle’ for a made up story. I’m off to read your blog now x
Yes, sorry for the bout of stalkerism. Mum kept telling me about your blog, and I’d dutifully forget about it – but now I get the RSS so I can feel jealous of the lovely things you acquire on a regular basis without having to remember! 😀
No, “trozzle” is definately not Cornish. I was so certain it was a proper word for “old clutter” that I ran straight for the dictionary but no, Mr Collins has no mention of it. Very sad, but it has certainly been a word in common usage in our family, for ever. Maybe because we have always been great collectors of it both active and passive!
Yes, so ingrained in the family psyche is the accumulation of junk that we obviously had to invent a word for it!