Spend, spend, spend

It doesn't take long to get rid of money at a market like the one I was at, that's for sure. Unfortunately I forgot to bring my camera so I have no pictures for you but Dortmund is a nice town with a lively centre and as well as the material market the normal weekly market was on, too. I didn't see much of that as it was all shutting down when I got back to it but it did seem to be more the retailer type of market than the local farmers' market type like the one near where I live. I did see a at least a few local places though so it's probably a mix, as most of them are.

One thing that definitely wasn't local was the flowers. As I was passing by one stall though one of the guys was throwing some out of the buckets into piles on the ground. I wandered a bit closer, as did a couple of other people and he told us to just help ourselves. They were the flowers that were already past their prime and definitely wouldn't be saleable anymore by Monday. Free flowers. That's my favourite price and probably about the only time I would actually take flowers that were grown in Africa (fair trade or not).

The orange ones are a bit best their best but there was only one that was beyond hope - and even if they only last for a day or two at least I'll have them for a day or two

As for the market, I enjoyed an hour roaming and looking although the first two rows I wandered up and down weren't really very inspiring. And even the so-called scraps were fairly expensive. Then I found one of the Dutch stalls, were there were dozens of bundles of 100% cotton, rolled up in half-metre pieces. One for 3.50 or 3 for 10 euro. Despite having decided that I was definitely going to walk all the way round before buying anything I was too tempted. The stall was absolutely thronged as well and I had to wait a while to get to the front to be able to rummage and it seemed like a waste to just leave what I saw there and try coming back later.

 So since I spied a nice green one right away and pretty soon had gotten my eye in and was having difficultly deciding, I just went for it. I was only going to get three and leave myself with half my money to spend elsewhere but I couldn't choose which one of four to leave behind and decided to just go ahead and get six altogether. Of course a few minutes later I spied the main stall run by the same people, which was all the same material at a price of just 6 euro per metre. Typical. Although I did hear him saying that half a metre was 3.50 so the lower price was only for purchases of at least one metre. I'm still happy with my three metres for 20 euro though.

The photos aren't the greatest but the middle one of these three is a gorgeous turquoise colour. I thought the purple one with the bunting was very cute, too. The one at the back is red with yellow polka dots.

I have a pattern for some christmas cushions that I have been meaning to try for at least two and I think three if not four years. Green material, for whatever reason, tends to be quite expensive so I was delighted to find a whole selection at this stall. One woman spied the middle one of this lot in my hand and sounded very irritated that I had found it and she hadn't but she wandered off down to where I had found it to look for more, leaving her daughter standing holding a large basket full. People are funny.


In total today I spent nearly 35 euro, 20 at the marekt and the rest of it broken down like this:
Reformhaus (independently-owned health food shop)
Cider vinegar 2.29 (for hair conditioning)

Tischdame (new small delicatessen nearby with a focus on sourcing from small, family producers)
Pecorino cheese (about 110g) 3.60

Charge for using the toilet in a department shop
70c

Kiosk at train station
Ham and cheese baguette thing and small bottle of water (so annoyed to have forgotten to bring water with me) 4.85

Aldi
1 litre organic milk 95c
2 tins kidney bean @ 39c each = 78c

And, confession time, I had a quick look last night and couldn't find the cotton I am sure I have to start knitting my sister some cloths for her birthday. Since it's next week and I wanted to use the time on the train today to start I also went into one of the bigger department shops here, Karstadt, and bought four balls of cotton, which cost 8 euro. I do like the colours though and at 2 euro per 50g they weren't too expensive either. And I'm halfway through the first of what I hope will be five cloths, which isn't a bad achievement either.

Not sure there's quite enough for more than one cloth from each ball so if I want to make five altogether the last one might end up being stripey!