Magpie Monday - Choo Choo

Last week's Magpie Monday, I mentioned that I'd spent a couple of days on a training course.  It was run by a charity (not the one I work for), and charities have a tendency to grab almost every opportunity they can to raise a bit of cash.  Over in the corner of the training room was a table I found myself drawn to in the first of many coffee breaks.  Second Hand Books - 50p!  I'm one of these people who *need* something to read if I'm sat still for any length of time, and I plough through newspapers & trashy magazines at lightning speed, so two days of hour long train journeys each way was looking expensive.

Until the table came to the rescue.  I love travel books, the kind that tell a story, rather than the ones that recommend an assortment of historic places & expensive restaurants.  This was the former, well written, though a bit too convenient for my liking, every turn the author seemed to accidentally meet someone else who'd played a major role in the Hippy Trail of the 1960's.  Yeah, I'm sure the tedium of finding people & meeting no-bods wouldn't make such interesting reading, but it would be that bit more convincing.  Travel IS boring in places, anyone who's set foot in an airport will attest to that.  This one took me home from training, and back there & back the next day, with a few chapters left for bedtime reading.

The second book kept me going in the car on our little trip to Banbury & Oxford last weekend.  Silly, slightly reminiscent of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Nighttime, and not just because of the dog in the title.  A nice trashy bit of 50p fun.  These books are more Magpie Monday, in my mind, than the majority of my charity shop book finds, because these actually saved me money.  By spending £1 on two books, I didn't buy 2 newspapers, plus a couple of trashy magazines, a bottle of diet coke & a packet of crisps while I was in the shop, just because they were there.  Spending a little to save a lot more, that's what it's all about.

Oh yeah, and Oxford?  No finds in Oxford, but I did see a street sign that made me smile.  I've seen a few town centre High Streets so full of charity shops they should change their name to this.

Who else has been bargain spotting this week? Find out here