The best op shop in Dunedin

I have to be honest and say that I am not sure why my posts are not attracting the readers I would like and for that reason I am putting the name of my city in my title every day for the next month.

I just read a lot of great comments about the prices at Goodwill and Thrift stores in the wonderful blog My Repurposed Life and it got me thinking about the prices of goods, quality of goods etc of the stores that I visit.

When I give items to charity I nearly always drop off goods at the Salvation Army Store on Princes Street, or, the Yellow Presbyterian Op Shop on St Andrew Street, or the ReStore on Vogel St, and this is because of the parking issue. When I am dropping off goods to charity I am almost always in the car and have more than I can easily carry. Even if I have Dear D and Dear H with me, carrying heavy items more than a few metres is tricky and so close parking is essential.

The Princes St Salvation Army has about four parks out the front which are perfect for drop offs. The Restore is not so good as you have to cross a busy one way road to get to the store if you cannot get a park outside - being on a corner is great for visibility. St Andrew Street is usually crazy with traffic but again if you are lucky and can get a park outside then its easy to drop things off. I have been known to drive past the stores and the one with parking gets the goodies. I was going to donate some lovely blankets to the Red Cross after the earthquake in Christchurch but it was just too hard to find a park to drop off and the blankets were those furry ones and very bulky and there was no way Dear D and I could carry them - we would not be able to see our feet!!!!

Also when I donate things, I try to donate clean items which appeal much more to me than dirty. The St Vincent de Paul on George Street has a washer and dryer upstairs and all their items are spotless. As a result the store smells nice or neutral. Restore seem to accept just about anything, and consequently there is an odour. I do not give broken rubbish to charity. Broken rubbish and McDonalds toys and other MIC rubbish which is broken is only fit for the rubbish. Torn clothes are made into rags. Torn tights make tree ties. Totally wrecked kids clothes are not worth giving to anyone. I have been known to take off all buttons etc and then burn them.

Yesterday at the St Vincent de Paul I spied some funny kumara/peony tuber shaped things in an icecream container under the trolley displaying a good selection of cricket books. Dahlia tubers!!! Free dahlia tubers!! So today I took in my half bag of Jersey Benne seed potatoes which I do not have room for in my garden and thanked the lovely lady for the dahlias and offered the potatoes. I scooted around the shop in case anything new had arrived and noticed that the two hand-made shirt dresses were still on the retro rack which I looked at yesterday. At $8 they are a bargain, clean well made and great retro material. But a little part of me, a teeny tiny part of me says I do not need any more shirt dresses. Let's see if they are there next week.