Some years ago, when we had not been in our current home very long, we used to visit the local auctions at the Cattle Market.

For anyone who doesn’t know Nottingham, the Cattle Market auctions can be an absolute treasure trove of (cheap) wonders.

There’s an outdoor market, of the sort made up of dodgy meat vans fronted by shouty men with microphones, trestle tables groaning with out-of-date foodstuffs, and broken things laid out in plastic crates on the ground.

I love it.

Indoors, in the auction rooms, you can buy virtually anything (if you can get out of bed early enough.)

From garden machinery, old statues and midcentury sideboards, to Victorian pub mirrors and bankrupt catalogue-stock sofas, it’s all there. Along with a million other things you never knew you wanted.

One day I spotted an old canvas botanical schoolroom chart, with wooden dowels top and bottom.

I really wanted it, but it was bid up far higher than I could afford.

From then on I was on a mission. I scoured Ebay for months.

I missed out on probably hundreds of charts due to my skinflinty determination not to pay more than the bare minimum.

Eventually I did manage to satisfy my lust and secure a chart at a reasonable price. But it wasn’t really what I wanted.

Rather than flowers, it’s subject matter is snails. And the workings of their insides.

It hangs in lad’s room, which seems somehow the most appropriate place for it.

My ardour for chart ownership cooled over time.

These days, I can live happily without one on my wall.

But I did very much enjoy browsing the impressive selection on sale in Mighty Vintage’s Etsy shop.

I hope you do too. ♥