'Shopping'...

What do you think our 18th & 19th century Ancestors would think of the modern day shopping experience~ be it in a mall, or on the internet??? Can you imagine!!!? I myself, would be lost without the internet~ there is really no place to shop for anything within a 3 hr drive, anywhere around me...And when we do make the trip up to Pueblo....I am always so dissapointed~ the stores NEVER have what I want. So an entire day wasted....gas wasted....time wasted.....when I could have just hopped on the computer and found exactly what I wanted in the first place! I can remember as a child, spending the whole day shopping with my mother~ driving all over Spokane, and being exhausted when we drove home to Colville!

Shopping in the 18th century must have been a wonderous experience! Straight and too the point~ there were no fancy lables or packaging. You would enter the shop, and all would be neatly layed out for your parousal...if you had the right $$$ of coarse! Being Royalty, the artisans, shopkeepers and tradesmen would cart their wares right to your door. It wasn't until the early 19th century that Hannah Davis made her wonderfully decorative band boxes. I like to imagine a melting of both centuries together in my little dolly world.

Why just morning past, Darling Constance and I took the carriage along the Olde Towne Road to the city center. We shopped and shopped for hours, until our feet hurt! We set the carriage at the Livery, where we fetched a new set of shoes for 'Dunbar'(our ever so humble Percharon) from Harod Jenkins, the Blacksmithe & Ferrier. We saw the most delightful trifles in the Bakery window.....but of coarse could not partake as our stays were laced waaaay to tight for eating anything. At the Milliner's, Constance picked out a beautiful striped and banded hatbox for her Bergiere to fit in. (Her friend Anne's was sat on last week, and absolutely ruined) We stopped at the Mantua Maker's to scope out the new silkes~ we fell in love with a new indigo resist that just arrived from port at Boston. Ohhh and there was lace from Brussels.....but ever so expensive! We did buy some pretty silke threads for our embroidery, and some tinsel too. It was my frivolty for the daye! But....the actual point and reason for the trip to towne, was a visit to the cobbler, Master Wythe Crodget. Ohhhhh such beautiful shoes and boots. We had broght a bit of fabric left from Darling's dress, to be made into matching shoes. See his work above??? They match wonderfully, are so very comfortable to wear, and look at her new paste buckles. They were a 'gift' from Wythe....he's not fooling me. Being much older and wiser than Darling, I know his intentions! One more stop to the Butcher for meat for this evening's meal, and we were off home........