Compromise is good. And cheap when you go to Frenchies

Seeing as Kitty-Brooke (compromise is good) got an A plus in her poetry assignment last week (yes, an A plus) we decided, on the way back from the island on Sunday, that we all deserved a little trip to Guy Frenchies in Digby to celebrate.

I can't remember if I've mentioned Frenchies on this blog before. I'm sure I have, but I've never devoted an article to it. But now that the New Yorker beat me to it, with a recent two pager on the joys of the chain, I suppose I should fill in for the rest of you.

Guy Frenchies is, quite simply, the best clothes store in the world. There's a whole chain of them in Nova Scotia, but Digby has one of the better ones.

The best thing to do is what is known as a Frenchies' run - get a carful of women and hit Yarmouth, Weymouth, Digby - the three best stores - in one day.

So what is it?

It's like TJ Maxx, only cheaper.

$4.50 for jeans or a skirt.
$3.25 for a top
$5.25 for a dress or a suit
$9 for a coat
Assorted household items for less than a dollar.
Shoes, books, handbags (good handbag section actually), belts, vintage stuff, you get my drift.

The stock is mostly middle America brands, weekend clothes - LL Bean, Gap, French Connection, Calvin Klein, Liz Clairborne, Hilfiger, that kind of thing. They are shipped in on the Yarmouth ferry in big consignments that get transferred around the chain. That is why the three stores nearest Yarmouth are the best. The Halifax Frenchies' are crap.

The stock is unpacked and poured onto large tables every hour for you to sort through. You get an enormous orange laundry basket when you go into the shop and everyone pushes their laundry basket around with their foot while they browse. When you're done you bring your laundry basket into a changing room and try everything on. Then you push it up to the counter and they pack everything in a big black bin liner and off you go!

The tables are sorted into Men and Women - Pants, Sweaters, Blouses/ Shirts, TeeShirts.

Men at one end. Women at the other.

The dresses, suits and coats are hung on racks around the wall.

The bags and belts and other stuff are in the middle.

Unlike TJ Maxx, Frenchies in Digby is full of nice people who spot things in your size and hand them to you and suggest you buy them.

I nearly convinced Kitty-Brooke's cousin to buy a blood-orange coloured, fur-trimmed leather jacket with matching bag.

It was fantastic....! A little too small for me.

Nearly never caught the bird, though, she contented herself with a couple of sweaters.

We all got sweaters.

I got a gorgeous black wool cardi, a slinky black jumper and a big, cuddly, blue, striped wool jumper as all my jumpers and sweaters are starting to get very stressed what with being worn all the time due to the cold.

Himself got three sweaters including a really nice, soft, taupe fleecy one he picked all by Himself (that was not black and didn't have a hoodie attached to it even)!

Kitty-Brooke, being the girl with the A plus (did I mention that it was a plus), got an entire wardrobe of identical black top thingies including cardies and long wool coat cardies, and wrap-around cardies, and hoodies, and tops, and some assorted, identical denim skirts and jeans, and other black stuff that we get the occasional peek at when she deigns to model something for us.

And in exciting news from the 'you really should wear your snow boots in the snow' front, apparently snow boots can be worn to school when accompanied by slinky denim skirts and Queenie's last pair of M&S super-shine, black opaque tights.

Himself not unreasonably (he thought) pointed out that the wearing of a shortish skirt merely meant that a different part of the leg would be cold.

He has turned into my DAD.

As I pointed out, compromise is good.

Plus we bought a new set of dinner plates, OJ glasses, and a cool black ceramic Japanese sushi dish to use as a cheese board.

And six ceramic votive holders for the bathroom for the convenience of certain ladies who need to have long, relaxing, scented baths after days getting A pluses which are bookended by absolute 'hours' waiting for the bus in the snow.

$62 the lot.

hahahahahahahahahahahaha.... sound of Queenie laughing all the way to the kitchen cupboards to stack her new designer plates with the antique ones she got in Mahone Bay flea market last summer for two bucks.

I have gotten more designer dishware in that store than I could have dreamed of in a lifetime. It helps that most of the designer dishware is European so no one else in the shop knows what it is.
No, I'm not telling anyone else!!

No. Not even for free BBQ all summer.

NOOO!!!!

Once, I nipped into Frenchies when Himself was getting a Tims and got a hand-painted, actual Chinese, Chinese ceramic vase for two bucks. It's worth nearly a hundred.

NOOOOO!!

Anyways, we piled all the loot in Albert's ample ass, alongside the half of venison, the three rabbits, the pile of mackerel, the three lobsters, and the enormous ham we were hauling back from the island.

Sometimes I think we should just call ourselves the Clampetts and be done with it.

Himself of course likes nothing better than acting the Huck in the big city, and consequently spent all weekend pretending he was going to put rabbit snares in the Public Gardens (to freak out the city girls he roomies with), and he swears he's going to put my rocking chair on the roof of the car this summer.