Better Than New

Don?t you just love browsing in second-hand shops and charity shops?  Last week I got back from the UK with a case full of bargains from Bury.  On The Rock, the town?s main drag, there are at least half a dozen - Cancer Research, Bury Hospice, Heart Foundation, Help The Aged, Oxfam, several animal charities whose names I can?t recall ... and they have such a lot of super stuff, with the clothes arranged by size on colour coded hangers. And it doesn?t all have that horrid damp musty smell that you get in Humana

The Generalitat have launched a new campaign called ?Millor que nou? (Better than new). They have set up a network comprising 1,373 repair shops and 278 second-hand shops. Visit Millor Que Nou to download pdf fliers for each neighbourhood with listings of all the shops. The Millor Que Nou blog is the place to go for news and info about second-hand markets in the whole metropolitan area: there?s one in Cornell? on Saturday 22 November, for example, and in Alella on Sunday 23. The pdf for Gr?cia, my favourite browsing place (I actually live in the Eixample, just across the district boundary with Gr?cia) lists a number of clothes shops which I?d never heard of, tucked away in those narrow little side streets. It also includes Hibernian Books, and Stocks Ocasi? at Pened?s 10, which sells ?electrodom?stics amb tara est?tica? aka ?with aesthetic defect? aka scratched and dented. They also list two places that sell antique dolls: Hazard, at Roger de Flor. 121, and Les Mil i una Nines, at Ram?n i Cajal, 158. So, if you?re tearing your hair out with the Christmas present business, go for it! Valerie Collins is co-author, with Theresa O?Shea, of In The Garlic: Your Informative, Fun Guide to Spain.