The Cave of 'Wonders'

My Mom was dying to show me this unreal place and we finally had a purpose to go there yesterday. It was a fabric cave-store called TP Textiles. Since it was nice that day, I didn't get the full effect of it. My Mom went on an English day. We needed to get some lining for the dress that I am making and this was the only facric store around.

We pulled up to the building and this is what I saw: Black walls. Green plastic substituting for windows. Plywood painted black substituting for windows. Broken windows. Mould practically growing out of the ground marking their territory. A sign that looks like it was painted with poo. WIld fabrics beind the broken window. Decay falling from the roof. Moss growing around the decaying roof. A supposed-to-be white doorframe. Tiles on the doorstep deteriorating. I thought the place was out of buisness. And that was just the outside. On our way in, I noticed the hours. 9:20 - 5:10 (??).

In we went and everywhere you looked, there were rolls leaning against eachother in an attempt to be organized. There were loads of rooms with little archways. We turned right into the room that had very high ceilings. It was where the green plastic and painted plywood was on the other side of the wall. You couldn't see the walls because they were covered in ancient fabrics that had been drained of colour and were so TOTALLY clashing with eachother. On the high ceilings were these styrofoam-like tiles that were damp. In the big room there was only one fabric, it was cream and green striped. But it was so thoroughly covered with dustballs, you couldn't really see the colours. It kind of looked like a circus tent in the big room. When my Mom went for the first time, it was really windy and that the fabric walls that were dancing and making weird sounds, and the plastic windows were joining in, too.

The whole building didn't have rooms as such, but more like little hiding places and cracks that the owner was able to put the endless rolls of fabric. We went into one of these hiding places and it had a low ceiling. The fabric was now the ceiling as well. I saw 2 bits of fabric with a bunch of pins in apparently trying to keep them together, but it wasn't working. The carpets weren't actually carpets, they were about as thick as toilet paper (hey! TP Textiles, toilet paper hehehe) and it wasn't pinned to the carpet. It was just lying on the floor bunching up and tripping people up. There was roll after roll of fabric, some fur, some neon yellow, some white, some with crazy hot pink patterns on, some with butterflies, some that were down right tacky etc. There was this cool room though. It had a bunch of buttons and ribbons and sequence, but it still was kinda dirty. I had to watch where I stepped.

Anyway, my Mom just wanted me to blog about this place. She's probably gonna get some pictures of it and I'll figure out a way to stick 'em on here. They will WOW you...