Memory Medley

My parents bought the cabinet about 60 years ago to house an encyclopaedia. (I’m not sure how much those tomes were used, but in the days long before wikipedia and internet searches, it probably did get quite a bit of use).

We have had the cupboard since my mother died. What does it house behind its glass doors that stick a bit?

Part of a collection of birds bought month by month with a magazine about 30 years ago. (Now this had seemed recent, quite a shock to work that out!)

There’s a carved sycamore leaf and a chain, and some polished stones (one, I think is really a piece of coal!) from my father’s delight to get relief from his office civil service job. A small (slate?) dagger model may be his work too. The cowbell possibly came from my parents’s last holiday to Austria.

Then there’s a metal toasting fork made by my husband in school metalwork classes in his teens, and some card geometric shapes made in his early teaching career. (apparently a Truncated cube, Small stellated dodecahedron, Deltahedron [with the indented faces] …)

One son’s teenage etching of Castell Coch on a little hand-mirror as a gift, and carved candlestick; a small pottery head and dish from another son’s teenage hobby. What I think is the jawbone of a fish or baby shark was probably a gift brought back by my daughter from a school trip about 40 years ago. A piece of crossstich saying ‘Mother’.

There are some wooden dishes with cutlery bearing carved animals on their handles (monkey covering its ears, monkey covering its mouth, hippos, elephant) from friends returning from Kenya. Also a heavy egg-shaped pebble with the map of the world etched on it might have come from there by them. My daughter when she went to Portugal  a few years ago brought back some lace covered coasters, probably not expensive but delicate to use and the glass a bit sharp-edged, so enjoyed to see in here.

Some trinkets kept from collections of my in-laws, including a little wooden apple which opens to reveal a shaking beetle – this is a great favourite with my little granddaughters. And I think a gift given to my father-in-law of a jigsaw wooden cup and saucer, which we’d rather not take apart, and a long baton, probably of conjuror, not conductor.

There’s a slice of flint, a heavy wooden paperweight cross section of a branch with carving (purchased by someone), some cowrie shells – one quite large, one smaller, and a coaster made of little ones (the thread holding them together has started to break – little fingers?), 2 fob watches,  a tile of a highland cow, from our holiday in Scotland just 13 years ago just before our caring duties started. On top is a driftwood ‘ornament’ made by my brother-in-law-in-law.

… and there is much more, and more in one or two other cupboards. One day we’ll probably need to down-size …!

[IP: pick a piece of furniture (real or imaginary) and make that the focal point of your writing.]