More Things I like in our Home

The featured image is the collection of dried flowers that Valerie arranges in an old shopping basket on the top of the cupboards in our kitchen.  Every now-and-then she changes some to they always look wonderful.  She also has a collection of interesting objects to the left of the flowers including a range of invalid feeding bottles.  I enjoy looking at the diffent things, imagine how they were used, by whom and it looks very attractive when the fairy lights are switched on.

 

Valerie is very pleased with the half pint milk bottle that she found whilst mudlarking on the Thames with Cheryl who was over from the USA.

You can see it here  above the bunch of old keys.   On its left is a stoneware inhaler designed to allow the breathing in  of medicated steam.  In the stone marmalade jar, bottom centre, is the bullhead tin opener that Elwyn gave us.  An efficient opener but it does produce a very jagged edge.

 

 

 

I am not a Hindu but I have an affinity with Lord Ganesha who has helped me over the years and on my bedside cabinet I have a little carved, portable shrine of Him and Saraswati Goddess of music and writing, culture.  There are many statuettes of the Elephant headed God around the bungalow. By my left shoulder, as I write, is a  statuette of a very slim Ganesha.  Normally he has a magnificent belly that contains the universe.  Some 40 or more years ago during the relaxation period at the end of a yoga session a bright and intense scene appeared in my mind of an elephant-headed man dressed in Indian clothes, where there was supposed to be a rose that we’d been instructed to visualise.  He was leaning against a tree preaching to a small group and it was very hot and sunny.  I opened my eyes and it appeared on the ceiling about two metres across.  It was as bright as a film, I closed my eyes and it stayed.  This went on for about 15 minutes until the instructor called us back into the present. At the time I was ignorant of what I had seen.  I told the yoga instructor about it who, during the next session, informed me it was something that happens and to forget about it. Years later, I met her in Kings Lyn, when she said that the council were very worried and told her to mislead me in this way.  Much later I came to realise what I had seen and to realise that it was a very special moment that I was privileged to have had.  I can still see the scene, as vivid as a video, when I close my eyes.

 

The image on the left is of the window by my chair.  We bought the lovely Art Deco statuette at  the Southgate auction house, she is beautiful and so joyful.  I’d hoped it was a Chiparus but it is unsigned and on a cheap base so, though lovely, it probably isn’t.  In front of the glass plate on the right you can see another statuette of Lord Ganesha on the left are a figure and chain I carved out of teak from the door of the old Capital cinema in Winchmore Hill.  I am very proud of the chain, the links are separated and tinkle when shaken.  As always some art glass.  The green one is particular favourite and it changes so much in shape and colour in different lights.  The blue piece is modern from the Czech Republic.  I bought it at a glass fair where we first met our son-in-law’s late father Johnny King who was a very well known glass blower with Whitefriars Glass ,  He very generously made me a handkerchief vase, which he signed, and here it is:

I am very interested in origins and find the history of writing very fascinating.  The earliest is cuneiform developed in Sumer about 3000 BCE.  This led me to Enheduanna the earliest known poet writing in Ur in about 2350 BCE.  Cuneiform was invented by accountants for stock control and Egyptian hieroglyphics by priest for us in tombs and some say this is why Egyptian poetry the more human and passionate,  I like both.  The image below is of a precious object, the 11th tablet of the Story of Gilgamesh the first known novel.  It is written in cuneiform but the language is Akkadian and it is an early version of the great flood in which Noah is the central character in the Bible.  It is a replica but when I handle it I can hear the voices of the story tellers that told the story long before it was written down in 800 BCE.  It is on the window will in our sitting room and I was sitting in our tiny patio when I took the shot.

 

Finally an image I just like.  It is the reflection of the chandelier in my toilet, in the angular glass clock which is amongst various bits and pieces on he shelf over the cistern.  You can just see the shape of the clock.  I bought it in a car boot in Witney as I liked its chunkiness.  It did not work but, to my amazement, I was able to buy a cheap replacement over the internet.