Mad Dogs.

Well, Sri Lanka was ace.

More (much more) to come. But for now, Caruthers, it's time to relax....

NDC

Such A Perfect Place To Start.

Tomorrow we're off on another adventure, this time to far flung corners of The Empire.

Oh I love an adventure......

NDC

Have nothing in your house that you do not know to be useful or believe to be beautiful.

I’ve never really been a chap who keeps things based upon sentimental attachments. I’ve always felt that William Morris hit the rustic-style nail on the head with his quote that serves as title for this post.

I’m not really entirely sure why I have this deep seated desire to avoid clutter, but I think that The Dad was probably quite central to my views as he was at the other end of the scale. When he downsized from the home we grew up in to his bungalow a few years ago we spent an entire weekend and 3 skips clearing out just the garage. Edited highlights include:

• A roll of cream carpet that The Dad found in a ditch (and you could tell)

• A boiler that wasn’t working even when it was put in the garage in the first place

• Several offcuts of timber that were older than me

• Half of a large garden swing seat that last saw the garden in 1978

Some of these things actually had to be negotiated into the skip. His mantra was ‘it might come in useful one day’.

When he died I kept very little of his stuff. There is a set of plans for the last house that he built in a cardboard tube, a fireguard that he made as an apprentice piece and a roadsign. The roadsign is the only thing I know I won’t throw away.

The beautiful Mrs A and I were talking about such things during one of our morning chats the other day and I mentioned a weird thing that The Mum has had in her house for as long as I can remember. It’s a small, green china ashtray featuring a large cone (such as you might see on an old gramophone, but without the gramophone itself) and two pigs sitting and looking into the cone.

No, I have no idea either. I guess it must have been designed in the 60s during a particularly successful experiment with hallucinogenic drugs. Think Franklin Mint from a parallel universe and you’ll be about right.

Unfortunately, Mrs A mentioned my recollection of this ‘unique piece’ to The Mum when she met her for lunch yesterday.

Even more unfortunately The Mum got quite excited about this (apparently there is a big long list of Things I Don’t Remember from my childhood) and has confused ‘recollection’ with ‘wish to possess’.

I think from now on I’ll just have strong childhood memories of her nice car that she bought a couple of years ago.

NDC