Salt and Pepper

Sitting in contemplative mood. Re-discovered a Salt and Pepper pot set (perspex and tasteful). These were to have been a present to my maternal grandmother, Margot Bruce. Sadly, she died before I could give them to her and, like so many family possessions, they got 're-distributed'. The curious thing about objects is that their history can so easily be lost.

When my other grandmother, Adelaide Lubbock, died, an auction was held of some of her things. Dad organised this but didn't think it significant enough an event to tell either me or my brothers. Luckily, before the whole lot was carted off to the auction house, the house in which they had lived, High Elms, near Downe in Kent, was available to visit and thus I secured three miniature bone china teapots, which I love.

I wonder to whom I should bequeath my lovely new shiny black baby grand piano. There are no other pianists in my family and it takes up alot of space. Not as much, of course, as a family collection of twelve huge paintings of woolly mammoths (rendered rather badly, I'm told by a little-known Victorian artist). My eldest brother is fortunate; he will one day inherit an ancient burial ground near the mystical and magical standing megaliths in Avebury. As it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it isn't of much practical use to him, but it's an interesting and spiritual place to walk and contemplate.