One of the most wonderful things about the last few weeks of decluttering the house has been finding things I thought were lost.
Dina, Ming and I have found a multitude of keys but the one pictured is rather important as it is the front door key. This is going to make getting into the house so much easier than climbing through the front window, which I actually had to do yesterday because Ming had taken the found key. As for the back door key, I am sure it is somewhere in the bowl of keys.
I have been telling Anthony a heavily edited version of this extraordinary decluttering experience by describing Dina as ‘the lovely woman helping me to spring clean the house for you.’ This works well because (a) despite being a bit of a wardrobe-hoarder, Anthony was, once-upon-a-time, an extremely organised person. He did all of the paperwork, milked the cows, looked after his mother, fondly known as ‘Gar’, and had various cleaning women in to help with polishing the silver and brass, wash the windows and, basically keep this beautiful old house in order.
Fast forward to now: As Dina and I opened the blanket chest in the spare room this week and I saw the amount of papers in there, I felt totally overwhelmed, caught between curiosity and cull mentalities. Without Dina’s help and presence, I would not have been able to cope but with her help, I was able to choose what to keep and what to throw away and, halfway through this process, I realised that these were Gar’s hoardings, not Anthony’s.
When I found a note, in Gar’s handwriting, to pay Juli (me) $60 from way back when I first came to work for her in the ’70s, I felt a bit of an emotional tug to either cry or laugh, so I laughed. Dina – always sensitive to how I might be feeling – gave me the pauses I needed to read out words written from one person to another on paper so fragmented that it sometimes fell apart in my hands.
Needless to say, much of this historical and sentimental paperwork has been put in a posterity box, including the love letter from Gar’s husband, Barr, which I thought I’d lost. More to say about these things at a later date. I still haven’t found a mass of gold (haha) but you never know!
Apart from all of this, it has been an extremely busy week in many ways so I have not kept up with other people’s blogs – sorry!
Oh yes and, now that the elusive parrots have returned, but absolutely refuse my offer of a photo shoot, I can tell you honestly that they are red-capped parrots. They are very shy of humans so I have decided to put a photo of the baby avocados instead (which the redcaps will probably eat anyway.)
It was a joy this week to catch up with a beautiful friend who I have know since school days, but with whom I had lost touch in a meaningful/nitty-gritty way. To find that we are still the friends we were, to share stories, wine and pizza, to exchange tears and laughter, to have reconnected like this – is a gift.
Lost and found; I salute you, N.xxxxx
jmgoyder 