Okay, so are the shoes above worth ‘keeping for a rainy day’ – ‘might come in useful’ – ‘rubbish’?
They were abandoned on the streets of Manchester by, I’m assuming, an overnight reveller. Having written last week’s post about the Cheapside Hoard, I’ve been having a rake through my own stored items to see what I’m hoarding and why. There are interesting discoveries to be made.
Jewellery is an obvious thing to hoard. It’s of small volume and high worth. What did I find? Well, there’s a brooch of metallic gilt with Mother written across the middle. It’s very precious because pocket money bought it from a white elephant stall. There’s a polished stone given to me by the others in my student house to mark my 21st birthday. It fell just days after my dad died and all those very young friends were struggling to know how to treat me. A real milestone, sorry, pun alert.
Cuddlies are hoarded assiduously by small children, but I really had none left over from childhood. I don’t know why although a tail of siblings might be an answer. I now have several. The lion my husband gave me early in our relationship. He’s from a very upmarket toyshop and he shares a corner with a real elephant, blue not white, bought from another of those table sales by the child who knew exactly what he wanted for Christmas and, therefore, Mummy would be so lucky to get the same. And Mummy thinks so still. Then there’s my hippo bought by another child. He graces the bed during the day.
Shoes have been known, in this house, to separate into constituent parts before being deemed unfit for normal use. Explaining to a bewildered child why you have xx pairs of shoes and she has one, is taxing. It does, however, help to remember that her feet are still growing and yours have stopped – at least lengthways. It can be a problem of course. Packing a coming home bag for my mum after her stay in hospital got highly charged when the shoes I took from her cupboard didn’t fit. Like the rest of us, I should have looked under the edge of the bed, or beside the front door and not in ‘the hoard’ of the ones that might fit again some day.
I won’t take you through the books, clothes, photographs, and china. But I’ll just mention a bone crochet hook. It was my granny’s. She was my pal and she taught me to knit when I was four. I held it in my hand this morning and her image floated into my mind. Like so much of my personal hoard, it’s worthless and priceless. What’s in yours?
http://goo.gl/pASdjp Mariah’s Marriage US
http://goo.gl/NxYxj5 Mariah’s Marriage UK
http://goo.gl/PKptQg Bella’s Betrothal US
http://goo.gl/5RBzIm Bella’s Betrothal UK
Novels Now 