Flotsam and Jetsam

“We are closed in, and the key is turned
On our uncertainty…”

William Butler Yeats

As the world holds its collective breath – uncertain as to what will happen next…

…if nothing else we may find that we have time on our hands for musing – and a still, small space for so doing in this world normally in such a hurry might well be one of the only positives to come out of this calamity.

So – as a TV comedy character in the UK was once wont to exclaim…”Bear with…”

My parents were both hoarders. Which is to say – when my mother passed away and my siblings and I ventured to clear the house where they (and, for a considerably shorter period, we) had lived for almost fifty years, we discovered not only five decade’s worth of papers, postcards, letters, pirated music scores and so forth, but also – amongst many other items of furniture – every chair that they had ever purchased together… as well as some that they had probably inherited. Some of these items were, frankly, no longer in a usable condition but they had nonetheless been left in situ. When we had finished clearing the house it felt almost twice as big as it had seemed beforehand.

This was not to suggest, however, that my parents collected furniture; and certainly not in the sense that they knew anything much about it or had an eye for an attractive or collectable item. My father’s mother had lived (when I was a youngster) with her sister, my great aunt, in a large Edwardian house not that far from Sevenoaks in Kent. When they both passed away – within a month or so of each other – my father executed their estate. Looking around the house – which had not been updated for many a long year – we were struck by some of the beautiful pieces of furniture that they had obviously accumulated over an extensive period. When I asked my father why he would not, for example, hang on to that lovely Victorian dining table and chairs (it being considerably more attractive than the one that they then possessed) he simply opined that “a table is a table“, in spite of clear visual evidence that that was not in fact the case. When said dining room furniture was eventually sold at auction he expressed surprise at the value that was placed upon it and, indeed, at how much it sold for.

I was at the time living in the very first house to which I was a party to the purchase. This was a most pleasant but tiny Victoria terraced cottage and there was scarcely room to swing a (smallish) cat, let alone to find room for further items of furniture – however lovely. At my grandmother’s house my eye had been caught by a really most attractive Davenport writing desk, after which I soon found myself hankering. I certainly did not want it to go outside the family so I persuaded my parents to hang on to it and also to ‘put my name upon it’ as a potential future inheritance. This beautiful item thus eventually found its way – upon my mother’s passing – to our home in South Buckinghamshire, where it looked quite as though it had always been there.

Naturally the piece followed us, first to Berkshire and then eventually across the pond (and a continent) to the West Coast of Canada, where it now sits proudly in our living room.

There is but one small problem, however. The desktop of the Davenport – though unlocked when the movers arrived in the UK – was firmly locked by the time the item was unpacked in Victoria. The key, sadly, was nowhere to be found. In spite of my best efforts since I have been thus far unable to gain access to the top of the desk… which is annoying!

Now – I can sense a certain impatience out there in reader-land. “Why is he prattling on about furniture (however lovely)?” – I hear you asking. “Is he just going quietly bonkers cooped up in doors because of the Corona virus?“.

Well – there is a connection and all will be revealed – but that may take one – or two – more posts…

What? You had something else to be doing?