Victoria Day

The Condo is still in shambles and I think, I might have mentioned that things were going to get worse before they got better. One of the opportunities that is offered during this transformation, is the requirement to sort and toss. In the “basement” – now a proper office (or well on its way to becoming one), I came across a box of “stuff” from my mom’s estate that my sister had given me. Now, I had assumed this box was full of cracked and mismatched blue ringed dinner plates and the like, stuff I hadn’t cared much for in the first place and with just a fine bit of a gold ring encircling the plates etc that they were of no value for micro waving – unless one had a serious interest in pyrotechnics. Instead, I found, true, mismatched “stuff” but it was tea cups and saucers, some of which no doubt have their origin whilst Queen Vic was about, so happy “Victoria Day”. These are real “tea” cups, not mugs like we use today; cups with beautiful hand painted designs. The bone china is so fine; you can see the shadow of your hand through it in the sun. Since all of it was dusty and grimy from storage and most of it had a residue as a result of my mom’s gas stove, I washed it all in warm, soapy water, to discover at one point, the little black specks at the bottom of the cup was the writing on the outside beginning to show through. Must say, I chuckled when I thought of tea leaf reading and how these tiny little specks might have been interpreted by a leaf reader and thus influenced someone’s belief about the future! There are probably eight or nine cups and I can assure you there are no more than two cups identical to each other, so nothing near making a “set”. How long has mom been gone anyway? Wow, just looked it up … 1990 – I never was very good with this sort of stuff.

Maybe, more to come ....