Journal of the Plague Year 16 - Divide and Rule

It's the Wrinklies wot done it!

I have noticed recently that the idea that old people are ruining things for the young is being increasingly pushed during the current crisis.

Blaming the wrinklies for the woes of the young has been rumbling on for a few years, and curiously enough it isn't the 'young' - ie anyone under 30 - who are doing the arguing.  Indeed, I have discussed this with many of my young friends, and they have all dismissed the notion, sometimes offering up the same arguments I had prepared to convince them.  I will return to them later in this post.

Instead this idea is promulgated by middle aged and older folks, mainly on the right or left wing fringes of the intellectual spectrum.  Why do they do this, and why now increasingly so?  Why this mustard keenness to stab an entire generation in the back and divide the nation?  Since it is not a notion that stands up to close questioning, why is it being pushed?

With regard to the individuals who argue for it, they probably have a multitude of reasons.  A guilty conscience for having had a good and, as they see it, undeserved good life, an erroneous comparison of the past with the present, selective memory, and a desire to make a name for themselves by making inflammatory statements, have probably all contributed.

With regard to those who give column inches and talk show time to such views, I think they do it to deflect the public's attention from the real villains, and thus protect the special interests that they serve.

Corona Crisis

Take the current crisis. 

(1) It is not the old people who demanded / decided to shut down the country to 'protect the old and vulnerable' - it is the government.

(2) About a third of the young have health issues that make them vulnerable to not just death, but also serious illness that may leave them long-term impaired, from the Corona virus.

(3) The situation has been made worse by governmental mismanagement:
          (a) An NHS starved of resources, and undermined by various re-organisations
          (b) An initial laissez faire approach to the disease which allowed the virus to spread
          (c) A refusal to participate in EU ventilator sourcing project for ideological reasons
          (d) A continuing penny-pinching with regard to PPE, that has cost lives
          (e) Impoverishing the population, many of whom have inadequate housing and income
          (f) Enabling greed and selfishness, which undermined social cohesion
          (g) An ideological approach to problems, rather than a practical one
          (h) Allowing fools to occupy important positions for party political reasons

          (i) Applying different standards to Toffs & Co versus the plebs
          (j)  Complete the list with your own examples, as appropriate!

THUS, the government and its enablers are in dire need for a scapegoat.  Not just for the current mess, but even more so for the Brexit Hard Exit situation they are continuing to prepare for, in the teeth of all reason and practicality.

Since they can't really blame the EU for their mismanagement of the corona crisis (not to say they won't try), they are throwing shade on China (which is deserved but fraught with danger, since they need China as a trading partner) and on those who can't fight back - the old and infirm.

However - Before blaming older generations, you may want to consider the following

The young have always been exploited and given a raw deal.  Who do the fighting and dying in the wars?  The young.  Who do the hard physical labour?  The young.  Who risk life and limb giving birth to future generations?  The young.  Who get paid the lowest wages?  The young.  It was ever thus.

But ....  everyone who is old now was young once, and equally exploited, and usually worse.  The ancients currently in the stocks for being greedy were caned in schools, got their first job when 14, did not go to university, had no access to birth control or divorce so frequently 'had to marry' and got trapped in bad marriages, lacked many of the luxuries we nowadays take for granted (internet access, employment protection, health & safety - yes, protection from exposure to asbestos, for example, is so worth it!, all year round special foods, multiple holidays abroad, etc etc).  I could go on, but you get the point.

Instead you may want to consider WHO has always done this exploiting?  Hint - it was not the older generation as a whole.  It was those in power, who usually exploit us all more or less equally.  Just because most of those in power are older, doesn't mean that THE OLD as a group rule the country for their own benefit!

The older you get the more you have accumulated.  Seems obvious - if someone has worked and earned for 50 years their chances of having accumulated enough to have a nice house and pension are a lot higher than those of your average 30 year old.  Comparing the material circumstances of the old and young who currently live in the same country, and concluding that the young are disadvantaged, is disingenuous.  The comparison should be between what the ones who are old now had when they were young, and what the ones who are young now have.  The current young generation is better off, in my opinion.

Lastly ....  When people are young, most of them have a healthy body.  The older one gets, the harder it is to feel the joys that come from having a healthy body.  The senses dull or even disappear.  I lost my sense of smell about five years ago, and the world has become duller.  No more smelling of flowers, savouring subtle nuances of food, feeling comforted by the smells that go with favourite friends and relations.  And no more avoiding spoilt foods - I have a lot more food poisoning now than when I was able to smell things.  The same goes for the other senses, of course, and the rest of the body - what was easy and natural when one was young, because increasingly an effort and a chore as one ages.

To make up for this declining body, one has to spend money.  In my case, I throw away a lot of food that is probably perfectly alright, because I cannot detect whether or not it is safe to eat.  

When your senses dull. live becomes duller, and you have to turn up the volume, to still get some joy of it.  That is why people need more money when they grow older.

And as aging accelerates, there are medical and mobility issues, and grieving for one's ailing body is overshadowed by mourning the loss of one's relatives and friends, who drop off the perch, one by one.

Being poor is OK when you are young and healthy - it certainly was for me.  But being poor when you are old and decrepit is not OK.

I appreciate that most of the young folk I know appreciate this.

I am not, by the way, complaining - growing older is a heck of a lot better than the alternative!

Journal of the Plague Year 15 - Photos of Breakfasts Past

The High Street on a Sunday morning, before all the tourists have descended upon it

Every Sunday morning, other social engagements permitting, I meet my good friend A. at some likely eateria for a gossip & forkful.  A. is an old colleague from my university days, and since she shares my love for hanging out endlessly in cafes while discussing the events of the day, meeting up for breakfast has become a dear habit for us over the last ten years or so.

I like to arrive a little early, so get a chance to glance at the papers - always good to be up-to-date when having a gossip with A.!  She quite often pips me at the post and gets there first - but she doesn't read the papers!  She gets her news from more reliable sources, like one of her numerous friends & acquaintances or even the serving staff.  A. makes friends easily, and invites confidences, and is an excellent source of reliable gossip.  My newspaper gleanings come a poor second in our discussions, but she has a generous spirit and doesn't hold it against me that I am short on university gossip and long on news!

Those breakfast mornings are one of the things I really miss during these cooped-up days at home, and so I was particularly cheered when I discovered some photos I took of Oxford and our then breakfast hang out.  We have moved on since, because this one has become so infested with tourists that locals don't get a look in anymore, but I thought you might enjoy the photos.

Below is the photographic evidence of a typical Sunday morning in Oxford, rainy and gloomy and full of gossip and food!

All Souls College, that has no students and a desirable location right next to church St Mary the Virgin

St Mary the Virgin, official University Church; used to house the library

"Ich halt' es mit dem Gockelhahn" - identify the quote!

And there it is again - the tree in front is a magnolia, which blooms splendidly for a week or two in Spring.

This Buddleia came uninvited, as usual, but blooms for 9 months of the year and never fails to cheer me

Catte Street - between All Souls and St Mary.  Further down to the left is the entrance to St Mary's crypt

View from entrance to the crypt - Radcliffe Camera overlooms the garden

The crypt garden serves as an outdoor cafe annex, and can be very nice in the sunshine.  Notice the tourist group in the background?  This is at 08:30 in the morning.  Four hours later there will be more tourists than landscape.

Entrance to the crypt

Crypt garden, different angle

Inside the crypt

Ditto

Journal of the Plague Year 14 - Daydreams of a Realist

I can't believe I have not posted for 9 days!

It is this strange timeless existence we currently live, where hour blends into hour, and day into day, until it all becomes a blur and time loses all meaning.

I have become incredibly laid back, too.  Yesterday, for example, I was watching a Sherlock Holmes movie on Youtube, and instead of pausing it when the news came on at 22:00 I went right on watching the movie  Yes, you read this right.  Me, a news-addict if ever there was one, just shrugged my shoulders and remained in the 1940s.  After all, what is on the news these days?  Dead people, people who disobey the self isolation rules - ie future dead people.  I care no more.

On the other hand, the arrival of a book last week caused a considerable stir in the DB Dominion.

A long longtime ago, and far far away, there was in the city of Portland, in the state of Oregon, an amazing bookshop called Powell's.  Nowadays of course everyone knows about Powell's, City of Books, biggest bookstore in the galaxy.  But back then it was just a great bookstore downtown Portland, and I visited it as often as finances permitted.  I was then the sort of person who, when faced with a choice between having dinner and buying a book, always chose hunger and erudition.  Kept me thin, too!

I had a little routine back then.  I would arrive at Powell's just before lunch time, when everyone else left the store to re-dedicate themselves to the vulgar pleasures of the restaurant trade - yes, vulgar, and please don't interrupt!  To repeat, I would enter the emptying shop and first go to the cookery section.  Let me tell you, they had a huge cookery section!  I couldn't afford any of the books, of course, them being new and all.  And even if I could have afforded them, I certainly could not have afforded to buy the ingredients expensive cookery books demand!  I did buy a book there once, called "How to eat well on a dollar a day and live to talk about it", and it was a wowzer!  Written by a local student and well worth the 50 cents it cost me.

After the cookery section I would scout out the humour section, where I occasionally managed to unearth a cheap and cheerful pamphlet - "A Guide for Indoor Birdwatchers" comes to mind.  I particularly liked the chapter on How to get rid of him - 'him' referred to a husband.  I was unhappily married at the time, and always eager to pick up helpful hints.  Unfortunately I didn't own a revolver, so had to get a divorce instead - much less dramatic, of course.  The 'indirect method' describes how you shoot over your shoulder using a mirror - wonderful stuff!

After that I would meander into the tall dusty stacks somewhere in the Bowels of Powell's and immerse myself in the foreign language section.  What, I hear you cry, no books on science, on social science, on Bellestristic?  Belletristic is bunk, and the other stuff I could get for free from the university library - and what did I say about being interrupted?  Anyway, science books are out of date as soon as they are published, so I very rarely bought them back then.  I occasionally buy them nowadays, because I am too lazy to get them from the public library (plus their more popular books smell funny!), and the Bodleyan isn't a lending library.

Anyway.  So one days I was perusing the second hand foreign language section of Powell's - why the second hand foreign language section?  Well, firstly because there weren't any new foreign books available in Portland in those days (you couldn't even buy Der Spiegel at the newsagents!), except those irritatingly educational ones (Goethe, Einstein, Zuckmayer) that no one in their right mind reads, except to impress their colleagues - what do you mean, you actually like the German classics?  Stop interrupting me, who is telling this story, you or I?

Where was I?  Oh yes, I was nosing around in the foreign language section of Powell's, sub-section German.  I tended to buy the old ones, because they were usually dirt cheap.  Because, and I will tell you this because it is still true and no one else will ever tell you this, basically because they either don't know (if they aren't German) or won't tell because they want to continue to benefit from the situation (if they are German), because - Fraktur.  Fraktur is the name of the old German script that was used prior to WWII.  It became associated with the Nazis, so was abandoned after WWII.

Because Fraktur is different from the regular script used nowadays (Latin), people take one look at it and move on to another book.  The fact is, it is very simple to read Fraktur. I taught myself when I was small, just by reading the old books I found in my parent's book cupboard, so don't let it stop you from buying a book that interests you.  But because so few people can read Fraktur, the books are usually very cheap.  And back in those days, if a book was cheap I would buy it!

The book that arrived last week was called "Tagtraeume eines Realisten" - Daydreams of a realist,from the early 20th century.  I read it and was utterly fascinated.  So fascinated that I talked about it to someone from Austria, who could read Fraktur, and lend it to her.  And that horrible, despicable, utterly repugnant individual ran off with the book!!!!!!!  May she die a thousand deaths, and suffer even more after that - there is no punishment too great for a book thief.  I do exempt from this the impoverished book lover who is so devoted to a choice volume that s/he steals it from a library - that is not theft, but self defense.

So there I was without my favourite book.  I suffered, I agonised, I tried to buy another copy.  And sadly, no other copy was to be had, even in the greatest book shop in the Galaxy.  The pain grew duller over time, but never really left me.

Back in Europe I continued my search, not helped by my inability to remember the name of the author - I have a terrible memory for names.  I even got my niece, who works in a book shop and is a professional book buyer, to search for the elusive volume, but she, too, drew nothing but blanks.

I brooded over this for decades.  Why couldn't I find the book?  Had it been such a small edition that only a few hundred books had ever been printed, which then all perished in the fires of WWII?  Were all owners so attached to their copies that they refused to let them go, and insisted to be buried with them instead of leaving them to their heirs, who could flog them to the nearest antiquarian book seller?  Or, and this possibility had a morbid fascination for me, had all the copies been eaten by bookworms, attracted by the cheap type of paper that was often used for books in the harsh years after WWI?

A few weeks ago, working short hours, and limited in my activities to the sphere of the Little House, my under-occupied mind went into overdrive.  I was sitting right here, where I am sitting now, in front of my laptop, when inspiration struck - I translated the title into English and began to search for it.

Blank after blank after blank - I found nothing, nada, zero, rien du tout.

But ....

When I repeated the search again, I mis-typed 'daydream'.  It was late, you understand, and I was exhausted and aggravated.  This can happen, even to the best of us - like me.

The search engine, unable to make sense of the word I had types, suggested alternatives - and one alternative was 'fantasies'.  Click clack ping pong dibbedy-dong went my little grey cells, and then, fuelled by an intellectual arrogance rarely experienced - by me, anyway - I typed "Phantasien eines Realisten" - and hit pay dirt!

Yes, dear readers, I had forgotten not only the name of the author, but also the title of the book!

The book, it turned out, was not all that rare.  It had been written by Josef Popper-Lynkeus, an Austrian writer, engineer, and inventor, and uncle of Karl Popper, the philosopher.  He was born in 1838 and died in 1921.  He was also a social reformer - Wikipedia has this to say about it:

Popper-Lynkeus designed his own social system, which ensures that all individuals are provided with goods of primary necessity, and explains it in a series of works beginning from The Right to Live and the Duty to Die (1878) and ending with The Universal Civil Service as a Solution of a Social Problem (1912).

According to Popper-Lynkeus, society has a duty to provide its members with goods of prime necessity – food, clothes, and housing – and also with the services of prime necessity – public health care, upbringing, and education. However, every healthy society member in the framework of labor service would participate in activities that do not require higher or secondary special education and that are related to the creation of material foundations of national economy (e.g. mining, forest exploitation, farm work, construction work). He or she would also be engaged in the manufacturing of goods and providing basic services.

etc etc

Admirable sentiments, I am sure you will agree, and while I knew nothing about Popper-Lynkeus at all when I read his book Fantasies of a Realist, I am pleased to discover that I had not wasted my admiration on someone unworthy.

And the best thing?

I can now use the title Daydreams of a Realist for my own writings, without anyone accusing me of intellectual theft!

Thanks for not interrupting!

Journal of the Plague Years 13 - Photos of the past - Paris

Twin & friends, in front of the museum's copy of the Statue of Liberty

Museum of Arts and Crafts in Paris - Musée des arts et métie

In the last year I didn't write many blog posts, on account of being ill and exhausted.  That doesn't mean I didn't do anything - I did!

Now that I have more time, and am confined to the Little House, I can re-visit some of these 'doings' and post the photos I made back then, but never posted.

Up first is the last visit to Paris last November.  I went with my dear Twin & Triplet to see the As, and we had a great time, as always.  We had wanted to go to the Museum of Arts and Crafts for a long time, and since the weather was not too nice this was the perfect day for it.

In addition to the museum we also did the usual wandering around Paris, lunching, Teaing, and so forth, ending up at Angelina's again, I seem to recall.

Note to the photos - my camera isn't good indoors, and flashes are not allowed in the museum, so I know they aren't great.  No reflection on the museum, which is!

The museum contains all sorts of examples and even prototypes of early inventions, anything from telephones to spinning and weaving equipment, and is totally fascinating.  And sorry, but I don't even remember what most of the machines depicted in the photos are!

https://www.arts-et-metiers.net/musee/visitor-information

Reading the information

 

Angelina's - old photo.

Angelina earlier blog post

Journal of the Plague Year 12 - It is lovely out there!

I have four window boxes in front of my house

I try to take a little walk every day - it is such an antidote to being cooped up at home!

I tried to take some photos, but experienced battery issues very soon, so you will have to make do with these few.  The weather was overcast, not ideal, especially for taking photos.  But still, better than nothing!

Herbish window box - very handy for salads

I do love blue flowers!

Lest you think someone had robbed the contents of my window box - I did it myself.  I needed the thyme for an indoor herb garden, and shall pop a miniature rose into this vacated spot.  Looks a bit odd, but who cares these days of no visitors!

Just around the corner they are still flying the flag.  I live  in a very sensible neighbourhood.  Not upmarket, but full of intellectuals!  Perfect for me. 

There are several parks close by, and this one still had a flowering cherries.  The others had all blossomed themselves out in January, but this one is still going strong.

No, I didn't take the two photos above today, it was too overcast.  But the flowers were there, as beautiful and cheery as ever!  I take great joy in the thought that when Nature has finally finished us off and humanity has become extinct, there will still be flowers, basking in the sunshine, visited by bees.

Journal of the Plague Year 11 - Office Tea Party

Make sure you have a little plate for your sandwiches!

This afternoon the office had scheduled a tea party in honour of a colleague who is having a maternity break.  A virtual tea party!

Now I am a massive fan of tea parties.  Tea parties are possibly my favourite among parties - especially the kind that take place in the better sort of hotel and come with all the necessary accoutrements.

Unfortunately I lack the needed moolah to have tea parties in such expensive places very often, and also the patience to book them three years in advance, as seems necessary to secure a slot these days.

I have to admit, I feel insulted if I have to book slots.  If I can't swan into the place of High Tea Snobbery at any day and time I feel like it, winking at the doorman while advancing towards my favourite table with the determination of a well-trained panzer division, I go into a huff and depart in high dudgeon, never to return.

As a newly opened eateria in Oxford, called The Ivy, recently found out to their cost.  They actually had the temerity to install a little man at the entrance, who stopped potential customers, and then insisted on showing them to whatever table he considered appropriate for them!  I didn't like the one I was shown, asked for a different one, was rejected - and left immediately with a haughty look on my face. Honestly, who do they think they are?

Nowadays most tea places cater to the tourist trade, and although I find most tourists relatively easy to subdue (most are noisy and in a hurry, which is detrimental to enjoying a proper tea), it is nevertheless unpleasant to have to do so.  And given the prices such establishments charge these days, I have regretfully given up frequenting them overmuch.

Instead I have retreated to my home, where I now celebrate Afternoon Tea most days, provided I am there at or around 17:00.  Usually I do this in the Parlour, which receives the afternoon sun and is very pleasantly furnished, and ideal for that sort of thing.

However, since the office tea party was virtual, I remained upstairs in my home office, which has the  large screen and headphones that are so very necessary for a proper office tea party.

I prepared the sandwiches and laid the little table in my office during my lunch break, so all I had to do before the event started was to brew the tea.

Punctually at 15:00 the party started - I was dead excited!

It was very jolly and we all enjoyed it immensely, although I have to admit I was just the teeniest bit disappointed by the plebeian understanding of 'tea party' my colleagues exhibited.  You know what I mean, mugs and things .....

Nevertheless I can wholeheartedly recommend office tea parties, and hope you will all indulge in them as often as possible during this trying lock-down period.  Do make sure you use your best silver and china, though.

Keep the tea table away from your work desk, to avoid spillages

A small embroidered table or tray cloth, and a cheerful china pattern, always improve the tea table 

Two different types of sandwich, and at least one type of fruit or vegetable, make for an interesting and healthy Afternoon Tea.  Today I had salami and egg-salad sandwiches, and strawberries.  Also a few biscuits, of course.  I tend not to have scones, or cake, though do occasionally have some seed cake. There is no need for too much stodge!

Do invest in a little silver-plated cake stand - it enables you to have all your food in a small space, and adds an air of gracious refinement to your tea table.  Afternoon Tea is an elegant meal, and should be celebrated, rather than scoffed.

Journal of the Plague Year 10 - The Comfort of Small Things

One of the comforts of being confined to the house is that I can take the time to awake slowly, and to linger over my early morning tea.

Instead of jumping out of bed on a Sunday morning at 08:00, preparing to meet up with my old friend Anne in a breakfast-serving restaurant, I dreamily awake to the light of my newly acquired Teasmade and the wireless.

Aside from serving freshly brewed tea, the Teasmade also provides a mellow, gentle wake-up light.  Not the harsh, clinical, attention-grabbing white light that a modern appliance has, and that is so detrimental to the gradual adjustment of the mind to a state of alertness.

Once sufficiently awake to stumble to the Teasmade to snatch the teapot and return to the warm duvet, I can pour myself a cup with only one arm outside of the duvet - because in wise anticipation of the early morning routine, I prepared a little tray the night before beside my bed.

While slowly sipping my tea, my gaze moves around the room.  I am an unashamed materialist, and take great joy in looking at beautiful things, advantageously placed.  So the view from my pillow, the things I see first thing in the morning, matters a great deal to me, and I have taken some pains to insure that the view is pleasant and comforting.

The wall opposite my pillow is decorated with items that evoke happy memories of people and places.  The curtains, Compton by William Morris, filter the morning sun into a warm subdued light. I tend to draw them when fetching the teapot, just so I can look at the stained glass hanging pictures there - especially the daffodil one always makes me smile.

I wish I had one of a dandelion, which is my favourite flower, but well, one can't have everything. You know the sort of dandelion I mean?  Not the clock artists are so fond of depicting!  No, the dandelion I love is in full flower, sunshine yellow, set off by its dark green leaves, surrounded by the blades of a meadow, in various lighter shades of green.  What could be more beautiful?  I would give such a stained glass picture to everyone I know, if they existed and I had the money.

Once snuggled back under the cover, my eyes linger on the tea cup.  When the sale of Teasmades was at its height, and millions were sold every year, one could have the luxury option, which included a pair of Royal Albert cups.  The cups were in a light blue pattern, not particularly attractive, so I decided to use my Old Country Roses instead.  I started out using my regular cups, but got tired of the constant refills - you really can't fit a lot of tea into one of those!  So I invested in a breakfast cup in the same pattern. Hard to come by, but oh so worth it!  The last thing you want when hiding under a warm duvet is having to expose your right arm more than necessary to do a refill!

On the cup's saucer rests a silver-plated spoon, of the pattern my parents had.  I recently came across a set of spoons and cake forks in that pattern, and since I didn't have any cake forks in Hanoverian Rat-tail, my regular silver flatware, I bought the set.  Now one spoon always sits on my early morning tea cup, and I never fail to admire it, and think of my Mother who died so long ago.

After the first cup - my Teasmade produces two breakfast sized cups - my gaze wanders further afield.  I admire again the clock I inherited when my Father died.  Four weeks after the funeral I was downstairs making myself a cup of tea - this was before my halcyon days of Teasmade luxury had arrived - and I heard an almightly crash.  I rushed upstairs, and found that the clock had fallen from the wall and crashed to the floor, a fall of six feet.  That day would have been my Father's 84th birthday - I refuse to speculate on the spiritual significance of this!

Requesting the help of some local repair experts I was quoted such ludicrous sums that I decided to fix the clock myself as best I could.  I had never done that before, but to my great surprise I somehow managed it.  I bought spare parts, bent dented pieces back into shape, and a certain amount of glue was judiciously applied.  That was more than five years ago, and I am happy to report that the clock still works.  It has become a little peculiar, to be sure - for example it always chimes one bong less that it should for the hour - but I am not bothered.  It works, and I can once more hear the sound that accompanied my childhood.

There are other favourites, of course, but I am loathe to bother my readers with reminiscences that are of value only to myself.  I have annotated the pictures below, to give a little flavour of them.

The point of this blog post is, try to arrange your life as pleasantly as you can possibly contrive, so that from first thing in the morning to last thing at night you are surrounded by beauty and lovely mementos.

At times when you don't have access to other humans to provide comfort and happiness, you can at least evoke the pleasant memories of the past.

Happy Sunday!

View when I wake up

Right above my head

Pulling back the bed curtain a little

....and a little more

First cup of tea of the day

The Teasmade casts a mellow light - my camera isn't good at depicting mellow lights, so I leave the effect to your imagination.  Take my word for it, it is comforting and soothing.  There is an alarm as well, but the sound is so industrial that I hardly ever use.  How can the designers who installed such a lovely light used such a horrific alarm noise?

The parental clock, still going strong

My favourite painting, which I painted after my Mother died. The white blob in the middle of the sea is a bit of missing paint, if the oil paints I stored in my attic haven't dried up I shall repair it soon. 

Biscuit barrel on top of a handkerchief box.  Both come in very handy at times!

Photoprint of la Bourboule, bought by an American soldier, playing tourist in France after WWI.  He returned to the Midwest with it, and after he died I found it on Ebay.  It shows the hotel I always stay in!!!  The glider on top is my addition.

An old shaving mirror - the ledge folds up for easy transport.  The dove is carved from myrtlewood, which is unique to Oregon and North California.  In the mirror I can see a corner of a painting my Father gave me, a copy of Spitzweg's Der Buecherwurm.  It depicts a man standing on a ladder in front of floor to ceiling book shelves - Heaven!

I have a little collection of books about gliders and La Bourboule.  The little wooden shrine contains the mortal remains of Eric, my lost tooth.  I hope he won't be joined by others any time soon!!!

Royal Albert Old Country Rose breakfast cup - isn't that a nice way to have the first cup in the morning?

The Spoon - beautifully elegant, yet simple - perfect.

The candle-holder is one of the few things I own that belonged to my paternal grandfather.

My JoJo.  I lost him when I was 17 in unfortunate circumstances, and looked for a replacement every since.  Finally, after 42 years of patiently searching for him the world over, I found him again.  To be sure this one is in much better condition, and still has his ears - I had ripped off the ones of the original JoJo early on while a toddler - but he is still a great comfort to me.  He illustrates that all things will come to you if you are prepared to be patient, and never stop looking.

The little bookcase that I bought to put the Teasmade on.  Notice the book by Hans Kueng?  My Mother read his books, and we had many a heated argument about them.  I found it in the only remaining Christian bookshop in Oxford.

Same bookcase, different shelf.  This one houses my Nesthaekchen collection, a very popular set of children's books from the 1920s onwards.  The author Else Ury ended up in a KZ.  I had a very interesting discussion with my Father about it when her biography came out.  The police officer who arrested her had asked for her autograph only a few years before.

The stained glass pictures in my bedroom window