It was particularly annoying that the water main burst on Saturday, because I had my sister and her boyfriend visiting for the weekend. They had been to Stratford to see a play for P’s birthday, and were going home via an overnight stop with me. It was my birthday towards the end of May, so they also took the opportunity of delivering my birthday presents.
I have an absolute hang-up about buying tea-towels. Pretty much all of mine have been gifts, either ones that Christopher got from his mother, or a load I was given by my grandmother. But they are now getting rather elderly, and far too many have large holes in them, I think from being burned by the boiler flue in the airing cupboard, so they are pretty useless for drying up. So when my mother asked what I wanted for my birthday, I requested a stock of new tea-towels, foolishly adding that I didn’t mind how tasteless they were. Well, that was asking for it, as I now have a selection of tea-towels, most of them actually pretty tasteful, but also two QEII Diamond Jubilee tea-towels! Mind you, even they are more tasteful than one of my old stock which is a very poor likeness of Charles and Di from their Royal Wedding thirty-odd years ago!
J and P also brought their birthday present for me, which J has been teasing me about for weeks, saying that it was too big and heavy for me to take back on the train, that some assembly was required, that it was something of a “conversation piece”, and that I’d never guess what it was. On arrival, they disappeared into my garage to assemble it, then called me in to take a look. Here’s a picture which P took of it – thanks P!.
Easter Island statue plant-pot
As you can see, it is a plant-pot in the shape of a moai, an Easter Island Statue. The reference is to the fact that Christopher and I spent a long weekend on Easter Island for my 40th birthday. That was only five years ago – such a lot has happened in the interim….. The plant in the top forming his hair is a heather, which should bear red flowers and turn reddish in the autumn – which is appropriate because some of the original moai had red volcanic-rock hats or top-knots. I decided it should sit on my front lawn, where I can see it from the window-seat in the living-room, and where it can keep an eye on all the visitors to the house.
