A friend brought me this cotton boll from Alabama. I think it is very beautiful though I rather doubt I would have thought so if I had to pick cotton. I digresss.
On Saturday we were helping with a stall at a flea market and I was looking round our spare apartment for stuff to get rid of.
This character, Mr Samuel Worsley, who has lived in my desk for some years, had this miniature done in 1821 . He seems to have lived in Orwell in Suffolk and looks a little like Wordsworth.
He was almost certainly married to poor Sarah ( above) who died aged 55 years. Where he looks bland beyond bland, she seems rather pinched and miserable. I cannot imagine how they came into my mother's possession unless they were relatives of some distant sort. However, I do not feel I can ditch them to the tender mercies of people who will feel even less connection to them than I do.
Item: two slightly sentimentally sweet French prints of children playing with animals. Kate Greenaway meets toile, much beloved by my grandmother.
I can't ditch those either.