Friday, March 28, 2008

Collections

I have been selling some bits and pieces to a dealer this morning, and it got me thinking about collections. My earliest and longest lasting one has been cows : it started with Staffordshire cow creamers and eventually extended to cows in absolutely any material. They are mostly pottery, but also brass, glass, wood, clay, gold, silver, and even wax!



But I now have so many that there is nothing like the pleasure in them that I had with the first two or three acquisitions, so hard come by because I had little money to spare - £3 I think I spent on my first one! I can remember so vividly the look of those cows on the high cornice round the large bed sitting room that I rented from friends in Maida Vale’s ‘Little Venice’; and I still feel the buzz I got from knowing I had sought them out and bought them, and had given them a home, in my first home on my own.

It was a marvellous Victorian room, big enough for two single beds, with built-in cupboards all along one wall, including a washstand space with marble slab which I used as my kitchen worktop. It had a huge bay window with a raised floor, so that it could have made a stage if I had wanted to perform something, and it overlooked the garden which had a beautiful magnolia tree in the centre of the lawn.

I remember one spring evening sitting at a table in the bay, eating an omelette and salad supper cooked on my gasring, and drinking wine with a man I thought I would marry, while we watched the magnolia glimmering in the falling dusk. Life was so good: I was living in the capital city with all its interest and excitement, I was supporting myself - well, up to a point, though I think my Pa paid me an allowance as well - I lived with people I cared about, I was in love ........... and I was collecting Staffordshire pottery cows!

Eheu fugit irreparabile tempus !
[This is my oh-so-kitch candle-wax cow figure!]

4 comments:

Maggie May said...

That was a lovely post! I knew someone else who collected those creamers, not sure if she still does though. Surely you will have to keep the ones with the profound memories that are attached to them?

I collected OWL ornaments till I got so many that they began to get me down. All that dusting!
Now I am more interested in Babushka dolls & Kokeshi dolls (Japanese wooden dolls like the one I use for my blog) Still need dusting!

Lucy said...

That was a beautiful one! Momentarily I was there eating omelette and drinking wine and lookin out at the magnolia. So sweet and clear...

I like the wax cow!

Pete said...

Judith

I'm with Lucy on that one, a beautiful post

G in Berlin said...

I have been reading your blog in the last few days, trying to go back and get an impression of you (I came here through a comment you left on Code Name Nora- who I think really is a writer(or someone trying to be one), not a person.)I love your writing and what you are doing and I have given the link to my mom. I wish she would blog like you, and put down stories and life incidents to share with her kids and grandkids.