Her Favourite Colour

Recently out of blogging action due to helping my mum get ready to sell her house. After my mum and stepfather Grump discovered their dream home recently and realised they would actually be moving, Grump remarked "well...argh....better go home and.......argh...cleanup then"- the understatement of the century!

This is a family home which brought up five children and nothing remotely sentimental was thrown out for 30 years. This is an excavation not a tidy up. 4 hired blue bins later and we need another one. Dont get me wrong its not dirty its just.....FULL.

In the past three days I have come across and parted ways with 5 children's entire back-catalogue of drawings, paintings, little clay sculptures, posters and posters of The Beatles, Adelaide band posters, my grandmother's archival posters, huge numbers of Grass Roots magazines, Christmas wrapping to be recycled, Christmas cards from three generations, teenage diaries, bits of stuff, little plastic toys and random sets of cards, jigsaw puzzles, newspaper articles, 5 sets of school books, and non-fiction books on goat farming and breeding Clydesdales, videos and more videos unlabeled eeek who knows what is on them! 5 different plastic letter openers all made at high school and then given to mum for Mother's Day- I never thought of that poor mum! and on and on and on......I feel sick, I am never buying anything again- I am taking those flower fairy lights and my new Christmas decorations back to Ikea for a refund tomorrow.

In the mess and confusion though there were a few amazing finds-
Grump's mother's birthday poem book with family tree information, births and deaths and dates, meticulously hand written information dating back to 1855.

Some very old family photos slipped inside Christmas cards- lucky I looked.

AND

an old sewing box which I carefully took home because the coloured spools of cotton are so gorgeous. I had always wondered what was actually in that strange box on top of the front room's bookshelf; the box with the soldier smiling. That box was unmoved since C and H's Grandma closed the lid for the last time. The cottons all carefully grouped into warm and cool colours; ruby red thread her obvious favourite, just inches from being used up; I wonder what she sewed with it? I took these photos outside to capture the time machine for H and C.

I was about to pack up when I lifted one of the containers within the box and found an envelope . It must have been hidden for a reason? There was a card inside..it looks machine printed and a bit like an advert..... but why is it in an envelope and why hide it?......how magical and mysterious!