Ma pipe!

The Great Gerolstein cleanout continues. Intermittently. Bit by bit. Wendy is doing the kitchen (soooo many appliances! Why do we have FIVE of everything …) and I have returned to my office, where the floor is covered with C19th theatrical playbills and costume designs and music and books …

Later…

The kitchen and the office are now slimmed and tidy. More or less. I have nothing left on the floor. Phew! Until the next time. Why the next time? Because I must try to sell all this stuff … or in some cases, give it away … or else, when I depart this earth, it may end up in a skip. New Zealand libraries/museums are only interested in Maori stuff. They haven’t got out of that fashionable phase. Other countries’s libraries want collections and items, but only for nothing. And I have found that donating things to museums and libraries is a thankless occupation. You are liable to find your donated items dumped in a sell-off fundraiser a few years later …

So I put it all away, and started dusting. I’m a bit wobbly on a stepladder nowadays, so the top shelves have got quite neglected. But when I got up there … ah! There it is! Great-grandpa’s Austrian pipe!

There were two. Brother John, I think, has the more impressive one. But I thought …  well, so many things are ‘missing’. You know, ‘whatever happened to grandma’s ..’. Oh, where are his pocket watches… found!

Well, that’s my achievement for this afternoon. Wendy’s mowed the paddocks. Now it’s time for a quiet and short evening. I’ll finish those top shelves tomorrow…