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Friday 28 May 2010

Buried Treasure...


And so here we are, at Friday once more...

Happy Friday, friends!

I'm holding back on the story of the Edwardian dressing table to tell you... We collected it last weekend from the crammed and cramped antique emporium that I've driven past for years without ever going inside... Parking in that town is such a torment, and getting anywhere near the ancient shop is like squeezing stubborn spots...

Do you remember, when I mentioned the terrible time we'd had getting Grizz safely off to his music performance exam a few weeks back? And I said that we'd finally slipped away for about half an hour in the car, to get ourselves away from standing stressfully beside the church hall where the exam was being recorded for the distant examiner, during which time there had been a slight road accident and a young man, Grizz's age, perhaps younger, was a little hurt, thankfully not badly.

But driving back down that road, GJ and I believed, for several horrifying moments, that it was Grizz who'd been injured... And I stepped from the car, for GJ could get no nearer for Police and ambulance shrieking sirens, and walked nonchalantly and non-rubber-neckingly, past the accident, clocking a young man sitting by the church wall, nursing his knee, his friends looking on, the Police taking statements from witnesses... I breathed a long sigh of relief and murmured a little prayer to my goddess Wiki for his safe deliverance once more...

And, well, do you know where I'd been??! I'd just handed over filthy lucre for an Edwardian dressing table that I could scarcely see in the shop, it was so hidden underneath, and behind, piles of accumulated tat and torment. Decades of just stuff had been piled into two large rooms in said antique emporium.

Curio cabinets, writing desks, Arts and Crafts dining chairs, crystal chandeliers, sheet-music, books, glass, china, including Maling. It was a veritable cornucopia of tat and trash, trinkets and treasures...

And, squeezing through the cramped shop, between chest-height furniture, trying not to knock anything of value over with my Wide Load behind, or my burgeoning Karina Hesketh handbag, I glimpsed, over the back of a bureau, a little piece of furniture, the like of which I've been wanting to claim for many years.

A satinwood dressing table from the Turn of the Century, shandy pale, two drawers, a tiny jewellery drawer, feet on rolling castors, a detachable mirror, still sparkling as when first new, and in the wooden frame of the mirror, a little sprig of foliage engraved...

The shop owner, who had appeared from the back rooms, presumably where he lives, proffered the price, and I thought, 'I cannot let this go, this is such a bargain...' He spoke of how he'd had it in his home here for ages, and thought it would sell quickly to someone who wanted to paint it white, shabby chic, so to speak...

'I like wood', I countered meekly...

He spoke of it needing sanding and waxing. I agreed.

'Do you know anyone who can do that', I asked?

'Well, it'll be an incentive, won't it', he said, 'to get it out of the shop and get going with all the rest of the stuff', and he took in with his glance the cluttered room which would take a sane and fit person twenty years to clear, and he agreed to do the job himself for a small additional Note of the Realm...

We shook hands.

He wrote my real name and number in his big black book.

And GJ, my beau, went through such a palaver to squeeze it into our car last weekend. He ended up collapsing the back seats of his company car to get it in. Then he found he'd probably broken the seats, as they're not supposed to be collapsible at all... Oh dear!

Still, I have my treasure. And I intend to spend hours before it, sitting in a pale cream chiffon camisole and oyster silk chemise, glancing at my reflection in the mirror, examining my skin for faults. Applying Cold Cream, and combing my long blonde hair one hundred times each night with an ivory-backed mirror, a la Rebecca...

I think not!

It'll gather dust in a corner of my bedroom, usurping my aunt's Thirties' dark Utility blanket chest.

But this dressing table is mine; It's old like me, it's scuffed and a little scarred, but it speaks of another life, and even more loves and tales of old...

It is my treasure.

3 comments:

Sueann said...

Congrats on acquiring such a treasure. I am also glad that Grizz was not hurt! Whew!
Hugs
SueAnn

Unknown said...

A treasure indeed, Fhina. Hope it brings you many happy hours of gazing!

Jinksy said...

Sounds like a great find. I love 'stuff' that screams stories at you!

Something I wrote earlier...

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