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Tuesday 18 May 2010

The long and the short of it, the thick and the thin...


Well, we've had two musical interludes, mes bloggy blackberries... Thank you for sticking with me through thick and thin, weft and weave, spick and span, tricks and treasures.

I'm in London this week for work, and I suspect I might get more of a sense of 'map or direction' for my current work from our new Government, presided over by smart Whitehall mandarins... I swear some of them are so young and wrinkle-free, they're like thirteen year olds with two brains!

I hope the sun is shining for you this week, mes bloggy Boleyn Girls... We need some warmth on our bones, some 'currant bun', do we not?

I'm rambling, je le sais - I know it.

I bought a trunk from the balmy E of the Bay last week. For Grizz. To enable him to fill it with needful things, for him to, (hopefully, fingers, toes, eyes and teeth crossed...), take off to University to read Geography and Environmental Sciences...

I am very proud of my tall son and what he has achieved. In spite of the fact that I now have more grey hair than blonde, and that I have to pay my hairdresser, Hannah, double for her troubles in covering it up... That I've got more furrowed lines than a Shar Pei, and that I do not do botox, or other artificial fillers.

Well, other than English cheese...

So, this trunk... It's now sitting like a stalled mini-roundabout in my living room. None of us can get around it...

With my short-sight, I could give a mole a run for his money...

So, you see when I looked at the picture of the grey aluminium, vintage trunk... With its scuffed blue and yellow cruise stickers --Telling of far flung travel from Southampton to Down Under in the Seventies on the Australis, perhaps this trunk was used by a family with one-way tickets for emigration to Aussie-Land -- I was transfixed.

From ma soeur, the Goddess Wiki:

" The SS America was an ocean liner built in 1940 for the United States Lines and designed by the noted naval architect William Francis Gibbs. She carried many names in the 54 years between her construction and her 1994 wrecking, as she served as theSS America (carrying this name three different times during her career), the USS West Point, the SS Australis, the SS Italis, the SS Noga, the SS Alferdoss, and the SS American Star. She served most notably in passenger service as the SS America, and as the Greek-flagged SS Australis for Chandris. In 1941, she carried two Nazi spies from the Duquesne Spy Ring in her crew: Erwin Wilhelm Siegler and Franz Joseph Stigler. Both men were charged by the FBI with espionage and sentenced to 10 years and 16 years' imprisonment, respectively".

Fascinating, non?! But the Australis's demise, somewhere off the Islas Canarias, is somewhat sad and poignant, falling into the sea, bit by bit, to provide hidey-holes for exotic fishies and sea-creatures...


So, anyway the trunk, and my myopia...

The trunk arrived. I was at the office. My husband, GJ, was home...

I hadn't told him I had bought a trunk for Grizz. I thought I might hide it somehow, as I do many things he doesn't need to know about... Sale bargains, frippery and floozerie, stuff for the house.

"Just how big did you think it was?!, he said...

Sitting in the car, I did what most anglers do, and spread my hands wide, in some proximation of the trunk's size, when glimpsed in a two by two inch photo...

"Fhina, it's stuck in the middle of the living room, you'll have to vault over it to get to bed! It''s ginormous..."

So it is.




6 comments:

Sueann said...

So the trunk is to actually carry your tall son to college?? Inside of it?? HA! Too funny!!
Hugs
SueAnn

Saz said...

love these old trunks....and their stories,hope he loves you for the kindness and thoughtfulness you show...god love you...

saz x

Unknown said...

Rest assured, Fhina, that whatever size the trunk may be, Grizz will be able to fill it! Enjoy London.

Suldog said...

Fascinating bit about the Australis, and thanks for posting the photos! I never even imagined a ship just falling apart in the water like that and being left to do so of its own devices. Very interesting.

Sniffles and Smiles said...

Oh, Fhina...you are such a personality that I just love anything you write here...Such a fascinating history of the Australis...and the truck you purchased sounds fab...Love, Janine XO

French Fancy... said...

Hello my lovely bloggy mate. You sound quite a bit chirpier this time around. Good.

xx

Something I wrote earlier...

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