Making Room and Turning out the Attic

I've been forced into it.   Clearing out, I mean.  I'm trying to find room for all the treasures from my mum's house but with the best will in the world I can't keep them all and charity always seem overburdened - in fact,  I  think they probably throw most of their donations away. I can't blame them but I'm not going to drag my stuff down there just to have it chucked into someone else's bin.

Luckily, Freecycle came to the rescue.

In case you haven't heard of Freecycle, it's a system whereby you advertise things you want to give away, and other people come and collect them. No money changes hands, so it is best for things that are slightly damaged, or fragile, or quirky, and which your friends can't find room for.   I like the idea of recycling treasures, and some of the stuff I have been giving away is really sweet.

This elegant little teapot has a cracked repaired lid but I'm so glad someone wanted it.

I would have kept this small length of cheerful seaside-y fabric, if I was into sewing clothes

On the other hand, I was glad to say bye-bye to this string puppet - clowns give me the creeps and I never liked string puppets even as a child.  Now, though, it has a loving home.

I've also been turning out my own attic and finding things I'd forgotten I had. Like an album I bought for 50p off a group of nuns in a car boot sale once. (Why nuns? I don't know!).  The album was an illustrated diary of one woman's visit to France and Germany just after the end of World War 1. Typed with a blue ribbon on flimsy paper, stuck into the big grey album and illustrated with her own photos, it's a unique account. I don't know who wrote it, but she was obviously  in the welfare services, and something of a VIP.    

Although the war had just finished, her description of the battlefield devastation was chilling, with miles of rusting barbed wire and mud  - she noted that the dead soldiers had been gathered up and were in certain areas marked with crosses, although they were not properly buried.

Life was not comfortable for anyone, and although she was given a motor car to go around in, it kept going wrong.  She visited Cologne where people were worried about the perceived threat from Rosa Luxemburg's Spartacus League.  She went to France and  noted how she had to climb over heaps of rubble to get photos of the devastation in France. Here is a corner of Ypres cathedral, with a British soldier in the doorway.

She photographed a market with women trudging through the ruins with their shopping baskets, and she was full of admiration for the people who were starting to recreate their towns and villages from literally almost nothing, and with nothing.

As indeed they did.   This is the same bit of Ypres Cathedral,  95 years later:

Reading this fascinating and disturbing account (which I had really almost forgotten) gave me an idea for a writing project, which is what I'm working on right now.

I've been doing some other things. Went to the V&A with my arty cousin Lorna.  We loved  the shadows cast by the redundant screen from Hereford Cathedral. Here is just a little part of this masterpiece of Victorian cast iron - if you go to the V&A, take a look - the screen towers just above the main entrance.

The museum is apparently renovating the Cast Court, one of my favourite rooms. It's vast and very tall and it holds life sized plaster casts of architectural features and famous statues. Here you see Michelangelo's "David" eyeballing the guy who is photographing him.

And I had a nice evening at a magic-lantern gig at the Green Note in Camden which is  a cafe bar with great food and  unusual and interesting music

And saw some wonderful GOATS in the centre of the city (I'll write more about that soon)

Now, I need to get rid of the bug which is still plaguing me. I think I'm on the mend. I have got my voice back, and my system is not so full of sticky gunge as it was. But I am so very tired. I went to the gym for a short, mild work out and I have felt utterly shattered for the rest of the day.