Thursday 21 July 2011

explore - day four Perfection

Christmas dinner at my table
What do I have in my life that I consider perfect enough not to want to change it? That's a hard question. Not because I can't think of a single thing, but because there are so many things that I wouldn't want to change, and there is always that little niggle at the back of your mind that if you did change something it might not be as good as what you have now.
So how do I narrow down the choices? I won't talk about people because you can't "have" people in the sense of owning them they have to be with you because they want to be. Could it be the three chickens I have in my tiny back yard? They are just about perfect as chickens go. They are quirky and funny and they talk to me when I feed them and clean out their house.
What about my table? My father made it in 1975. He had bought the roof beams of the old wireworks in Cwmbran because they were Oregon Pine. He had some of the timber cut into planks that were three inches thick and some of it cut into 8x8 lengths. My table is 6feet 11 inches long and 2 feet 11 inches wide - that's just like my Dad, to make it almost 7 feet by 3. He carved the date and his name into the underside of the table top so if it wasn't quite so heavy it would be the one object I would try to save from a fire. He didn't use nails or screws just dowels and glue.  So my perfect object will be my table.

As an after thought here, because the table is so heavy I wouldn't even attempt to rescue it. I have a far more important object to rescue. The file with all the negatives of our photographs. These go back to before I was born. The folder is kept on the bookshelf closest to the front door and if we ever do have a fire that is what I will try to save. Since we went digital I have my photographs stored in two different places online but those negatives, well, what can I say.

1 comment:

Mary B said...

What a lovely thing to want to preserve even though you couldn't move it. and what a good idea to keep the precious memories where they can be saved.