My christmas gift from the potter,
was having the summerhouse restored .
It achieved much more than it's previous glory.
Doors painted sky blue.
Windows freshly glossed white.
The roof clad with timber and emulsioned creamily white.
The walls clad and paintwashed with a soft summer blue like a washed out sky.
Things restored to the walls.
Abandonned items from the home, needing refuge.
A place for bits.
Important things like sun umbrellas and ladders
Beloved holiday truck.
Indian lampshades and Spanish posters of bull fighters,
who I could never bear to watch fight, but love the art they produce!
Bedraggled handy bags...lovely Madeiran embroidery.
And always the sun shines on us.
And empty bottles display their emptiness!
While under them hang papery rings of dried foliage from ancient celebrations.
With an even older stringy thing from the lakes holidays when "they" were very young indeed.
(they being the young ones from the potters house)
New covers on old chairs,
and old quilts underneath.
Chinese hats in case the global warming gets to us.
And ancient ice cream adverts to remind us of summer,
should we ever stray there in the winter.
Bar stools clad with flamingos.
And bedroom chairs with patchwork mended over and over.
Charity shop crotchet flung over the backs of them
with may I say, gay abandon!.
Children's paintings presented with much love and bedecked with indian fabric bunting.
Sydney's W.W.II Royal Navy "bins".
Handy for bird watching on lazy summer evenings.
Romanian wine bottles of ferocious strength...giggle.
And a Holman Hunt lamp to light the way in the darkness.
Bunches of dried flowers...
........left behind from the first little business,
that the "Amelies House" girl started so long ago.
And always, as my mother said, some red to cheer the soul along the way.
Nothing wasted....
And a view to dream over,
with the cherry tree bursting into blossom.
Put your feet up on the footstool , potter,
take your ease and survey a job.....
...well done.
