Thank you all so much for the lovely comments, here and on Instagram, on my previous post. It’s lovely to come back to.
Up in the attic in a little corner stands my cabinet of curiosities. I’m not a hoarder and I don’t really like too much knick knacks and all the knick knacks I own are behind doors or behind glass, as I don’t like all the dusting.
This cabinet belonged to my mother and used to be dark wood, then blue and now white. She kept all her seashells in it but when she moved back to Suriname she decided not to move all the shells with her.
These are all heirlooms and keepsakes.
- a super mini painting I bought on my first ever blogger meet up in 2005 when I met Kathleen, Leslie, Hope and Jess in New York City.
- my father’s harmonica. He was a super gifted harmonica player and I actually remember buying this particular one (and also his last one before he passed away) with him when I was a little girl. I loved him extra much when he played on it. He used his whole body to play that little instrument and he seemed so happy.
- an antique clock Bo and I picked up at an antique market in the UK. You have to keep winding it up in order for it to work. We promised each other to do that every night before we went to bed. We kept to that promise at least one month and now it just stands still at half two.
- a very rare photo of my father on our last holiday as a family together in former Yugoslavia. He was always the one taking photo’s every single minute of the day. If my father would be still alive, he should’ve been 87, I know for sure that he would be on Instagram!
- a carved box that always stood on my mother’s bedside table. She wanted to throw it out when she moved but I couldn’t part with it. It smells incredibly odd when one opens it but it’s exact the same smell as it always had. So when I want to smell my parents I open that box.
- a piece of Christmas wrapping paper that my buddies Glenn and Russell used as a gift tag on a box of chocolate Roses they gave to me for Christmas 1995. It reads: “To Yvonne (Dutch chick*) Ta for all the fags** and beer and have a merry xmas, Glenn and Russ xxx”. It’s the best Christmas tag in the history of Christmas tags and I’ve been keeping it and finally framing it ever since 1995. We are still very good friends.
- the dried shield of my parents pet tortoise they had when they first lived together in Suriname.
*I used to live in the UK between 1994 and 1998
**fags are slang for cigarettes in the UK.
Do you keep things in cabinets or things in boxes? Would you also like to see how I make my time capsules?