Anna's Museum

There’s a house near where I live that used to be a shop. A few years ago Anna, daughter of the family who own it, started a display in the front window of things she came across that she wanted the world to enjoy as much as she did. She hung up a notice in the door 'Anna's Museum'. I'm remembering odd shaped stones & shells, dessicated small animals, some sand from a trip to Morocco, a horse shoe – with hoof still attached. Some objects were extraordinary, some odd, some sad, some disgusting.

Each was labelled in Anna’s meticulous italic script. That’s how you could guess she must have been about 8 or 9 years old. Quite a lot of people walk along that road and after a while people started posting their own contributions through the letterbox.
Then one day I went past and the window had emptied. I guessed she’d moved on to other things.
Her parents are artists and started displaying their own work – mainly sculptures composed of collections of curious objects, a lot of them from nature – they had a disturbing, Jan Svankmeyer quality to them, as if they’d animate.
I was walking home on that road tonight – in a hurry unfortunately, and on the other side – and saw this. From a distance it has an Anna feel to it.
I’m intending to make time to have a closer look at it tomorrow in daylight.
So, maybe tomorrow’s blip…