GARDEN PLATE:

This would be my cheapest plate & the story behind it would be the longest to tell. I will try & give you a shortened version ! It was purchased in a dirty, dusty souk in Aleppo, Syria during a fabulous, three month overland bus trip with Sundowners, from Kathmandu to London in 1989. Because of the luggage problem, I only bought 3 blue & white plates on the entire trip. One, with flowers on, from a roadside stall in Turkey which hangs on this wall, & the other from the old quarters in Jerusalem. Because we'd spent five nights there & it was (to my mind) the absolute pinnacle of the trip, I was mortified one morning, after heavy wind, to find it smashed on the concrete tub. I could have cried. I've glued it together but it doesn't look very good & is much too fragile to hang outside. I was told the symbol on this plate means "IN GOD WE TRUST", but I stand to be corrected. There were so many highlights on this trip - I could write a book - in fact I did, 478 pages, had it published privately, & only 200 copies. Random House, bless them, picked it up & ran with it, but cut out all travel !!!