Plates and Things

When we got married, it was the "done thing" to pick a design of dinner service and ask friends, family and wedding guests to contribute pieces to make up a set. There must have been a degree of co-ordination to ensure we didn't end up with six teapots and no cups, but I expect that was kept well out of my hands. In those days, we were "done thing" sort of people, or thought we were, or thought we ought to be. Perhaps our lives together since then have been an accumulation of halting steps away from the done thing, and searching for our thing. Children help, because sooner or later they ask why the thing is done that way, and there often isn't a good answer

I'm not sure what happened to the dinner service. I know it was used in the early days; I expect my washing up brought some of it to an early end. I think we stopped doing the sort of entertaining that required the formality of anything that matched anything else. We gradually collected things that meant something - so that using them added the seasoning and sweetening of happy memories and friendship and favourite places, and everything tastes better. I guess the dinner service slipped discreetly out of a back door at some point - possibly some of it is still doing good work in a student house somewhere; I hope so

So here are gifts from friends and family; mementos of their holidays and ours; Mrs M's own skill on a potter's wheel; a couple of pieces that comprised her annual bonus from her employer - nothing that need trouble HMRC; pieces made by family, friends and friends of friends. The cheese dish on the top left is an heirloom; never without a large piece of cheddar in it throughout my childhood; farming "lunch" was a cheddar sandwich and a mug (or a squash bottle, if it was field-work season) of cocoa, served at 11am - enough to keep you going until meat-and-veg dinner at 1pm.

The rack is attached to a straw-bale wall. There was a certain amount of tension when we first put it up and loaded it. Our builder had complete confidence in their hammered-in hazel pegs as fixing points; we spent a day or two checking for movement before we relaxed. It has now been there for 7 years or so. Our thing