Around my very comfortable family sized house, I see many items that I have carted with me from many other houses before this one – the china egg holder – shaped and painted very realistically like a black and white hen – it’s actually painted like a cockeril, but who cares, it was given to me at Christmas 1971 and I have cherished ‘her’ all these years.

Two other treasures that catch my eye are nowhere near as pretty, or used daily.  A cookery book by a leading and very sensible cook of her day, the book so well  used it’s lost it’s paper cover and the hard cover is in tatters, but it is much loved still.  The other item is a pressure cooker, again received at Christmas 1971.  Much used and parts replaced.  I like to think that gifts and homewares I buy for relatives and friends garner the same trust and loyalty over the next 46 years!