Sic transit

[ladyofastolat]

When I was 10 and 11, I was mad keen on the English Civil War, even to the extent of having a Civil War themed birthday party for my 11th birthday ("Pin the ear on the cavalier," "Sleeping Roundheads" etc.) When I was at the height of this obsession, the Sealed Knot spent a few days at our local castle. I had a season ticket for the castle, and went every day to avidly watch them. (I wonder if any visitor attraction nowadays would admit an unaccompanied 11 year old who'd walked there by themselves.) I bought several souvenirs from the Sealed Knot womenfolk (who, it seemed to me, got lumbered with all the boring jobs, not being allowed to fire muskets and wave swords around.)

One of these souvenirs was an English civil war tea towel, which I stuck to my wall with blu-tac and displayed as a picture for a good long while. When Pellinor and I got married in 1994 and moved to the island, it went into service as an actual tea towel, rather than as a wall decoration. It is still doing this job. However, I have to accept that its days have finally come to and end. It is so faded that the cavalier and roundhead upon it look like dim and distant ghosts in a mist, and it is all tattered and holey and torn.

This makes me strangely sad. I am not a hoarder, and I don't have problems throwing things away, but this could well be the oldest possession that I still regularly use. Yes, I have older things that were bought or inherited, but this is something that I chose all by myself and have used continuously for over 30 years. I once wore a very comfortable nightie into rags, refusing to get rid of it, and I had a pair of grey school uniform socks that I still wore well into my thirties, despite them becoming more hole than sock, but both are long gone now, and this tea towel was older still.

Comments

[philmophlegm.livejournal.com]

This is exactly the sort of thing that would make me sad too. I also get strangely attached to peculiar inanimate objects. I'm sure I've told you before about the William Hartnell bookmark that came free with a copy of Doctor Who magazine in something like 1982, and which I have used in every single book that I have read ever since.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

This is exactly the sort of thing that would make me sad too.

And me.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

It really is an impressive feat to use a bookmark for 30 years without losing it. The books on my shelves are littered with past bookmarks (usually library reservation slips or train tickets) that have been left in them, either because I was distracted by a shiny new book half way through rereading an old one, or because I'd slipped the bookmark into some random page while reading the last chapters, and left it there.

[eglantine-br.livejournal.com]

These are the things that make us who we are. So they are not really 'things,' they are disconnected bits of us.

I love the idea of the Civil War themed birthday. Kids are so vigorous about the things they care about. It is only when we get older that we tone it down.

[parrot-knight.livejournal.com]

Much my sentiment.

[chainmailmaiden]

You could embroider the remains of the figures and frame it :-)

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I don't think there's enough fabric left to hold a stitch. It really is a frayed and tattered rag that conveys only the vaguest of hints that it might once have been a tea towel. :-)

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

I recently threw out a mug that I had been using for thirty years. It was chipped, and the pretty pattern had long since washed off in the dishwasher... But it was my mug. Now I stare at the mugs in the cupboard, and none of them are quite right.

I hope you manage to track down a replacement tea-towel of historical significance - something to make drying-up a pleasure.

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

Tea tastes wrong out of the wrong mug. I'm not sure why this is. It's a completely different beverage when drunk out of a solid earthenware mug than it is when drunk out of bone china.

I suppose I should try searching the internet for an identical replacement English Civil War tea towel. I had a Battle of Bosworth picture - all the knights arrayed in full heraldic panoply - that lived on a succession of walls from when I was 11 until my early thirties, by which time it was very faded, and tatty from being slid repeatedly into poster hangers. I went all the way back to Bosworth and there in the gift shop was the identical poster, which is now framed and back on my wall.