Ode to my Grandparents

Don't you just love inheriting things? I am very lucky to have all four of my Grandparents at the age of (nearly) 22, and they are all extremely good at the art of handing things down. Here are a few bits I've accumulated this summer:

A vintage pink pyrex baking dish from Nanny Jackie - it's glass and oh so kitsch! I wasn't sure I liked it to begin with, but it's grown on me, and now I love it's tacky pinkness!

Some really old books from Grandad Joe - some of these were given to his Dad as Sunday School attendance awards, and date back to the early 1900's.

This is the bookplate in one of them. It reads:

Oulton Broad 
Congregational Sunday School


Awarded to


Allen Gower


No. of Attendances during 1908
51 

Only missing one week of Sunday School is pretty impressive I think, as is the fact that this book is 102 years old and still in almost perfect condition. They feel like little bits of history, and things that were really worked for and treasured. 

There was also a very small copy of 'The Works of Aristotle', including 'The Midwifes Vade-Mecum' which includes "Some genuine recipes for speedy delivery" which are quite hilarious. My mum thinks my Great Nanny Field bought it when she became pregnant with her first child because nobody had ever talked to her about what was going to happen. Hopefully she didn't take too much notice of what the book said, as the advice on what to do if a pregnant woman faints is to "rub salt, mustard and vinegar on the extremities, and shout and make a great noise in her ears" Well that would certainly wake me up! I'm not sure I'd be too grateful for it though!

Tucked inside one of the books was this envelope:

Nobody can really remember where it came from, but my Grandad did a cabinet making course in his youth, so I'm guessing it was his, making it about 50 years old. They are working drawings for a variety of useful household items. My favourites are the Greenhouse and the page of "Useful Kitchen Fitments." I love the idea of making the things you need for your home yourself, and this just proves that it did happen...and that people once had the patience to make an egg stand! It's a real shame now that if a clothes horse was required, people (myself included) just pop to Ikea, or Argos and buy a plastic one, rather than learn the skills to build something that will last.

I think I'm going to press the creases out of them and frame 3 or 5 so they can hang as a series. I think they're really interesting to look at, and their age has given the paper those lovely yellowed edges you find on old books, like a tea stain you could never fake convincingly. 

Lastly is this gorgeous vintage throw, also from Nanny Jackie: 

It's really heavy and "crunchy" which is just how I like bed linen to be, and it's smell perfectly captures my Nanny and Grandad's house: hot chocolate in bed, lavender oil, coconut on top of chicken a korma, their secret loft, cross stitch threads, brandy, Grandad's aftershave, butterfly buns, cough syrup, Avon bubble bath and real blackcurrant squash. Plus it's huge!

Nanny also offered me a dining table a few days ago, but as I drive a mini I had to turn it down. I did end up leaving with a full dinner service and brass cutlery set though, as well as a memory foam pillow and a bag of bed linen for a friend. I'm sure one day I will be able to furnish my house with things from theirs, but in all honesty, I'm not complaining at all! Thank you Nanny Jackie and Grandad Terry, Nanny Muriel and Grandad Joe.  Love you ♥  

Grandad Terry and Nanny Jackie - My Dad's Parents in their classic pose!

Grandad Joe and Nanny Muriel - My Mum's Parents on New Years Eve!

X