Finds

My old lounge suite is made of a very poor design.

The back cushions easily fall off and are frequently removed by the kids. Whereas the seat cushions are fixed.

The stupidity of such a design is that everything falls down the back of the lounge, without any way of retrieving it.

Many an item has vanished into that black hole, and whenever the lounge is moved, for whatever reason, there is a jingle and a jangle of all sorts of mystery items.


Yesterday it all came to a head.


My daughter lost one of her beloved littlest pet shop animals down that icky abyss, and the wailing was simply too much to bear.


So I lifted the couch onto its end, sending a tinkling of bits of pieces to the bottom. Then I took to the under fabric with a sharp knife.

I was actually dreading the thought of putting my hand into the gooey glizzards of that lounge to fossick around for the lost toy; there would probably be enough crumbs and lost food items down there to feed a nation of mice (shudder).

Nevertheless I did the nasty deed and rescued the toy. I also found three matchbox cars, a toy motor bike, several puzzle pieces, two odd socks, four crayons, a pen and a brown pencil, a Boots the Monkey figurine, numerous crackers and Cheerios, a dogs worth of fur, crumbs galore and one blue Smartie. The vacuum cleaner did a good job of syphoning up the crusty bits, so now the couch is a little less ...well, funky.

While I was more than a little repulsed by the whole exercise, the kids were delighted to be reunited with the long lost items, and eager to replace the missing puzzle pieces with the corresponding puzzles.

So we ventured upstairs in search of the puzzle boards, which happened to be laying under an elephant's weight of assorted unlabled boxes, sitting idle and unopened since we moved from Australia, almost two years ago.....or more.

We decided to go on a search and discovery mission and find out what was in all the boxes. Much of the stuff my children had not seen before, and so their excitement was well worth the clean up effort after we were done.

I found a box containing the headpiece from my wedding day, wedding shoes, bridesmaid dress material, leftover invitations hymnials and thankyou notes, but also in that box was a newspaper clipping of a letter I wrote fifteen years ago. The letter was in response to some sour grapes and rather prejudiced views by commentators and public alike, who found the 1992 Australian of the Year - Mr Mandawuy Yunupingu - to be an unworthy recipient. I begged to differ.

There was also another newspaper clipping. This one included a photo of my Grandfather, who passed on almost three years ago. He was handing out an award to someone, of behalf of an organisation he was involved in.

In another box I found a variety of long lost jewellery, collected or given to me over the course on my lifetime. I even found a silver Humphry B Bear pendant, which has to be nearly thirty years old.

I found purse given to me by my late Great Grandmother. In it were one of each denomination of Australian coin; every one dated with the year of my birth and wrapped in a note from my Great Grandmother, urging me to keep her hand collected gift. The note was dated 1977.

There was also a bamboo flute, which my Dad made for me from my Grandparent's bamboo ...umm....patch. It too, must be close to thrity years old.

We carted down a pile of board games, which intriged my four year old no end. Most of the games had a recommended age of ten years on the box, but this didn't deter his interest, and next I found I had Monopoly set up and was involved in a lengthy discussion about the game's objectives and rules....that was until Missy Mopps kicked the bankers tray over and scattered the meticulously arranged and colour coordinated real estate cards - then she was all over red rover and I was now having to stem the lead up to world war three.

With Monology packed up, Chinese Checkers followed, then Kwatro and then ....my husband came home. It was 6:30pm and dinner hadn't even been thought of. Where DID the time go?

We had fun sorting through all that stuff. I am glad that I lugged that chest full of memories and moments halfway across the globe; past connects with present...one generation to the next. Let the games BEGIN!