Yesterday I bought a pair of slow release plant food bottles for my two aspidistras. You cut the tops off, upend them in the pot and gravity does the rest. I am quite protective of those plants. I'm the third owner of one, and the fourth of the other. They have come to me, from my grandmother and my great aunt, by way of my Mum. I don't really know how old they are, but I guess at least 80 years old and possibly/probably older. It made me think about other things in the house that I have inherited - my grandmother's writing slope, made for her by my grandfather when my aunt went the America as a GI bride and weekly letters became a thing. I have a pseudo Clarice Cliff tea set - not the real thing, but a Woolworths knock off that my grandfather won in a raffle. Looks good in the glass fronted cabinet in the kitchen though. I have a dressing table set again pseudo chintz -that was probably Woolies too. A few bits of jewelry from grandmothers and aunts, a jewelry box made for my great grandmother by her father. Vases from my other grandmother, tools that belonged to my Dad, books, an old fashioned weighing scales with real weights and my mother's dressmaking scissors ...
None of these things are in any way valuable, not even the jewelry, but it gives me pleasure to use them.
Inherited items are often a catalyst for a book plot. I've read several lately where an item of furniture had a clue to a treasure - one of those was a writing slope. No treasure in anything of mine - we were not that kind of family! Time slips often have a item that is the connection between eras. Treasure, buried or unburied, is by definition likely to be old. I've written often about old letters and papers as clues to an old mystery - that's the nerd in me that loves archives. The WIP has those and it's also going to have a treasure and yes, I am going to bury it. Can't beat a bit of tradition.
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