Cabinet of curiosities #2 inside

One last post from this room – and it is back to the cabinet, which contains my mother’s baby book (it’s blue taffeta, so I’m not sure if my grandparents were hoping for a boy). I can’t remember how I came to have this object, however it is (naturally) in the original box. Due to its small size it fits nicely onto the glass shelf in a standing position.

Inside my grandfather has completed each page to give a running commentary of my mother’s early years, from her first word – Teddy – to first journey by bus at 11 days old. There is also the original cutting from the local newspaper announcing her birth. Albert, my grandfather was an avid diary writer, so I imagine that he would enjoy the task of dutifully completing all the relevant information. 

My own baby book has been completed but with less rigour by my Mum, it doesn’t seem to have been a priority and after a few entries, my early years remain a mystery! 

Flowers Echo Throughout the House (Dogwood Blossom)

Didn't really want to spend any longer in the upstairs bathroom, so we're walking back down the stairs now - often music (of every kind) fills every room in this house - but sometimes, when I'm on my own and 'over-thinking', the most evocative track is Dogwood Blossom by Fionn Regan. Beautiful and melancholic.


Keep climbing into my head without knockin'
And you fix yourself there like a map pin
On this ghost of this street where I'm livin'
I'm in a chrysalis and I'm snowed in
Darling, darling that dam's gonna give
It's inevitable the way that you live
Bottles in brown paper and a mouth that slurs
All the shit that it stirs
Let that dogwood blossom
There'll be hell to pay in heaven
For you take every street home
What happens when you're into deep to break
Loneliness keeps you constantly awake
What happens when the passage of time appears
You see yourself as a child and it brings you to tears
You say that you're troubled and you always have been
Uncomfortable in your own skin
So you contemplate the riverbed
Turn off the dark thoughts in your head
Darling, darling that dam's gonna give
It's inevitable the way that you live
Bottles in brown paper and a mouth that slurs
All the shit that it stirs
Let that dogwood blossom
There'll be hell to pay in heaven
For you take every street home