Gold lame and lilies

It’s funny the things people give you. I don’t mean a sore throat or earache or the cold shoulder – which are not in the least amusing – but unexpected gifts. Like a small yellow ornamental gourd, for instance, presented to me last summer by the father of Roo’s boyfriend via a convoluted chain of delivery that led from his back garden vegetable patch to my desk top. The boyfriend is now an ex but the gourd’s still around, all golden and mellow next to the telephone.

My mother’s a great one for gifts of the unexpected. She always has a little something for me whenever I see her, but, like a slightly unconventional street conjurer, I’m never quite sure what she’s going to pull out of her bag. Sometimes it’s a fairly conventional thing, like a nice cushion for the armchair, some newspaper cuttings or a paperback book. Occasionally, it’ll be something more exotic and edible, such as a giant tin of canned prawns, delicious mozzarella-stuffed cherry peppers, or the jar of sweet pickled pumpkin cubes in brine that’s resting in my fridge at this very moment.

But if I’m very lucky, she’ll have picked me up a bargain from the eccentric-central land that is the church coffee morning or jumble sale, and then there’s simply no knowing what the bag might contain. A couple of slightly used candles, for instance, a pair of gold lame tights (last worn circa 1982), a collection of box-less films that I’ve never heard of on DVDs that came free with the Sunday papers, a seashell, or a miniature tribe of knitted woollen fairytale characters complete with beards, crowns, tunics and red capes. I am always amazed by her generosity even if it is, admittedly, sometimes more of a challenge to find an appropriate home for some things than others.

When I met Roo from the railway station on Saturday night, she’d brought home with her a beautiful bunch of lilies for me all the way from Lancaster. Lilies are my favourite flowers, so of course I was most delighted with them, but not only on that level; I was also exceedingly impressed that she’d managed to carry them through 330-odd miles on several trains (and right across London on the tube) without them coming to any harm or crumpling whatsoever. I put the lilies in a vase on the mantelpiece and have been watching the buds open all week. The smell is divine.

Roo had also brought me home a little pack of playing cards but I’m going to save those to play with until after she’s gone back to uni. I can always make up the numbers in a few hands of poker with the knitted fairytale folk; I’m pretty sure they don’t cheat too much.


I took this photo of the lilies using my mobile phone - they're much more of a vibrant orange colour than they look in the picture.