Bits about Bobs

We had an elderly neighbour called Bob. I may have mentioned him before. We always knew when it was winter because Bob would begin to wear a beanie on his slow, daily pilgrimage from the back stable door to his wife's camellia bush, tea pot in hand. He informed me that as tea was a type of camellia, tea leaves would nurture its roots. It was the only thing in his yard he continued to nurture after his beloved Peg died. He swore he put salt on the grass to stop it growing.

Bob came to mind again when the beanies appeared this week.
I also thought of him at my friend's house last week. She pulled out an ancient wooden game she had found under her own mother's house recently as they packed up decades of belongings.

Her mother was an extraordinary hoarder of the highest quality. They had found a history of hats from aunties and sisters and grandmothers that had been sported at all the big family events in the last eighty years. Well preserved in faded tissue paper and worn hat boxes, they were handed around the wake for the ladies to wear in celebration and remembrance and maybe some fun. She believed her Mum would have loved it.

 Her mother may have also loved watching these little tuppences playing with this old Bobs game that she had saved.

Table bowls if you will! The balls and sticks were all found in different hidey holes so it is now intact again. Circle of life and all that...