Last post I was dealing with a crook back. Improving now, thank goodness. I was also recovering from a cataract operation, and that I found even less conducive to looking at a screen for writing, or a sketch pad for sketching. However, I can exercise again, and can see without peripheral bright light flashing, finally enabling me to do the post I’d planned. For two or more weeks I’d thought about drawing this old wooden barrel, which is a perfect container for loose tea. It did start its life as quite a different object which I’ll get to by and by.

If you are anything like me (a bookworm from the day I learned to read), you might have been captured by families in stories (usually English) receiving wonderful legacies, or inheritances of great value, from distant relatives they scarcely knew. My parents had few relatives (one was brought up in an orphanage, the other an only child and father deceased). We were not well off, so the thought of receiving a surprise bundle of goodies or money from some wonderful mysterious lost relative really appealed to me. Alas, no such inheritance ever came my way. But I did receive a couple of items by accident, and one is the biscuit barrel I decided to sketch yesterday.

I did have two wonderful Great Aunts, Maud and Agnes. Maud’s husband Peter died well before my birth, although he must have been somewhat sporty, as the story goes that he was awarded the biscuit barrel as a trophy for playing golf or tennis. I was never given this item directly – hence the accidental inheritance alluded to above. It was passed onto my ex-husband by my mother who thought well of him, but I enjoyed the benefit by having it ‘secondhand’. I later had it passed on to me by the said husband, and have enjoyed the barrel’s company ever since. A lovely sturdy object I wrap my hands around daily before I remove the lid and make my tea.

I have always wished the badge had been engraved so it wouldn’t appear so anonymous. I never met Peter, who would have been given this circa 1930s I imagine. It used to wear a handle proudly when it came to me, but as you can see, it does need to be re-attached to the barrel as the attachment has broken. The biscuit barrel (or tea caddie now) also needs its metal bits polished, as it does look better for that. But I like my accidental inheritance, grubby or shiny, worth little or a lot.