Hassles Collecting Hornsea

I mentioned before the progress of our Hornsea collecting bug. A story in the HPC&RS Newsletter about lost and broken lots bought off eBay prompted me to write in with our own sad story, which was duly published in the next issue (#77).

In my email I explained the difficulty we have had with one item in particular: a margarine container.

We broke the bottom of the Heirloom margarine container—a reasonably uncommon piece but, as you know, it is the lids that almost always get broken, so I kept up a search for it. After two years of watching eBay I managed to find a replacement bottom, we won the auction and it arrived safely. But when I opened the cupboard to retrieve the lid, full of satisfaction for having at last reunited a lid and a base, said lid fell out of the cupboard and smashed on the floor! I was dumbstruck. So, now I am looking for a lid … which could take even longer. Oh well…

BTW: This is what a margarine container looks like:

My letter was written at the end of September. At the start of December I found a complete margarine container and, since I figured we had no chance of finding a lid alone, or no patience to wait another two years trying to find one alone, I bought it.

Well the package arrived yesterday, almost a month late, and this is what it looked like. Thank you Australia Post.

Note the many "Fragile: Handle with Care stickers. I think there are eight of them!

Amazingly, the item inside was not broken. However, also amazingly—and sadly, the vendor had sent the wrong item. He sent us a jam/preserve pot. Of these we now have … I don't know, pick any large number and you'd be close. He writes:

I have checked my stock of Hornsea and have found the Pot I should have sent you. I have listed another pot with the spoon hole as you describe but this is missing, so I have indeed sent you the wrong one. What I will do is pack and send you tomorrow the correct Pot at my expense. Please keep the other Pot as a gift for all the hassle.

It is nice to find so obliging a dealer, and it will be a minor miracle if nice when it finally arrives. And if we do this again

we may have to give up all together on what was—over two years ago now—our favourite lolly jar!

Magpies Happy To See A Dog

Resident family of four magpies have been very happy with the arrival of the pup. Left over biscuits are a favorite treat and have encouraged the maggies to visit the backdoor once again.

Starting on the Back Garden

I went to the timber yard after xmas with our plan for the vegie boxes and came home with a few hundred kilos of cypress posts so we could start work out the back. And, having started, I have made an amazing discovery: digging post holes is hard work! Who knew? And who would have thought that there was an impenetrable mass of clay, rocks, gravel and tree roots just below the surface?

With a few breaks for more god-damn weeding, it has taken me two days to dig six holes. And there is something like twenty to go! Meanwhile, M. has worked wonders with our new garden fork** and two metres of mulch.

(M. has also discovered and moved a whole series of indigenous plants that had sprung up after our first weeding effort: a positive sign for the future. Hopefully she will do a post on these soon.)

**We snapped this six-month-old, stainless steel garden fork in half as soon as we started on the weeding up the back, an indication of just how well-established the weeds had become after six months of neglect!

BTW: We now have two wine-barrels too, thanks to my very generous brother, who has an abundance of these. He tells me they cost something like fifteen hundred dollars new, but are worth less than one hundred second hand.