Could be far worse

Donald Urquhart

Now playing: The Shangri-Las - Sophisticated Boom Boom

It's back

Out and about one summer's day a few years ago, I spotted this chair outside an antique shop. Being a 1920s reproduction, it really wasn't up to the dealers usually high standard.  Originally, its still very sound mahogany frame was stained and polished. And I quite liked the ugly beautiful orange 1980s chinoiserie cotton it was covered in. I thought it would make a great desk chair. And for the princely sum of £50,  I could overlook its weakly proportioned legs.

That autumn we also added Ruby, then a two year old Schnauzer, to our menagerie.  She too liked the chair and it quickly became Ruby's chair. Truth be told it suited her far better. As it was a wet autumn, it also quickly became filthy. Beyond belief. It had to be redone. I redid the frame and sent it out to be re-covered in a sturdy faded indigo linen mix that could take a good cleaning. And, she loved it.

Last year tragedy befell Ruby's chair. The long and the short of it is, someone died in it.  Again, it had to be redone.  After almost a year it's back. And, she loves it.

Now playing: Chet Baker - Little Girl Blue

Summertime

Now playing: Jill Scott - Golden

Hi! I’m Nancy Drew! You must be the Hardy Boys!

Cafe Flore, San Francisco

Once upon a time, also known as Cafe Hairdo.

Now playing: Moby featuring Patti Labelle - One Of These Mornings

Red

The purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love colour the most. - John Ruskin

Now playing: Sting - Desert Rose

Seven

As I have managed to avoid doing this on previous occasions (Fashion's Most Wanted and Thea Beasley) it seemed churlish not to participate when Mode Parade so kindly decided to include me. However, I really must draw a line at the passing it on bit.

1. The sum of many parts - French born of European, Chinese and Carib decent.

2. Consequently, I have almond shaped blue eyes.

3. My eyebrows are registered lethal weapons.

4. I have a dark, almost black, sense of humor.

5. The very idea that things can be aspirational is ugly and repellent.

6.While I absolutely love what I do, it is hardly all consuming.

7. I do love a happy ending, even though I know it is not always possible.

Now playing: Peter Gabriel & Kate Bush - Don't Give Up 

Vintage

Miss Streisand

For auld lang syne

My mother and I
December 1969, New York

"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don't matter at all, because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."

"I suppose you are real?" said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive.

But the Skin Horse only smiled.

 taken from The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

In spite of everything... I shall be sorry to see this year go. Too much goes with its close.

Now playing: Joan Baez - Forever Young