It has been a treasure trove type day today. As I am of an acquisitive turn and make magpies look positively hermitic and drab I would therefore say that the day has been a howling success.

I have spent much of the day with my mum and dad, who, you may recall dabble in the world of antiques.  They had just got back from doing a big three day fair and in between going out for lunch with them and playing with Oscar I helped my dad unload all their goodies and store them away.

I have commented before on how much my parents house resembles Aunty Wainwright’s.  For those of you not au fait with the bizarre and unfunny sitcom that has plagued English televisual viewing pleasure for the last thirty years known as Last of the Summer Wine, I will elaborate.  Aunty Wainwright has a giant junk shop which is a barn, stuffed to the rafters with everything from mangel wurzel strainers to stuffed cats and old pianos.  My parents house is like this but warmer and with slightly less dust.

Today we had to ‘arrange’ the stuff they had taken with them back into the melee and find room for seven more large boxes of books which they purchased while they were out and about.

I quite enjoy this.  Just as a hobby you understand. I wouldn’t like to do it everyday. Some of those boxes weigh a bloody ton.  My dad specialises in a kind of hideous glass known as Carnival Glass. It would be just my luck to drop a box.  I prefer shifting the boxes which belong to my mum which are mostly full of old papers and books.  Unfortunately these are usually the heaviest.

I have to say that I do love the total randomness of their house.  I like the fact that you are just as likely to open a drawer and find a laminated vole carrying an umbrella as you are some cutlery.  It is decidedly eccentric and always entertaining.

Having said that, I could not live this way myself. It would drive me absolutely round the bend. I like to visit, furtle about, and then leave.  If I stay too long I have terrible urges to tidy things up or throw things out.  They don’t mind this, in fact on some days they positively welcome it, but it’s a bit like the Forth Bridge.  You start and then you can’t really ever stop.

Upstairs there is a weird, long thin bedroom off of one of the larger bedrooms. It is called ‘the leap’. I don’t know why.  You couldn’t leap in it even if you tried.  The leap is absolutely packed to the rafters with things.  This is no exaggeration.  You can just, if you are of a thinner persuasion, squeeze through the door.  Once you are in the room you can sort of tunnel your way about, but only at risk of maiming or decapitation.

Occasionally ‘things’ need to be fetched from the leap, or someone remembers seeing something that is vital in the leap.  This necessitates much squeezing and teams of men with dogs.  The nightmare is if the cat knows the leap door is open.  She goes in there and roots about and gets trapped under things and it takes hours, bloody hours to get her out.

Thankfully there was no room for all the new things in the leap today. We squeezed it all in to the sitting room instead.

While I was helping I came across an enormous and really odd print that they bought about two and a half years ago.  I loved it then and had completely forgotten about it.  They let me have it.  Apparently I am the only person in the world that loves it.  It is called In Memoriam Janusz Gunia and is by a Polish artist called Stasys.  It looks like this:

Only mine is less pink and about twenty five times bigger.

I have hung it in our bedroom where it will undoubtedly cause Jason to have sleepless nights as the child’s enormously spooky eyes follow him round the room.  I’m not sure why I like it.  I think it’s because he/she seems to be wearing the bird like a hat.

After this I managed to acquire a small wooden chest of drawers, very simple and sweet, distressed white paint finish, about two feet tall.  I love things like this. My mum used to put all her antique buttons in to sell them, but the drawers kept tipping over in the back of the car and spilling all over the floor.  I have to say that I’m quite glad.  I don’t know what i’m going to put in it, but I love it.

I also got some books including:

• A version of the Kelmscott Chaucer by William Morris with all the engravings. It’s a reprint, but it’s still really beautiful and they haven’t adulterated the old English, so it’s proper.
• A book of cartoons by Sempe
• Two books of cartoons by Hoffnung

Not bad for helping them.  My dad has said I’m too expensive an assistant to hire again and they’ll do it on their own next time.

In with her new books my mum has a gorgeous first edition of Quentin Blake’s first book, A Band of Angels.  I have my eye on it, but it is fairly rare and quite valuable, so we have agreed that if she doesn’t sell it in the next few months (which she undoubtedly will, because it is lovely), I will pay her for it instead.  About sixpence a week I think.

So, Oscar and I came home tired and filthy with a boot load of treasure.  Jason looked absolutely horrified when I staggered in under the weight of it all.  He looked even more horrified when Oscar showed him his own latest treasure.  Mum bought him the most revolting squashy rubber ball thingy. It has holes in and when you squeeze the ball in your hand, clear plastic pockets ooze through the holes and fill up with plastic beetles writhing around in what looks like blood.  It is truly, truly the most hideous toy in the world, apart from Barbie.

Anyway, Oscar is passionately attached to this ball and has been frightening everyone including the cat with it all afternoon. It was the best 99p mum has ever spent.  He insists on calling the beetles, spiders and showing them to everyone.  He likes it best when you scream and pretend to faint.  Then he likes you to say how horrible it is so that he can shout: ‘My spiders are lubbly, just lubbly. I lub it!’ and then try to have your eye out with it.

Hours of fun.

Right, am off to find things to put in my new chest of drawers, plastic spiders and blood probably.