This never ending spell of wintry weather has forced me spend more time indoors than normal and again I turned to clearing out. This time it was the turn of our bedroom and my "jewellery boxes" in particular. I have 4 wooden boxes, two of which are those old mahogany brass cornered writing slopes, one much bigger than the other, one small box made in 1913 by my great grandfather and the fourth box was made by someone, a Lithuanian I think, in the 1940s for my mother. He had very little in the way of tools and had asked mother for any small beads from old dresses. These he inlaid into the wood and he even made the tiny hinges. They are by no means filled with priceless gems. I have one or two slightly more valuable pieces, given when I was 21 but apart from that it is mainly things I had taken a fancy to somewhere or other.

I found several unmatched clip-on earrings and , most bizarrely, five huge molars, complete,(or rather, incomplete) with cavities, and rescued from the the dentist, the length of whose roots gives me the creeps, and guess where they ended up................................yes, wrapped in a piece of gauze, and replaced in the big box! I find it almost impossible to throw stuff out. To me it is part of my personal history. When I am gone, what will happen to all this junk? I can't imagine any of my offspring wishing to hang on to some old rotten teeth!

I also have a store of old letters from penpals, most of them now forgotten, from many corners of the world, and a couple of big nappy pins, the safety type! They too were replaced in the big box.

I did discard several buttons into the bin.

P.S. I've just been corrected by my younger brother. The "Lithuanian"was, in fact, a Ukranian.