In which there are peeks at my antiques

Well I failed my plan for the first time since new year of blogging twice a week. Usually when that has happened its because I suddenly got into a new computer game. This time though I have been working my socks off all week at work. Every day I came home I was shattered and more typing just felt  like more work. So I've been watching Star Trek most nights or playing Civilisation IV.

On top of the general business. this week all of a sudden I was doing things I've never done before. Next week I'm giving a talk at a conference and also going to be interviewed on a podcast. Both of these things are nerve wracking and I started to feel really down about how I've been in this job for months now - and I interned before that - but I still don't know enough to speak about what we do confidently. The thought of them is keeping me stressed but there has to be a first time and I hope that one day I could just get up and to an event, give a talk and do it all without aeons of self-assessment and confidence building.

I am not one to mention my work on here much. It seems kind unprofessional and blurs the kind of lines I am trying to create between my work and home life so all of the above probably seems very vague! It's a thing I keep considering - the issue of sharing everything I am on the internet and being an honest blogger.

Moving on! A couple of weeks ago I did a blog post about my pocket watches and the haphazard way my Dad gave me an antique. I thought I'd share some pictures of another couple of lovely little things that Andy and I own, both of which came from my Dad. 
 

 

 

 

The penknife is a beautiful little gold one, with two knives and the inscription you can see. Dad passed this on to me when I was looking for a penknife for something. I think he looks for these random opportunities to give things on. Sadly, like the silver pocket watch they are things he has inherited but doesn't know the story behind. They generally came from my Grandparents who collected a lot of antiques but didn't pass the stories on down with them. That's why I am hoping to make new stories with them. 

The netsuke does have it's own special new story! So the little carved man is a netsuke, made from ivory and it belonged to my Grandma. (Whole wiki explanation of what a netsuke is here) She was really interested in Japan, specifically in ikebana which is a kind of flower arranging and had a close friend who was Japanese who gave her many lovely things. We think this was one of them. However we have a story for it now. When Andy and I got engaged his parents gave him the engagement ring I wear. It was his mum's ring which she sneaked to him. I love that sense of history. My parents were touched too and so they said that they wanted to give something with a little family history to Andy. So as an engagement present to him my parents passed on the netsuke. It is something very familiar to me, always been sitting on a shelf in my parent's home and has now moved on to us. I love it so much and it is especially appropriate because both of us love Japanese things too.

P.S. Just realised I haven't done a toy update in so long! I have a whole new thing to show you soon if only there can be some good light here soon. 

In which time is beautiful

 In my last post I was wearing a pocket watch necklace, and this is the pair-post to share a little bit of the story behind it. I didn't draw too much attention to it last week, but it is in fact one of my most worn and beloved of pieces. I even took it to the Antiques Roadshow! This is because it is a genuine Victorian pocket watch transformed into a necklace for every day wear.
I want to say something like 'my parents are really into antiques' but that makes them sound all official and posh. It's more a love of not getting rid of things has passed on in my family. Meaning that no one thought to remove a collection of slide rules, copies of the Odyssey or pocket watches. So we have a lot of family heirlooms. One of which is this ladies pocket watch.
I can't even say that it was ceremoniously passed on to me. The manner in which it came to my possession was typical of my family. I was building up a steam punk femme-Indiana Jones outfit for a party. It needed a pocket watch and Dad produced this one. Not a modern one or the least loved of the collection, he just chose that moment to say 'have this'.

It is from the 1890s, a ladies watch, still working, still has it's original box and original key. Both the back and the front clock face open up and it has such beautiful patterns on the back and inside. Sadly Dad doesn't know who it belonged to. He just knows that his father collected pocket watches so we are not sure if it originally came from the family or not, but I hope so. I absolutely love it to bits. And then just at Christmas Dad gave me another one! So now maybe I am developing my own version of my grandfather's collection after all.

 The guy from the Antiques Roadshow liked both the pieces we showed him and most of all loved that they were used all the time rather than just kept away like so many other antiques he must see.

I really enjoyed photographing and sharing my pocket watch. If this was interesting to you I have a bunch of other family antiques that I could share with you? I hinted at least one other from my trip to the tv set.