The best gifts to receive are the ones that take you on a journey. To single out one gift as the best I have ever received would be madness. Gifts are such diverse items. A kind word is a gift, as is a small portion of chocolate or a shoulder squeeze or a cup of tea. To stimulate today’s blog I have chosen a recent gift. A book from one friend’s pile to mine. The joy of a random book.
Share one of the best gifts you’ve ever received.
As all things have for the last few weeks, Saturday started with DIY. The flip side of a recently gifted book showed this image of a woman doing DIY.
Not just any woman dabbling her paintbrush. The world’s best selling author of all time, Agatha Christie. Her old home is less than an hour from us. We have the book so why not go and inspect her brushwork?
The longer I live in Devon the more I realise that the world moves in strange circuits. Particularly for the rich and famous.
Our journey started ordinarily enough at a cafe/coffee shop.
The Almond Thief in a building that was once the home of Sir Francis Drake.
Greenway, the home of Agatha Christie. The Greenway Estate was formerly the home of the Gilbert family. Sir Walter Raleigh,the first importer of Tobacco to Europe,was a Gilbert and when this land needed landscaping his chum, Sir Francis Drake,from the Almond Thief Cafe, just happened to have captured a Spanish ship with 166 crew who became prisoners of war who were then gifted to Sir Walter Raleigh’s uncle as ground workers. And that, it seems, is exactly how 16th Century Devon worked. Which completes the coffee shop circle. Back to the book.
Exploring anywhere in February rain is a challenge but we did appreciate all the Spaniards hard work. The grounds were fabulous and the artificially created viewpoints gave hints of gorgeousness but for us just monochrome hints.
10,000 steps in the rain did not give us much time for the house and we had to do it in split shifts for outdoor dog care. But it was amazing, so many stories to tell. But this is a blog about a gift which took me on a journey, as all good gifts should. Plenty of time to natter about Agatha and her lovely house next week.
I loved her lobster plate.
EBay tells me I could have one for £420. Another journey. One I am unlikely to complete.
theoldmortuary.design 
wow, that is so interesting to find the details and places of origin for her stories. love the lobster plate! my fav is a $7 plain wood table that is very old, judging by the underside, and my daughters bought it for me many years ago, and I use it as my table still
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My Agatha Christie days for reading are so long ago. Less so for TV or films but her home we just so fascinating. How could I accommodate such a plate in my life.
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I actually own a very simple lobster dish, and I found a lobster shape to be made of apples. I’ll email both )
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I own a very new lobster bowl from a local company, will share too.
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isn’t it funny, how we’re drawn to certain motifs?
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It’s amazing Greenway didn’t become another Fawlty Towers with all those Spaniards helping out. “Oh Mr Drake!” ” Whatever you do, don’t mention the Armada.”
Best present, A vinyl copy of Band on the Run signed by the entire Lower 6th and presented to me just as I was levering the school, the country the hemisphere to emigrate to Australia. A classic album made all the more wonderful with its collection of signatures of those I was leaving behind. It was a watershed moment in my life and that simple present meant the world me.
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A gift with a journey attached. Not one that anyone in that 6th form wanted you to make.
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Today’s blog features a Harbourmaster
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