The old pine dresser in the kitchen here changes through the seasons.
Plates and cups and the remnants of my granny’s delicate wedding-set china sit amongst other mementos. Jugs of flowers come and go, summer walks bring feathers, cones, shells, prized bits of amber that are as nuggets of real gold for the wee one.
Later there are rowanberry strung necklaces, bracelets made from rushes, a bowl of nuts from the hazel tree, conkers in the autumn proper and a snèip and a pumpkin at Halloween, both for good measure.
There are cards for birthdays and at Christmas an advent calendar. It is a busy shifting celebration of happy chance finds and markers of the year’s passing.
The worn worktop has a stash of books and letters, binoculars and sometimes cakes, for all of their brief existence.
The drawers are full to the brim with ‘trealaich’; toys, postcards, marbles, matches, batteries, seed packets, screwdrivers and such like. They offer things back to the light sporadically, fortuitously or to frustrate, depending on the timing.
The depth and dimensions of the base are reassuringly solid. The first thing the children did when the dresser came was climb inside the press, to see how they would fit.
“Feuch an dreasair” is often the reply for where the lost thing is. “Try the dresser” and the best of luck.
For the minimalist this would be overmuch but my kitchen would be bare without it.
The proverb ‘a h-uile càil na àite fhèin is a’ phoit mhùin air an dreasair!’ was a favourite of my mum’s.
It proposes the inevitable upending of any reasonable hope you might have had of…
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