A surprise from the past

I just went away for the weekend and stayed with my Aunt and Uncle and younger cousins. While I was there I was quite astonished, and a little moved, when I walked out on the back patio of their nice new house and spied this, curled up at the base of some pot plants:

You can be forgiven for wondering what on earth it is, but that, folks, is a pottery dingo that I made at school.

When I exclaimed my surprise about this finding my uncle responded wryly with “yes, we bring a lot of stuff with us” (he’s long-suffering of my Aunt’s hoarding tendencies). I then told my Aunt she was free to dispose of this object (it even has a chipped ear), but she assured me that she actually likes it. It’s not like I even gave it to her as a gift. I suspect what must have happened is that when my Mum was leaving Tamworth, where it used to reside under a bush in the garden, she was getting rid of it and my Aunt took possession of it (and until now I didn't know she had it). It would seem my Aunt has a little more enduring regard for my childhood creations. If I remember rightly most of the things I made at school went straight to the back-yard cubby, without quite the same sentiment as “that’s going straight to the pool room”.

(I’ve polaroided the photos to make them look all old and nostalgic, and not just like the daggy old piece of pottery that this is.)