Hopeless Chest

My Auntie Shirley made this tea service for my Hope Chest in 1977. I was mortified by the outrageous pizzazz of the paint work at the time. I was a simple girl, with simple dreams. I wouldn't dream of brewing tea in a wildly decorative pot. So it was tucked away for a few decades. I'd come across it from time to time, each time I moved from one end of the country to the other, or back and forth across the pond.

I have six girl cousins within five years of each other in Canada and Auntie made a set for each of us in a variety of wild designs, for our Hope Chests (aka Bottom Drawer). We called them our Hopeless Chests. Mine turned out to indeed be hopeless. Not the others though, some of them have been married three times! (the mind boggles)

My tea set finally went into service about 2002 when I bought Kipper Cabin and started jazzing up the back deck with pictures, bits of driftwood, rocks from French Beach, pots of plants, a campfire, lamps, fancy hooks for hanging bits and pieces on, jars of beach glass, ceramic trout, birdcages, birds nests, expired wasps nests, a basket of wine corks, gigantic pine cones, old watering cans, and a bonkers tea service that doesn't have a chip on it cos I've only made tea in it once.

Friends have suggested I open a curio shop on my deck. Tsk! A curio shop where nothing's for sale? Very cheeky!