Special spots and book shelves

This chair is a memory from my childhood. It used to be my Nana Parnell’s and it used to be green. It had a hole the size of a twenty cent piece right in the middle of the seat. A coal from her open fire caused that.

It’s actually an antique; a ‘Smokers Bow’. I don’t know how Nana came to have it, if it was her parents or she bought it. What I do know is that is where my imagination was nurtured, brought into being and tested to its bounds.

Nana, like my Dad, was a story teller. I have wonderful memories of sitting in front of the fire on cold winter mornings , the fire cracking away,  Nana in full flight, telling me about ‘Jo the Perentie’ or ‘Spindles the naughty ragamuffin’.

When she died, I was lucky enough to be given ‘my’ chair. I re-covered it, but the new blue suede look-a-like didn’t cover the memories. When I sit in it, I can picture Nana’s sitting room – the photos that adorned the walls; they were all of us grandkids, her green rocking chair and her basket of croqueting and pile of books, beside it. Her face.

My kids love this chair – it’s the right size for them and they sit and read here too. But when they’re not looking and I have five minutes of peace, it’s still where I go to have my imagination fed. It’s where I read.

This book case holds only some of my books, but it’s my ‘favourites’ bookshelf! In here you’ll see John Grisham, Michael Connelly, Patricia Cornwell, Belinda Alexander, Tamara McKinley, Monica  McInerney and a few of our fantastic Aussie authors, such as Fiona Palmer, Hélène Young, Bronwyn Parry, Katherine Scholes, Caroline Overington and more. I’m sure I’ve left some out, I’ve got so many!