DISTRACTED DOGGIES & DAMAGED DEER...

It must have been around 25 years ago.  I came

home one evening to find my parents entertaining one

of their friends, while my faithful dog ZARA gnawed on a

piece of wood at the side of my father's chair.  It turned out

to be an ornament from the foot of the fireplace, and it was

now in splinters.  I took it off her and let her out in the back

garden, whereupon she had one long wee.  Obviously she'd

needed to go, but my parents, engrossed in conversation,

hadn't noticed (or ignored) her, so she'd started to
gnaw on the ornament as a distraction.

This had been one of three ornaments, given to my

parents by my grandparents for Christmas back in the

mid or late '70s.  Truth to tell, my mother wasn't too im-

pressed by the present, as it had been acquired from some-

one in their Darby and Joan club.  Considering my mother

visited them more often than any of her siblings and did their

shopping for them, she felt it was a bit of a slap in the kipper

for her devoted efforts.  Not that she was looking to be re-
warded, but the ornaments had been bought out of
convenience and with not much thought.

Sometime around the mid-'80s, one of the orna-

ments got broken and, 'though I fixed it several times,
it was eventually dispensed with when it got beyond a vi-

able point of repair, leaving only two survivors.  So when I

saw the remnants of the 2nd ornament to fall foul of an un-

friendly fate, I decided to call in INTERNATIONAL RES-

CUE.  Er, no, I didn't, but I was determined to do my best

to restore it.  I glued it all back together, applied copious

amounts of wood-filler, then sanded, stained and var-

nished it 'til it was once again presentable.

It's darker than it was, but at least it's in one piece
again.  One day I may do some further work on it and
restore it to a more faithful representation of its original
appearance, but it'll do for the present.  It probably now re-
minds me of my dog more than my grandparents, but either
way, it's a memory I'm reluctant to relinquish.  There was
another broken ornament I managed to salvage from the
bin (quite literally) and restore, which I'll maybe bore
you with tell you all about another time.

  (Oh-oh, there go another five members.)  

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