Memories from my childhood

For the past few days we've been clearing out my beloved late Grandmother's home.  She'd lived there since 1963, when the home was just 18 months old.  During that time, she raised 2 children (my Dad and his older sister), looked after 5 grandchildren and grew a beautiful garden full of her favourite orchids.  

My grandmother lived to the ripe old age of 93 and her home was like a time capsule. We found so many beautiful items, like fine bone china tea sets, still in their original wooden box packaging, a ceramic hand mirror, even my Grandfather's silver "alien" tag he had to wear during the war, as he was a migrant from China.

So many items were in perfect condition, partly because she had taken such good care of them, wrapping the carefully in material and brown paper, and partly because of the high quality of items from that bygone era.  You can see the workmanship and care taken, especially with furniture and handmade clothes.

But of all the hundreds, possibly thousands of antique items, the things that I loved the most, and that brought back the most memories of my time with her, were some toys and little ornaments.

This set had wooden blocks in them with English and Chinese writing on them.

I remember playing with this bizarre moose thing when I was little.  Like most of the toys that had gone through 5 grandchildren, it was very played with, but very loved.