Inherited Ornaments

NO accounting for that Kitty

anno what are you worrying about?
I've been here for over 35years and I'm a hoarder.
Think I'll just stay here until I die and then it will be the kid's problem

I am trying to de-clutter too & am sending bags of stuff to Oxfam, though I still can't bear throwing out some old school exercise books - all that hard work! I could have sold some on eBAy but when I saw the hassle involved in selling on line decided to give the hassle to Oxfam too.
I've never had any problem discarding things I don't like or need but it might be worth checking their value - many auctioneers do free valuations. I once took a tall coloured glass vase, which I hated, that my MiL had dumped on us to a car boot sale. I was packing up & realised I'd left the vase in the boot so I plonked it on the empty table with a £5 sticker on it. Two guys in suits (probably dealers) swooped down immediately & bought it. I knew then I'd made a mistake & now I know it was worth a lot more.

Yes, Galen, but you don't live in a two-up, two-down end of terrace!

I've got some of my mother's school exercise books (much better marks than any of mine!) and also a science exercise book of my grandmother's. It must date from the end of the 19th century which seems very early for a girl to be studying science and is particularly interesting as she was living in Belgium at the time, so getting very good marks in a foreign language.

In a way I have the opposite problem.
I had a dear Aunt who had no children of her own, and we used to visit her nearly every year (she lived in Cornwall) for our holidays. When my children were little, we used to take them down there too.
She had some lovely things that she had acquired over the years and that had come from older generations of the family.
Hanging near her front door was an illuminated script done by my great-uncle, Polonius' speech from Hamlet Act 1 scene 3 ('And these few precepts in thy memory.........neither a borrower nor a lender be etc') I used to look at it, marvelling at both the words and the beauty of the calligraphy.
When she became frail at the age of 93 and went into a home, a cousin disposed of all her things without consulting anyone else in the family and although some things were sold at auction, the illuminated script wasn't amongst them.
After she died a few months later, it transpired she had left it to me.
I know that material things don't matter, but I would so much like to have had it not only to treasure for its own beauty, but as a remembrance of her, and my great-uncle whom I remember visiting as a child.

Janeainsworth, that's really sad but how nice to know that she knew you valued it.

I would have no qualms in getting rid of ornaments that I did not like. When my Mother died I got a Royal Doulton figurine, she was made the year I was born and she is quite elegant.
My elder sister got the Lustreware jugs, a set of three, which have been passed down to eldest daughter in each generation. She has no children to inherit so she is bequeathing them to the museum.

This is beginning to remind me of Clockwise and the old ladies who are supposed to be going out for the day, one of whom is obsessed with the inheritance of some sherry glasses.