all those hidden treasures stored by our parents

I sometimes wonder if there are lot of other people like me, who like to buy cute things “typical to the area I am visiting”. Meaning provençale tableclothes from France, little houses from Amsterdam, a hand-made rug and ethnic pillows from Turkish bazaars… And they keep piling up and end up in a box when the apartment is full of things.

It appears that I have left a good amount of stuff in my parents house and finally tried to sort it all and decide what to do. My great solution: throw and give away some, buy pretty plastic crate and list and organise the rest for some magical future moment when I will be reunited with all things I have not needed for years (in some cases nearly 20 years – but who knows if my kids might want all this junk in the future…)

I actually would have loved to bring some stuff back with me, but there just was no space in the hand luggage, and I no longer do those hard and heavy suitcases, so check-in luggages was no option either. I really like these yellow fish-patterned hand-painted espresso cups that I (quite poorly I should add) haggled for in the grand bazaar in Istanbul, Turkey, on one weekend trip.

The other things that I still find cute are my ceramic bells and eggs ( in blue and yellow) from Prague, Czech Republic. But I don’t think they would fit in our more contemporary house, so they will stay in store waiting for the “beach house or lakeside cottage”. This leaves me wondering if lot of other people too have their parents storing these “eternal treasures” they cannot part with…

Hand-painted espresso cups from Turkish bazaar

Ceramic bells and eggs from Prague, Czech Republic