仔牛近道

　気になっていた倉庫に眠る陶器の器たち。快晴のこの日、ようやく（ま）と一緒に広げてみてみることにしました。


　平たいコンテナ5つ分にびっしりつまった、器の山。昭和の頃にこの家の家主が営んでいた民宿で使うためのもののようです。誇りまみれで、割れているものも目立つのですが、ざっと拭いて、欠けてるものを容赦なく除けて並べてみると・・・あれ！かわいい！だんだんテンションが上がってきます。レトロな雰囲気でほほがゆるむモノも多く、我が家の日常使いに重宝しそうなものを選りすぐっていきます。並べていくと、（ま）も自分の気に入ったものを次から次へと、自分の砂遊びキッチンへと運び込んでいます。あら、楽しい。

　きっと好きな人にはたまらなく楽しいだろうな、と思い、来月のセトモノゴミの日までは、とっておくことに。縁側の下に並べておきました。するとさっそく、近所の古民家カフェ「鍵屋」さんのスタッフの面々が喜びの声を上げ、家族ぐるみで仲良くしてくれているYさん親子がじっくり選んでお気に入りを見つけていきました。意外だったのは、2軒隣のMさんが急須と深めの鉢を、Yばぁちゃんが平皿や湯飲みを吟味の末に持って行ってくれたことです。後は、遠慮なくコケ玉の皿にしたり、（す）や（う）が飼っているカエルやハムスターのエサ置き皿に使ったり、と思い思いに利用して数を減らしていっています。

　倉庫からは、実は次々と謎なアイテムが出てきていて、古い足踏みミシンは磨いて（す）の勉強机に、複写機（？）の一式はライトの部分だけ（う）のデスクの上に、マムシの焼酎漬けが5瓶分はどうしたものかと検討中なのですが・・・少しずつ、少しずつ片付いてきているのは確かです、よ。

（わ）



Engawa garage sale


On the premises of our house in Narada, there are small garages which were literally packed with old items that former residents used to possess, and I knew there were A LOT of ceramic tableware. One sunny day, I finally decided to deal with those ceramics with Makasa.

There were five boxes full of ceramic plates, both broken and in good form - more than 40 years old, as former residents used to run a guest house in Narada. So its understandable they had a lot of plates as stock. Removing broken ones and wiping the dust out of each plate, I put those ceramics on the floor of garage and saw....wow, they looked quite nice! As I continued, I got really excited because I love retro-looking items. I selected ones that could be useful for our daily use. Beside me, Makasa also started picking up her favorite ones for her garden kitchen where she does "cooking" with mud, grass and flowers. What fun!

As I loved these ceramics, I was sure there were some other people who couldn't just let them go to the garbage dump. So I decided to keep them at least until the next ceramic garbage collection day. Then, I displayed them under our small Engawa-verandah. Yes, my first "customer" came right away, staff members of Kagiya, a cafe in a renovated Japanese old house. They got really excited as I expected, and then, another friend of mine Y-san came with her daughters and found their favorite ones. Those people were exactly I expected, but surprisingly, 2-door-next M-san and Y-grandma also stopped for my Engawa-sale as well. M-san took a tea pot and soup bowls, and Y-grandma picked up small flat plates and tea cups. I also used the rest for Koke-balls, and As for Umeo and Sukla, they chose some for their hamster and frogs. The number of ceramics got reduced in that way.

Those plates were only a part of a PACKED garage....there are still many more of mysterious items sleeping. Later on, I found an old sewing machine (that became Sukla's desk), old duplicator (a light from it is used for Umeo's desk now) and so on. There I found 5 bottles of Mamushi-pit viper preserved in Shochu, which are indeed good medicine, but I'm not sure what to do with that much of medicine. Well, well, there is still a long way to go, but it's getting cleaner....I believe!

Wakana