I remember vividly the first time I saw our home as a nineteen year-old. My mother, a hard-working newspaper publisher, flush with success and fed-up with suburban life, grasping her dream of final escape from the ordinary turned to me inquiring “we’ll only buy this house if you’re interested in helping with it, and would take it when we die.”

It seemed and adventure then, and still does now. All my romantic notions from Misselthwaite Manor to Bag End were at my disposal, with only my own imagination required to fill the rooms, design the gardens and accumulate whatever “stuff” that caught my fancy.

I can’t deny, like Barnes and his Museum, that I revel in the juxtaposition and grouping of objects of interest, which all connect through a subliminal thread of personal meaning. My own right-brained dominance causes me to delight in the sights and sounds that result.

Ostentatious, cluttered, atavistic, or just nostalgic; I don’t care, I think/hope you enjoyed your weekend with us.