MY BRIGHTLY SHINING HALO

Positively blinding, I tell you. Another long outstanding task done and dusted. Literally.

My intricately carved Chinese chest stands in my entrance hall, and therefore close to the front door. Now Cape Town is notoriously windy, so every time the door is opened, more dust blows in, and nestles cozily around the aforementioned intricate carving, all those little notches, frets, folds and crevices.

A surface dust and polish doesn’t reach these little indentations, but I’ll tell you what does: a cotton bud, dipped in teak oil. And it emerges black with the dust of ages.  In the end I finished cleaning the carving on the lid. As for the back and sides, well, maybe a dust around with a soft toothbrush another day.

The chest was an impulse buy.  About 25 years ago I was browsing around an antique shop in Kwa Zulu Natal and spotted the chest. I didn’t hesitate for a moment. I hauled out my credit card and bingo! The chest was mine. Better still,  the chest was on sale, marked down quite considerably.  Markdown or not, I was having that chest!

When I opened the lid, the dusty aromatic odour of camphor billowed out. Oh joy! A carved camphor chest: How lucky was I?

Many girls of my generation were given a wooden kist, either as a 21^st birthday gift, or  merely as  parental largesse. The idea being they could now build  up their trousseau.   Usually the kists were large,  in  a carved linenfold style. I never had one, and always hankered after a wooden kist.

 My late teen years were  difficult: my dad was stricken by a stroke, the family  had no choice but  to emigrate, and instead of going to University, I had to start working. Hence my kist-less status.

 I may have had to wait  40 years for my chest, but it was more than worth the wait.