And it is "stuff". Our family bach is slightly unusual in that it was actually bought to be a family base following the closure of Arthurs Pass School where my parents had been teaching for twelve years. My younger sister and brother actually treated it as the family home even though my parents were living in Glenroy.
As a result much of the household miscellany from my childhood lives on at the bach. There is the teaspoon engraved with Rawene Hospital that apparently I took home with me when I was a baby. There are the remnants of my parents' wedding dinner set, the pots that cooked our meals, the huge heavy duty electric fry pan that still sets the gold standard for the breed in my mind. Blankets, sheets, chairs, curtains, puzzles and board games.
Layered over these things are the decorative additions and extras all of us have contributed over the years in recognition of the role the bach has as a place of belonging, the crocheted afghans, my sister's Sarah Moon print, the pottery dragon that was a present for my Dad.
And with each thing my eye rests on there is a memory - the German biscuit tin that Oscar gave us, being called to adjudicate as a teenager when my Dad was winning Scrabble (also against Oscar), the reference books of native plants, the cushion covers made from old curtains, the curtains that came from the schoolhouse which prove that polyester never dies :)!
I marvel sometimes at the small size of the pots which cooked a family of six's meals. And the bar size fridge which was all my mother had when we were growing up.
When my parents first bought the bach we all used to talk about building a bigger house on the section - now, although there are some limitations, as we have our own families and have our own houses with lots of "stuff", all of us value the simplicity of limited space and limited options. While we still do have conversations about the bach's future, they now reflect it's role as a tangible reflection of our family's story and the life that formed us.
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