Come By Chance

One of my favourite picture books as a child was called ‘Come By Chance’. I can’t remember exactly how this story ended, but it was about a lonely woman who comes upon a tumbled-down old house. The house is in need of a little TLC, as was the woman. Slowly but surely, the woman fixes up the old house, making it warm and cosy, and provides shelter for all sorts of animals when a storm hits. From thereon in my memory goes blank – if anybody else remembers how the story ends, I’m happy to be reminded.

What I’ve loved about that story is the sense of being able to rescue things – that, with a little attention and time, even the most dilapidated and desperate can be made whole.

So, where was I last Thursday morning, during the middle of a freakishly heavy downpour in our nations capital?

I was rescuing a dresser, single handedly, from my apartment’s dumpster, and dragging all 40+ kilos of it up three flights of stairs.

With a thorough airing out, some new knobs,


some pretty pot plants,


and a string of darling paper lanterns,



I think she scrubs up quite well, don’t you?