Just couldn’t seem to get it together in time last week but as the cosmos will have it Across the Bored scored a bonus round for two A Word in your Ear’s Word A Week Photograph Challenge – Mother (part two) AND  Love. They triggered this anecdote:

Weekly summer auctions weave a spell of their own with trash and treasure piled deep, all manner of oddments from all sorts of lives thrown together without rhyme or reason.  One can spot a thing of beauty or value and fall in love – one man’s junk is another man’s jewel.  Antiquers, auction addicts, pickers and their ilk might tell you that they know when a piece talks and is going to go home with them.  Lovejoy, the BBC comedy-drama series, had Ian McShane playing just one such character.

Across the Bored spied this frame hidden under a couple of amateur acrylics and knew, on the spot, that it was the one.  The print could always be replaced and come Thursday night we bid quite vigorously only to be beaten out by an older man of questionable provenance.  We had to let it go.  The walk home that evening, empty-handed, was longer than usual and sleep even more fitful.  A few days later, at the next week’s inspection, it was revealed that the object of desire had never been picked up and was to be had for half of what it had “gone” for.  As can be seen, there was not a moment’s hesitation.  The print remains to this day, she is a comforting presence – for some things are just meant to be…