Weekly Photography Challenge: Relic

This weeks challenge is to portray “relic”, and my only problem with it is – which relics shall I choose? Apart from any others I’ve photographed, my parent’s shed and back yard is littered with relics both large and small. Rather than send things to the tip/dump, my dad would just transfer them to “the shed”, which is open on one side anyway, plus part of the roof gave way and let in the rain…

There are all sorts of rusty relics of old machinery, abandoned bikes, boxes of jam jars, mounds of rusting nails that used to be in cardboard boxes, now rotted away. Much as I enjoy taking pictures and souveniring  odds and ends, I can’t help thinking about the fact that someone is going to have to clear all this away some day.

Mum loved the tone of this harmonium, but it needed some repairs. Dad took it up to “the shed”. Next to “the shed”, actually. One good shower of rain, and that was the end of the poor old pump organ. It was a relic when Mum got it many years ago, and even more of a relic now…

This photo of a painting from a photo is a relic of my childhood. Painted by me in early adulthood, it hangs in my parent’s house. Beside me (in the pigtails) are Jim and Jen, Mum’s youngest siblings – my uncle and aunt. They lived next door to us. In front are Jason and Alan, my little brothers. Behind Jim’s head is our pet galah, Charlie, who turned up in our backyard one day already named and talking. The bottom of his cage was populated by mice, living the high-life on spilled seed. When we were older, we discovered the dubious joy of using a hose to flush out the mice – an activity my mother strongly discouraged, though not for the sake of the mice. Flushed out of Charlie’s cage, they moved straight into our house…ooops. Charlie was an excellent mimic, and we had no phone, so calls for Dad went to his sister’s next door (on the other side from Grandma). She would call out “Douglas” from the back gate when he had a call, and so did Charlie…One afternoon Auntie Phyll banged on the back door, irate because Dad was ignoring her. She was not mollified at all to know that he’d thought she was the bird!