Heide: Have you lost all your spoons? Is that what this is about?
Iain: No. Although I believe there is possibly a gargantuan pile of used and unwashed cereal bowls (with spoons) in my teenage daughter’s jungle of a bedroom. The teapot/spoon thing is a reminder that one of the little sad things in life is when a perfectly lovely thing is lost or neglected and never gets to be used or reach its full potential. I assume that’s one of the reasons why you’re
always rescuing or mending tat items that ordinary people would just junk.
Heide: You are so right. I got the best present this week, you will never guess what it was.
Iain: You’re right. I won’t.
Heide: It was a carrier bag full of fabric scraps. Now that our local group is slowing down with making scrubs for the NHS they are turning their attention to doing something with the leftover bits.
Iain: Are you telling me that you haven’t got your own fabric scraps?
Heide: Erm, no. I’ve got loads. But these are new and SO much fun! I can make pretty things from them.
Iain: There’s something special about those little items. We all have a soft spot for those overlooked scraps, those hidden gems, things that we love but seem to have been ignored by the rest of the world.
Heide: And things that you like but the rest of the world thinks are awful.
Iain: Right. For example, Terry Pratchett.
Heide: I don’t think he’s forgotten or overlooked.
Iain: No, but it’s interesting that because his many Discworld books were so popular, it seems that his early science fiction novels have been sort of ignored. I love the books “Strata” and “The Dark Side of the Sun.”
Heide: I think I just hoovered them up years ago without really thinking about it.
