Mystery Objects (continued from yesterday)

Yesterday I shared a photo of objects that were found under the floorboards in our adjoining house. I invited fellow blippers to speculate about the objects. So today I'm sharing our thoughts!

Glyn discovered this when he removed part of the floor board which brought a smile to both of us.

We think that the round circular balls are `Commies', i.e. marbles made out of clay.

According to Wikipedia, `Commie or common - made of clay; natural color or monochrome coloration. Made in huge quantities during 19th and early 20th centuries. Common, not very attractive; thus almost no value.'

The children who lived in the house many years ago would have been the children of poor agricultural labourers or perhaps miners or workers who dug clay in the field over the wall. We think the children probably found a hole in the floorboards and thought it ideal for a game of marbles. So the hole in the floorboard became the `pot'. I'm guessing that they must have been able to lift a piece of the board out otherwise they wouldn't have been able to play the game again. For some reason they've also found a bung to stop up the hole. Perhaps so their parents didn't know anything about their game.

And the metal pieces - we think are probably leather punches. Possibly for working horse harness or cobbling shoes - quite a common practice in the past.

Winter has come back with a vengeance today in the form of lots of very wet slushy snow. Amazing when we think of the summer temperatures we experienced last week. (I think some parts of the country have had it much worse than us.) Our Tai Chi tutor managed to get to us by leaving his car at the top of the hill and walking down. Otherwise the only people who made it were villagers. Work next door has come to a halt today - so we've had a day off from the banging and drilling and noise and have done some of the self indulgent things that you do when the weather is bad outside. For me this involved adding historical family photos onto Flickr so the rest of my family can see them.