Lost and found

I'm sure it happens to everyone at some time.  Something is not where it should be.  Because I've always been a little forgetful I have developed the habit of always putting things away in what I decree as their rightful place.  Well, obviously not always.  

I remember many years ago accusing my teenage daughter of taking my newly purchased black pantyhose.  I knew where they should be and they weren't there, so in my mind, someone must have moved them.  In this case I don't have anyone else to blame.  Although, I must confess I checked the deep freeze which is where the pantyhose were finally found - under the tub of ice-cream.  No ice-cream this time round and no missing album either.

When my third child was born I started a little album with the details of when each of my children reached their milestones - when they got their first tooth, first words at what age, when they crawled, walked, etc.  I had one for each of them but this one had all the info in the one place and it's been the one I've referred to most over the years.

Now that third child has reached fatherhood (a slow developer in that respect) and he's interested in how his child compares to himself as a baby - and I can't find The Book.  I know I've looked at it since I moved in July, so it's in the house somewhere.  (I also have some stuff in boxes in the shed.)

It's obviously getting at me because last night I had a dream of where to find it and bounded out of bed joyously this morning only to have my dreams dashed.

I'm so cross with myself but it's not helping at all.

I pray it is just misplaced, not lost.

To cheer myself I sat down and looked through my wedding notebook that I've kept for nearly 55 years.

I thought absolutely everything to do with my wedding was written in there.  I see the material for my going away outfit cost $12, my hat a further $5.50, shoes 70 cents (yes, really!)  The material for my Kitchen Tea outfit cost $8.12, another pair of shoes for 70 cents, and new gloves cost $1.25.  Isn't it odd that gloves cost so much more than shoes?   I made both outfits myself but had a dressmaker make my wedding dress.  I haven't recorded the details, I'd guess because the material was bought on layby a fair while in advance and the dressmaker was a friend of a friend's parents and made a gift of her services.

I've also recorded a list of expenses for the groom.  Church fees which I remember were not a set price but a donation to the church and was to be put in a plain envelope and handed to the priest without attracting attention, marriage licence ( £1/1/-) organist and church singer ( £1/1/- each), I was married in June and Australia introduced decimal currency during the previous February and some costs were still quoted in pounds sterling.  On the list was gifts for attendants, flowers for groomsmen and fathers, bouquets for bridesmaids and mothers.  However, my groom escaped the flowers costs as a cousin of my mother's gifted me the flowers and my bridesmaids and I made up the bouquets and corsages ourselves the night before the wedding.  I remember how we handled them so carefully on the Big Day, knowing they could easily fall apart.

There were a few blank pages at the back of the notebook where I wrote my first few weeks' housekeeping expenses as a married woman.  In the first week I spent $25.32 of my $27.95 pay packet and that included $4.25 for a gift and wrapping paper.  I wonder who received the gift?  I wonder what the equivalent of the saved $2.63 would be in today's money.  And yes, I banked it, the book says so.

What the missing book says remains a secret!