unpacking

I managed, at very long last, to finish unpacking the last couple of plastic containers in my office today - very good to greet various items that have moved with me from one office to another over the past decade or so.   This mug - which has been minus its handle for a long time - I bought in the Cowley Road, in Oxford, a long time back.   But the flowers, the dried roses, tied together with a ribbon?  I think they date from my time as chair at Rutgers, but then again, they may not.   That's the sad thing - one keeps things for a memento, and then completely forgets what one's meant to be reminded of.   Then there's a copy of Vanity Fair, a novel which I suspect I've not read in twenty years (though I remember it pretty vividly, or think I do) and Barry Lyndon, which I have a suspicion I've never read at all - and, of course, my bright blue office bookshelves.