We've had a strange old day today with quite a lot of frustrations. Late in the day we lifted our sitting room carpet (good riddance to it - it smelled of urine - NOT nice) because the builders had pulled it back to access the hearth and when we arrived home last night we realised the floor beneath the carpet is much nicer than the carpet itself.

With it gone, the room looks stacks better already despite still being incredibly dusty. We've been contributing to the dust ourselves today with a pair of wire brushes that we've brushed the remains of the plaster off the granite lintel above our new fabby fireplace. We decided it'd be better to get on and do it now, rather than next weekend after the stove is in....this way we won't have to clean the stove off afterwards.

I was sweeping the floor to get up the bits of foam backing from the carpet and the dust from the building work and this marble popped out from under the stairs where it has been since who knows when.

It seems highly unlikely that the marble was left by our predecessors as their children were tiny and I'm pretty sure marbles would still have been a choking hazard for them. So, it must have been there for many years because we know that in the last thirty years or so they were the only family with children to live here.

Finding it reminded me of many, many games of marbles as a child, with my sister or our friends. To tell the truth though, I was much more interested in them as objects of beauty and loved collecting them. I had a black velvet drawstring bag that I kept them in and my memory was jogged about that lovely 'clicking' sound that they made when I picked the bag up.

This sort of marble though was decidedly not at the top of my list of favourites - that honour was given to those lovely pearlised ones, you know, the sort that had a petrol like sheen on them. The ones like this were best when their centres were bright and colourful - preferably pink (I'm still really girly about pink - it's my favourite colour to this day).

Anyway, as soon as it popped into view, I thought 'there goes my pic of the day'. Sorted! It's sitting on a dress to give the colourful background and lit by a candle. After I'd got the composition and colours I wanted, I noticed the peaks in the light reflections and thought 'starburst filter' and here it is! I still love it - I don't care how cheesy!