My New Frog

We went to a jumble sale again on Saturday. Despite my awareness of the clutter and junk we already possess, we went anyway. We do seem to be drawn to other people’s old crap.
Off we set with our pennies, some Little Seymours and I, to see what we could find.
Well, little did I know that a frog, he would a wooing go. And as if by fate, that frog was put up for sale in the auction at the jumble sale, and he wooed me. I paid fifty pence for the ugly blighter, because nobody else would buy him. And now I have a large ceramic amphibian contorted into a suspicious, karma sutra-esque position outside my ostentatious front gates.
Why? You may well ask. Well, I must admit, he did appeal to me. Anthony Rowley Seymour, as he is now called, is eye-catching and demands attention. He needs a bit of tlc, and I am sure he won’t last all that long out there in the cold without disintegrating, but I just had to give him a reprieve from the tip. He is just too jolly interesting to be consigned to the dump.
He is also an experiment. Anthony is not secured in place. He is simply popped outside, in full view of the road.
I left a bike outside once – for a lady to collect. Some bugger nicked it.
Will Anthony be taken, too?

Uncharacteristically, Big Seymour is hoping that the local criminals swing past and pay us a visit. I suspect he may even gloss over any incriminating footage from his CCTV cameras, should Anthony go AWOL. Because Big Seymour is not a fan of my frog.

I really hope that Anthony Rowley doesn’t get nicked, though. As I say, I rather like him. But he is also a useful landmark. Not many houses have large, ugly, spreadeagled frogs to keep watch and herald our guests who, to date, have invariably struggled to find us and driven on past.

I suspect, also, that Anthony Rowley Seymour may be just the start of a curious and gruesome collection. I’ve always admired the White Queen’s ornamental garden in Narnia. Fauns, leprechauns, unicorns, bears… even gnomes, all cast in stone and keeping watch. Big Seymour has his CCTV, I’ll have a creepy army of frozen minions to keep the weirdos away.

Win win, I say.