27.7.10 ~ 140 word diary (love tokens)

We see Tony & family off to Edinburgh for their three-day trip. Jake says goodbye to Alyx and then asks for her as soon as they leave. Paul has the day off so we take Jake to Coram’s fields and then Waitrose when the rain gets more persistent. On Marchmont Street, I see objects embedded in the pavement. They are duplicates of the love tokens on display at the Foundling Museum nearby. Items that mothers leaving their children at the Foundling Hospital (in the 18th Century) would leave with their child, to identify them in case they could ever afford to have them back, or for them to have some reminder or connection to their roots, though the children themselves never received them. Seeing them on the pavement was poignant and resonant. Findings from an excavation of a lost childhood.