I have a friend called Avis and she has a growing craze
She’s passionate about one thing, the specimen vase or vaze

No, not the kind in hospitals, the sort that hold one bloom
She must have got three hundred in every single room

But lots of them are duplicates, she doesn’t bother much
She’s always buying cupboards to hold her growing clutch

She routs around in all the shops, does boot fairs by the score
And haggles with the best of them before she adds one more.,

She never ever uses them but dusts them now and then
And sometimes rearranges them and puts them back again

She’s got them on the mantel piece and in the kitchen too
There’s some in the conservatory, they’re even in the loo.

It makes life very easy when pressie time comes round
I rummage in the charity shops – they’re usually just a pound

But she is so delighted with another gem to treasure
That I don’t feel a skin-flint if I’m giving so much pleasure

And then I feel quite guilty as I add another one
I wonder what will happen when Avis’s time has come

Her son, well he won’t want them, the neighbours all agree
I hope and pray she hasn’t left them in her will – to me!

© Mary Stewart