Eggheads and exeats

Exeat. Literally, "Let him go out". Mini-sabbatical long weekend away for recuperative purposes, avoidance of cabin fever, for which a cure was only found in 1937, and that was electro-shock therapy. Taken to extremes in 1969 ("I need to go find myself"): if only we knew in advance that you could easily find yourself in a mirror or Southern California, and again with the French Foreign Legion and their nameless escapees from society.
I am spending my exeat with Jof and Nanna: our minds are completely in tune now that she says everything 5 times and I need 4 repeats before I take any notice.
Here is #1 in a short series of "Prof M's Unusual Things".

It is a cast iron gatepost finial in stylized acorn motif, although we call it the eggcup and accordingly it was painted pink for a while for realism. Discovered under an unadorned gatepost at the northern entrance to Aldenham churchyard (north of London, think Watford if you have to) at Christmas 1979, it was rescued from an uncertain future under the leaf litter of rural Hertfordshire and has spent the last 35-odd years in Grandma and Grandad's garage, although this was in fact 3 different garages. It is very heavy and I use it for arm exercises.

So we'd arranged key access with Roofman. No surprise, then, that Scaffoldman knocked on the door while Jof was in the shower (it is a universal talent of all visiting contractors to arrive inconveniently), so I had to furnish him with the back gate key myself. By the time we'd got to Nanna's house, the scaffolding was extensive but not actually complete.
Nanna is my official sewer. I do not mean the subterranean toxic liquid transfer system (Life is like a sewer. What you get out of it depends upon what you put into it .....) but the official sewer-on of those cloth badges you get for activities such as Beaver Scouts, Trampolining and Gymnastics. I've been saving up the Beaver badges for a while and I will suddenly have very little space left on my blue top. But the gym and tramping badges were lost during the move (they will turn up just after I get back) so will have to wait. If I ever manage that dratted Frog Balance, I'll get Gym Badge 3 and all others will be obsolete anyway.
I have left instructions for the guardian of the house (eat sausages, do not pass go), let's see how that works out.