Great heights and better things

This is the picture which hangs above my computer, to the right hand side of the screen. It is slightly grubby and watermarked, but it is one of the first things I would save from a house fire (after my children, husband and the dog).

I know that birds and flowers have various meanings in Chinese symbology, but I haven't yet fully researched this picture.

It was given to me by my mother and her late partner Michael, who loved scouring sales and auctions for interesting artifacts. Michael died 11 years ago, just two weeks before Princess Diana. He definitely had an eye for the unusual and could see the beauty of something, despite its grubbiness.

The picture is embroidered on silk. A bird of prey, what sort I don't know, sitting on a branch of wisteria, next to what could be a rose. Pasted on the back is a label which says W. Heffer and Sons Ltd, The Heffer Gallery, 18 & (something obliterated), Sydney Street, Cambridge, which is presumably where it originally was purchased from, although Michael found it in at a farm sale in Pembrokeshire.

Michael used to pick up boxes of all kinds of rubbish at sales, but within there would be something lovely, like this painting, or the Chinese ceramic stool Mum has, or her umbrella stand full of interesting and various walking sticks. At one point he went through a phase of buying chairs and tables. He gave me this lovely lidded bowl with a goose spoon on one of my birthdays.

All the time he was visiting farm sales and antiques auctions Michael knew he was terminally ill. It was almost as if he was looking for lovely things to leave behind which we could look at and enjoy that would remind us of him.

The best part of the picture though, for all it is attractive to look at, and one day I might even find out how to have such a precious thing cleaned, is the Chinese inscription at the top left hand corner.

It says: "This shows that I have the potential for soaring to great heights and better things."

Which, I think, is rather fabulous.