No doubt at the risk of being labelled a consummate consumer or a vulgar materialist or some other anti-spiritual condemnation, I will continue this brief catalogue of our personal possessions in our private domain.  The topic today is rugs.  We have 11 of them scattered about the apartment, including (by some standards unusual) in one of the two bathrooms (where in fact there are two because it is an uncharacteristically spacious room).

Coincidentally one of my favourite rugs is a Persian rug which in fact was one of the first I was introduced to as a child.  It belonged to my paternal grandparents who lived in at 301 Woodstock Road, Fredericton, New Brunswick. I recall having seen it in the front drawing room of the house or in my grandfather’s library across the hallway.  Its crimson reds and sapphire blues have forever impressed me. It is a large piece which now covers the entirety of our drawing room. My father inherited the rug, my mother used it in their home in Qualicum Park and I appropriated it upon my mother’s death.

Another large rug (now in the bedroom) is also an antique (or just plain old).  I bought it about 44 years ago when I moved into my new office at 77 Little Bridge Street. Even then the rug was about 35 years old. I bought it from a shop in Westboro.  As you can see from the photograph below I sometimes put rug-on-run which was nothing more than a confession that I couldn’t get enough of them.

The oddest place from which I bought Eastern rugs was a grocery store in Ottawa.  While shopping one day for groceries I came upon numerous piles of Persian/Iranian rugs. It was not long after the doleful drama on September 11th at the World Trade Centre in New York City.  My suspicion has always been that a shipload of the rugs destined to NYC was turned back and rejected by the American importers.  Rather than return across the North Atlantic Ocean, the ship detoured to Canada where someone bought the load at a discount then retailed them on very favourable terms in grocery stores.  Upon seeing the stock I immediately purchased three or four then telephoned my friends of like interest and told them.

What I consider to be our best rugs were purchased on Sussex Drive in Ottawa or from the chaps in Westboro.  Some of them (the smaller ones) are silk; others are extraordinarily bright colours (one predominantly yellow is my favourite). Rugs are meant to be sturdy and accordingly we use them as such.  We have never descended to exhibiting them on a wall notwithstanding their indisputable artistry.