On being received in the houses of friends

On Being Received in the Houses of Friends

I met with three of my group óf friends who craft with me, in person and indoors and enjoyed the simple pleasure of   the easy company of friends.

Í’m somebody who while enjoying meeting up with friends, can survive relatively well on my own, so perhaps  the trials of  the lockdown did not affect me so seriously as some.   I didn’t miss the hugging and kissing at all!

But it was lovely to be admitted to my friend’s comfortable and pleasant home again.  We should remember what a privilege it is to be welcomed in to someone’s home, and when they leave that house and it is closed to you forever, you experience for the first few times you pass It, a kind of desolation.

There were also delicious home made biscuits.   Everyone was kind and considerate of my comfort.  People would patiently pick up my scissors when I dropped them and would assist me by threading needles etc much faster than I could have done.

I reflected that though the pandemic has been a truly dreadful thing for some people, it has also taught us to appreciate the splendour, value and joy which can be obtained from very small things.

THE RING ON YOUR FINGER

THE RING ON YOUR FINGER.

I am rather fond of jewellery.     I like looking at it but do not feel a compulsion to own it.

I often feel sorry for older ladies who visit the BBC Antiques Roadshow proudly sporting let us say, a sapphire and diamond brooch which the lady’s grandmother left her.   She had been gifted it by her husband who was in the diplomatic service.    She knows it  is valuable and estimates its worth as £4 – £5ooo pounds.   She is surprised to learn that owing to the magnificence  of the stones, it is now valued around £40 – £50,ooo.   The audience applauds her warmly. rejoicing in her good fortune.      But she acquires one or two problems.     Is she justified in leaving so large a proportion of her family’s wealth in this form.   She used to lend her brooch to other ladies of the family to wear at the weddings of their children etc. – will she still be able to do this now?   Can she afford the insurance?  Is she safe wearing the brooch.  She had been going to leave it to her eldest grand-daughter but she could not really do so now, as she had no other pieces of equivalent value to leave to the other girls of the family.

For a time when she was at home with her children, Joanna used to make semi precious jewelry so I  was in the happy position that I could say, I’d like a lapis lazuli and pearl necklace – and get it at cost price!

I was surprised to see that as with clothes, everyone has a certain style that suits them.   I do not wear bracelets or brooches very much.   My main focus is on rings and necklaces.  I commissioned a ring from Joanna for  a friend of mine In Oxford.    My friend who is a beautiful woman  after the English rose style did not at all suit the dramatic jewellery that suited me.   On her it looked like a necklace wearing a woman.  Joanna eventually made her a very delicate necklace with a small blue glass    bead  in it with a long gap between the stones  so that they appeared to float around her neck, and this suited her.

When we got married, I did not want a conventional engagement and wedding ring.  We went to Mappin and Webb in Edinburgh, and I found a ring that appealed to me.  This was 1976 and it is very typical of the period.  I am sure it was made by the hundreds but I have never seen anyone else wearing one like it.  It is made of yellow gold and comes to two points at the front, and has two diamonds set diagonally across the points.  The ring is in bark stye.  We went out on the street and John got down on one knee on  the pavement and put it on my finger  and passersby laughed with us and shared in our joy.   

I occasionally travelled for work and I thought it would be easier, staying in hotels, to be wearing a wedding ring  so we returned to Mappin and Webb and bought a matching ring.   There was some difficulty with the points on my existing ring so eventually I wore the pointed ring with diamonds first and the wedding band on top of it, with the point tucked in under the topmost ring.     I wore it like this until I had children when I found the rings heavy on my hands so  stopped earing them and went without rings for twenty or more years

Then one day about 2 years ago I came across them in a drawer     My knuckles are now larger and I could not easily get the rings on and off.   My friend Lynda suggested I get them enlarged by a jeweller and recommended  one in Ditchling.   I knew that they had made a silver bracelet to a design by Carolyn Hulatt, who professed herself satisfied with the outcome, and as she was notoriously exacting with her high standards, we knew that was a worthy recommendation. 

After a week or two they gave me the rings back.  They were beautifully clean and polished and shining from all their treatment on them  I put the diamond ring on – and it was comfortable and I suddenly thought, this was how I had always wanted to wear it.   So I put the other ring in a drawer, and I’m wearing the ring I originally chose.