This morning, as I left Nero’s, I noticed a couple of missed calls from Mirinda. The newly discovered cancer risk has me keeping the phone in my bag so I hadn’t heard or seen them. I also noticed a text which reminded me that I’d forgotten something important. I quickly called her back.
A few weeks ago, she asked me to organise a couple of bottles of lovely red wine and a pair of engraved wine glasses to go with them. They were for a work colleague who is leaving. And I forgot to research and get it done.
The wine was easy enough. I stood at the expensive wine section of Waitrose umming and ahing over the various bottles, looking for something delicious from 2011 (the day he started with them) and, eventually found a couple of bottles of a 2011 rioja which I really wanted to drink. That worked for me. I bought them.
Next (after normal food shopping) I headed down to Elphick’s, our very own independent department store. I always love it when I have to buy things there. It’s very pleasant, family owned and full of beautiful things. And that’s just the staff.
I stood at the expensive wine glass section and decided on a pair of claret glasses which I was about to carefully extract from the display. Then my eye caught a box of four chianti glasses which looked a little less fragile.
I had no idea if engraving required a certain level of glass thickness but I figured thicker meant better (and easier) so I opted for the chianti glasses. Besides, I reasoned, chianti and rioja were very similar in style so the better option.
I once more, carefully, extracted a box from the display.
Now, with glasses and wine safely in my shopping bag, I headed for the only place I thought that would engrave glass. There used to be a place a door down from the intersection of South, East, West Streets and Bear Lane but that went and was replaced by a series of failed shops none of which engrave glass. Or anything other than skin.
The only place I could think of where glass might be engraved was Timpson’s. And I was right.
The Man from Timpson was lovely. He explained that it was good I’d bought four glasses because the stems can snap and it’s good to have a couple of spares. He assured me he’d be very careful and handed me examples of a long list of type faces.
I stood at the Timpson counter and examined the hundreds of fonts before finally settling on Vanessa. When I told him of my decision he smiled and said he wasn’t surprised. Most people choose Vanessa. Vanessa is clearly very popular, I said.
“Easy on the eye,” he replied.
They’ll be ready tomorrow morning so armed with a docket and the time of opening, I headed home.
Mirinda was very happy with this turn of events and we arranged for me to meet Rowena at Waterloo tomorrow morning after I pick the glasses up and catch a train.
While it wasn’t how I’d intended to spend my morning, it was a delightfully successful operation.
I’ve been told, by numerous people in the know, that blog posts should always have a photograph, here’s a tree with a gnarly old trunk.
