What the fork?

What The Fork Is That On My Wrist?

The problem with being the messiest person I know is that I'm also scared of spiders.

 Left to my own devices I would happily live surrounded by piles of stuff. In my youth, I would move enough stuff off the bed at night to enable me to get in, and clear a path through the stuff to enable me to move from room to room. Where this fell down, is when I saw a spider of significant size, and was forced to call for help (significant -to me- being larger than an earring). I had enough social conscience to then be ashamed.


 The emergency spider rescuer entering the house used to be staggered as to how I managed to spot the spider in amongst the piles of stuff. (This is ridiculous, as anyone who is a true arachnophobe will tell you that we have a built-in spider radar that alerts us to the slightest spiderish movement. A friend spent an 'amusing' fifteen minutes one day at college throwing the top green bit of a tomato at me, amazed that my spider sense would not let me stop flinching.)

 There is a wonderful passage in "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole", where Adrian's father is giving him some advice. Don't think of marrying a girl until you have shared a bedroom with her, is the regretful sigh. If she leaves her knickers on the floor for more than three days running, forget it. Thankfully, for my spouse, since I married and had children I have strived mightily to overcome my natural 'relaxed' attitude to organisation. I was clearing up, again, the other day and marvelling at how my daughter passes the pile on the stairs ten times a day without touching it, and how my sons are able to get out of the bath and literally just walk away, wet. Then I realised; it's genetic. I may have been watching too much "Downton Abbey", but I see it clearly. The only cure is servants.

In 17th Century England, when a servant of a house wished to become betrothed, it was difficult, nay t'was impossible, for them to find a appropriate ring for their suitor. (No, I've finished talking like this, now. I was setting the scene).

In a canny stroke of genius, they would steal a small, silver spoon from the house and make it into a ring, which would still bear the decoration from the handle of the spoon. (To my mind, this is where the genius falls down. Can't really deny the theft if your wife has the family's unique silver pattern on her finger, can you? I know- I'm being too literal; go with the romance).

I'm quite grateful we didn't know Danielle, of db designs, when I got engaged ( I'm sure my spouse would have found an old tea strainer in the cutlery drawer), but I have a bracelet which she made from a fork with which I am a little bit obsessed at the moment. (Danielle is a little distracted if you go to dinner with her, true, and it's best to check her handbag afterwards, but she does make these seemingly mundane items into beautiful pieces of jewelry.) As families sell their silver sets, a lot of old, unique patterns are being melted down and lost. This jewelry, then (especially my fork) is cool, historic, ethical, ecologically sound, and I've only touched on the possibilities of the fun you could have with the 'fork- look at that! word play.

If only I could find it....