My parents bought me a solid gold, gate-link bracelet after I had had my first couple of children. It was very heavy, very chunky, very beautiful.
For the next many Christmases and birthdays they added charms to it. Original little antiques they found in a family jewellers on the High Street in Broadstairs.
I would wear it when I went out in the evenings and the children, as they grew to notice it, would take it in turns to rest my hand in their laps and carefully examine each charm.
They squealed over Concord with an adjustable nose that hinged downward.
They’d prise open the church door revealing a bride and groom standing at the altar with a presiding priest.
They laughed when I activated a mechanism that thrust a yellow cuckoo from its little house in the cuckoo clock.
They watched as I opened the whale’s mouth and there was Jonah trapped inside.
They’d stroke the dachsund complete with inside out ears, (our French Polly who loved to ride in the car with her head out of the window, ears flapping).
They’d dance the point shoe on their fingers and kiss the bible and marvel at many, many others as the years went by.
Our school teacher daughter desperately wanted a bracelet like mine. The charms enchanted her.
This Christmas we bought her one.
Not being a gold lover her bracelet was a silver, antique beauty bought with care at the Covent Garden market.
We chose four charms to start with, a dog that looked just like Watson, a bible that opened, a heart shaped locket and an old shoe whose sole detached showing an old woman with “so many children she didn’t know what to do..” inside.
To avoid the risk of the charms falling off and getting lost down the side of her bed or while she was out, hubs planned to take them to be securely attached.
I remembered my father repairing broken clasps and chains and other pieces of jewellery for me and my mother in the past so I suggested he look in the garage full of tools and find the tools that would do the trick.
He went and investigated and hey presto, home he came with an iron and a reel of wire. I recognised them and exclaimed,
“Yes, that’s what he used…”
Hubs was worried it wouldn’t work on silver but I assured him it would and made a note on our shopping list,
“Sodder,” which is how my lovely American hubs pronounces the word.
He laughed and wrote it as it should be. I looked at his correction and said,
“That’s not sodder, that’s solder,” and as soon as the old forgotten word had dropped from my lips I remembered why I hadn’t used it for so many years.
It gave me grief along with two others.
These three words confused the heck out of me when it came to pronunciation, to my young ears they sounded so similar my tongue became entwined in them.
“Solder,
“Shoulder and
Soldier!” I said!
After all these years my articulation still suffered.
I think I’ll stick to the American way of saying at least one of those words!
Oh and by the way, the silver sodder worked brilliantly.
Paris opened our gift to her over Skype and was charmed.
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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