Glass

I feel a little like glass at the moment. Transparent and breakable . . . Fragile and not very viscous but I know that everything's slowly sliding to the bottom and the older I get, I have much less clarity than I did in my youth. Yes, I'm rather like an Elizabethan window pane that's past it's prime and needing a little refurbishment and renewal. A little spit, polish and restoration.

I remember having tea in a little Tea Shoppe in Winchester many years ago, one of those low ceiling Elizabethan places with beautiful blackened beams and a rammed earth floor. The door frames were so small, we virtually had to duck to walk through the door into a dimly lit tea room with neat little gingham layed tables and a roaring open fire. The windows were a conglomeration of tiny squares of thick glass with a circular centre, a symptom of being 'blown' rather than moulded or rolled. I was amazed that restorers were having a problem replacing and repairing these little window panes because . . .since glass is a liquid . . .over the hundreds of years, they'd thickened at the bottom and been rendered fragile and thin at the top. Hard to imagine something so rigid and versatile is actually moving all the time.

I like glass . . I can't be trusted with it. I drop it, I knock it against the flickmixer when I'm washing up, it slips from my hands without any provocation. It flies off the side table with the slightest flick of the finger and shatters into a thousand pieces like a broken windscreen. One Christmas, I actually removed an empty bottle from our glass-topped barbecue table and the whole thing shattered into a million little pieces like a trashed windscreen.

I find glass on the floor days later when I run round with the vacuum cleaner. I'm so predictable with particularly Champagne glasses that I receive at least a dozen every Birthday and/or Christmas to replenish the ones which have become shattered casualties throughout the year. I'm a standing joke when it comes to breaking drinking glasses. the term "Taxi" is frequently yelled at me as glasses tumble on a weekly basis through my apparent clumsiness. Hot tip? Never buy me glassware . . .ooops . . too late! I have no more than 8 matching glasses and yep, they're Red Wine glasses (of course I drink white!) or blasted Stuart Crystal sherry glasses . . who on earth drinks Sherry! But again,they're pretty and sparkly and belonged to people I cared about.

I cringe when anyone gives me anything made out of glass. Like the little Venetian glass bowl with a lid that my mother bought from well. .Venice. The Cavan Crystal photo frame that was a gift from my Padwan's family and is still waiting for an appropriate photograph. My Grandma's cake tray that comes out once in a blue moon at birthdays, high days and holidays. Also her jug that was so often placed on the table filled with Dandelion and Burdock. I love the vase that my daughter bought me for Christmas to replace . .you guessed it, the one I smashed just before. It's perfect for my favourite flowers - Lillies.

Then I have a lot of useless glass. Waterford crystal decanters that I simply can't part with because they're heirlooms, the crystal Bell that sat on my Nana's mantle and a delightful Chinese perfume bottle that I salvaged from my Aunt's belongings after she died whilst everyone else deemed her possessions rubbish and couldn't wait to get rid of her stuff. I love the mirror that my mother in law bought me as a housewarming present because 'everyone likes to make sure they're just so before they leave the house' so it hangs by the front door .

So whilst Glass and I have a chequered history and I would never recommend ever buying or giving me good quality glass (It just ends up in the cupboard to be admired and never touched). It has a quality about it that I appreciate. I can't drink out of a paper cup and spectacles (God who says 'spectacles' without an opening ceremony being discussed) with plastic lenses just don't seem right. Nothing catches the light late in the afternoon as a finely cut crystal. I even like the sound of glass when you dampen the rim and gently smooth your finger around it in a circle to make it sing.


I had photos. And I don't know whether it's blogger or my shitty internet but I've had a devil of a time posting, visiting and commenting this week unless I can do it after work, at work. So apologies for those of you to whom I've been less than regular. New ADSL2 Naked Broadband has been ordered and hopefully will be in place to save me bashing my head against the glass screen of my computer (no it's not really glass) and reduce my hypertension!