Gold and fish (but not goldfish!)

Jo and I went into Birkenhead yesterday morning. We collected a couple of the items we had left at the jewellers.


One was a family ring from 1875. It had belonged to my Great Grandmother, Louisa Sophia Spencer. It had lost one of the little rose-cut diamonds and our friendly jeweller at Birkenhead Market replaced it for us. The result with its opals, rubies and diamonds has proved well worth it. (Please excuse the lines across the photo – the camera is playing up. )



The second ring is another Victorian one. This was from Dad’s side of the family and he gave it to Jo many years ago. It is rose gold with rubies but one of the rubies had come out of its setting. By some miracle we still had the stone. Andy not only reset the stone that had come out but also refixed another stone that was loose. Then he cleaned it. The end result is amazing. It’s great to see a craftsman’s work from over a hundred years ago made good by a modern-day craftsman.



My second favourite place within the Market is the fish stall that we regularly use. As usual we bought a selection of white fish, smoked white fish and salmon to make some fish pies. They vacuum pack it for us and the flavour when we use it is as fresh as the day it was caught.


 

I've had better days...

"I have a new philosophy. I'm only going to dread one day at a time." - Charles M. Schulz


Rumour has it - my conscious self wasn't around at the time - that I collapsed on Thursday night. Appropriately enough I passed out at the computer. But this may mean this blog is erratic for a few days... See you soon.


 

The Fish Pond

Yesterday, rain or no rain, I decided that the fish had to be sorted. When we put the new fish in the pond a few days ago I was horrified to see how dirty the water was. As a result I spent an hour yesterday emptying the pond and its gravel and partially re-filling it. There was a lot of gravel and a lot of water. Heavy stuff gravel and heavy stuff water. I also had to move a lot of the bricks that hold the tank in place. By the end of the job I had a migraine, a clean fish pond and an extra fish! When I came to empty the fish out I was surprised to find we had four large ones instead of the three we had just bought. The last of our fish – that we assumed had died over the winter – had obviously been hiding in the plants and dirty water.