Ruined Reputations?
13/December/2007 Filed in:
JottingsAs a community we have not yet got down to sending Christmas letters and cards to our friends and well-wishers. We usually send them after Christmas Day as Advent is such a precious time of preparation, but we have been touched by those we have received and the gifts that accompany them. In a village like this, the same deliverymen call throughout the year, usually dropping off such mundane items as candles for the church or paper for the press. Yesterday, however, we took delivery of a very luxurious-looking crate (a comment on the recent redesign of the web site?) bearing the words Fortnum & Mason on the outside. Doubtless the news will spread quickly — last year I was painting out a few scratches on the car and was surprised to find that our local petrol station, four miles away, knew about it within an hour of my picking up the retouching kit. I just wonder what yesterday's delivery will do to what is left of our reputations after the Veil Ale and Elderflower champagne-making of the summer. (The gift, by the way, comes from some dear friends in Canada with a wicked sense of humour.)