Dreaming spires
Aside from keeping Rocksey amused, I run an on-line business on the side selling band merchandise and other rockstar related items and I am always on the look out for new and unusual items to add to the business.
A few weeks ago, I had a call from a client who said she had sourced some beautiful gem stones to use as part of her bespoke jewellery range and did I want to take a look. Now I do love a road trip and if there is the chance of something lovely at the end of it then I'm on my way!
The meeting was scheduled for yesterday in Oxford which is about an hour and a half away. The day dawned cold and frosty but by lunchtime the sky was a clear blue and the sun was sining down with even a little warmth to it. A day for the top down on the Audi TT, sunglasses on and after a bit of rummaging around in the glove compartment a Lucinda Williams CD was playing as I took a beautiful trip down the M40 to the dreaming spires of Oxford, made all the sweeter that I could sing along to one of my favourite female singers without Rocksey trying to swap her for Kid Rock.
Now I don't know if anyone of you have ever been to Oxford but when the sun hits that yellow mellow stones and spires you could, in a heart beat be transported back in time into a Thomas Hardy novel, Jude the Obscure being my favourite and based also in Oxford. Buoyed on with Lucinda and the reckless free feeling of Spring in the air in one of my favourite cities I had forgot that I needed to be elsewhere and turned off the Sat Nav, parked up for a few moments to enjoy the hedonism that being in this City makes you feel.
Eventually I turn the Sat Nav back on and turning by back on the Spires continue along my journey in search of the holy grail of the promise of gemstones.
My search ends on an industrial estate near Didcot Power Station- geographically only 7 miles away but worlds away from Thomas Hardy. However, the journey ends well, my client has taken a fabulous delivery of blue and yellow sapphires amongst some other lovely aquamarines and rubys which she was setting in her bespoke range of skull jewellery - ( I especially like the stones set as brains). An hour or so later I am back on the road, an order in place and a tiny pair of ruby studded skull earrings wrapped in gold flecked tissue paper in my handbag- a gift to myself for a job well done.
The evening has drawn in, the top on the Audi is down, the heater on, the dreaming spires are swathed in an early evening sky blue pink and orange dusk. i swap Lucinda for Kid Rock and sing all the way home.
