Eleanor

Chic Eleanor was standing at the bar brandishing two goldfish bowls of gin when I walked through the doors of The Crown at 6.30pm
" Darling John ! Early doors ! Who would have guessed it!?" 
The pub is always nicely busy on a Friday teatime and it was nice to say hi to a few familiar faces before we found a table not far from the fire
I adore Eleanor, for she is comfortable in any setting she finds herself in
She smiles, she is gracious and she is genuine
I told her that the mysterious P ( one of my blog followers) is interested in meeting her.
" How delightful, is he a dish?!" She cooed
We gossiped for an hour before wanting chips in a bowl
Unfortunately the chef had left early!
The youth club in the village hall finished around 8pm and the supervisors must of galloped over to the pub for a much needed large wine and I hugged Bridget ( the main supervisor) when we got up to go
" We don't see much of you around the village " another drinker said from his barstool perch next to her  and I thought how lovely it was catching up with people at teatime rather than later in the day
I could see that Eleanor agreed
" Darling this early doors thing is quite the fun thing, we must do it again!" She mused swirling her pashmina like batman's cape before we left

Serendipity

I was chatting about serendipity only yesterday over dinner
I've benefitted from this strange and seemingly fickle phenomenon over the past 18 months and one day I shall share some of the stories of its golden touch here on Going Gently but for now I shall share a little moment of more recent serendipity joy.

The day before my wedding my sister's gave me my grandmother's wedding ring. It was wrapped in a blue ribbon and was the something old in that old fashioned  wedding gift tradition way.
I was incredibly touched by the gift and kept the ring safe with my wedding certificate .

Over the divorce , I had to send  my wedding documentation off to my solicitors and without thinking the ring ended up with some office clerk who kindly researched where it may of come from and returned it to me.
The ring was placed in my wallet for safekeeping but like things do when life is fraught it suddenly went missing from its second safe place around a year ago.
I've scoured the cottage for it over the past months, without success.
I was mortified

Anyhow a few days ago I cleared out a load of old books from under my bed. I bagged them up into carrier bags and took them to the local charity shop but not before I noticed a small Christmas cracker lying amongst the flotsam of one bag
The Christmas cracker I recognised . It was a tiny one from a box of ten 1940s Christmas decorations I had bought from an antique fair decades ago, so I pocketed it inside my hoodie with the thought of returning it safely.

I found the cracker today. I'm doing washing and like a good housewife was emptying my pockets of snotty tissues and dog poo bags and there it was like a small toffee wrapper.

I remembered where I had placed the box of crackers and located it in the small arts and crafts writing bureau in the living room.
Inside the box were nine another crackers and almost hidden underneath them was my grandmother's wedding ring which had been carefully attached to a  wooden tag of a Welsh terrierby me and then forgotten
It had finally been sent back to me