Golden Girl
It all started the day after my 50th birthday, the day I became a Golden Girl - the wish list honoured, smoked salmon and creamy scrambled egg exquisitely set for breakfast, a rose-gold pendant sun placed lovingly around my neck, and in shimmering paper and tinsel ribbon the perfect boxed set, promising months of delight with Bea, Rue, Estelle and Betty.
“And ...!” said Jimmy ...
“And?” I answered, happy to be teased.
“And ... this!”
With a flourish he produced a long, slim black box.
“Look inside.”
I lifted the lid. Nestling in deep blue tissue were thirteen small spheres of richly coloured glass. “Why ..?”
“Just to make sure you never lose your marbles!” Jimmy said with a grin. “But of course it’s your own personal solar system. That first big golden one is the Sun, then Mercury, Venus, the Earth (blue of course) and a little white one for the Moon.”
“Then Mars, the red one, and another small one ... oh, is that Ceres? ... Jupiter, Saturn, and you’ve remembered little Chiron as well! And then Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, all the right colours! Thank you, darling! Thank you! How lovely!”
And then it was the day after my birthday, and me up early as usual but this time all of a buzz to look again at my little rainbow of celestial spheres. Dear Jimmy, what an imaginative gift! They danced in my mind all morning. They glowed in my thoughts as I strolled the town for milk and bread and oranges.
And then came the moment that changed my life: there on the counter of the corner convenience store was a net of shimmering marbles. They were lustrous, translucent, ethereal. I wanted them. How much were they, please? How many were in stock? Could I take them all ? Fred the friendly manager was bemused.
“Grandchildren visiting, Mrs. Grace?”
“N ... Yes. Yes, several.”
“Need to keep them amused!” Fred brought net after rattling iridescent net from under the counter and weighed down two large carrier bags before reaching for a third. “Just kidding!” he said, finally keying £30 into the till.
By the time I reached the front door my arms ached and I still had to put away shopping and then find somewhere for my impulse buy to hide. I didn’t want Jimmy to see. I didn’t want him to think his gift was somehow not enough, or had started - what?
Once coffee was brewed for two and I was alone with my laptop I could barely wait for it to boot before Googling ‘marbles’ - and holding my breath. What would I learn? ‘Marble is a non-foliated metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Wikipedia’ Not that. ‘Cultured marble countertops...’ No. ‘Explore: Travertine, Slate’. No, thank you! ‘CNET. Beautiful art glass marbles: Hold space in the palm of your hand ... The "stardust" marbles you flicked across the dirt have nothing on these breathtaking art glass wonders.’
Oh yes. Oh, just look at these!
Jimmy had made me a little solar system of beautiful marbles - but here was the whole solar system caught in a single marble! I read on: ‘Gateson Recko produces what he calls "universe marbles" -- like tiny pieces of sci-fi space, complete with floating planets, fumed nebulae and speckled stars of coloured glass. The marble above has planets of coloured glass, with a swirl and burst of fumed colour, produced by infusing gold or silver with the glass. Typically, his works of this nature sell for around $1,500 to $2,000.’
I wanted them.
The trouble was, I didn’t have $2000 for a perfect marble, let alone a complete or maybe growing collection. A tear fell onto the keyboard, to be hurriedly wiped away with my sleeve. What else was there?
Marbles.com. Oh no, not another blind alley! I smiled at my spontaneous silent pun. Ahhh - House of Marbles ! Ohhh, Marble King ! At last I had found my treasure. The coffee had gone cold.
I had to ask Jimmy for extra house-keeping. Every morning I would be on-line before the birds woke, choosing glorious little spheres. One day a Chicken Giant; another day, a Wizard Medium. Spaghetti, Frosted, Lustred blue; antique clay. Fairy, Snakeskin, Tidal Wave. Special offers for collectors. Marbles of Tiger’s Eye, obsidian and copper. World globes. Marbles with flowers inside. And just sometimes a collector’s piece, a handmade sphere of pure magic which sent my credit card spinning into the red for several months.
I was getting ambitious. Now I wanted to make marbles for myself. I needed a kiln, rods, pipes, moulds, pliers, a bench, power, somewhere to create - how would I manage this?
Every tool I needed could be bought online, and I learned my craft covertly on YouTube. Exciting deliveries came while Jimmy was out at work. Our unused cellar became not just the hiding place for now thousands of marbles, but my magical secret work-room, and was always locked. And the glass? You need a lot of glass; and in many, many colours. I started my dawn raids.
Came the week when the local paper ran a headline story about the missing bottles. The Recycling department was increasingly puzzled at the apparent decline in wine, spirits and beer drinking, the unusual lack of jettisoned jam and pickle jars. Money earned from waste glass had diminished alarmingly, council tax would have to rise to make up for it, and the Council was looking for answers.
“Odd,” remarked Jimmy across the top of the paper at breakfast, “Have we noticed anything untoward?” Then,
“Aha. They’ve caught someone with a trolley nicking bottles on CCTV. An early bird, and apparently female. She probably doesn’t realise it’s stealing.”
At the very same moment there was an officious, heart-stopping knock on the front door, and as I jumped up my lovely gold pendant caught on the table edge, breaking its chain. That morning we began the long, expensive journey through shock and disgrace to divorce.
I had lost my marbles.
“And ...!” said Jimmy ...
“And?” I answered, happy to be teased.
“And ... this!”
With a flourish he produced a long, slim black box.
“Look inside.”
I lifted the lid. Nestling in deep blue tissue were thirteen small spheres of richly coloured glass. “Why ..?”
“Just to make sure you never lose your marbles!” Jimmy said with a grin. “But of course it’s your own personal solar system. That first big golden one is the Sun, then Mercury, Venus, the Earth (blue of course) and a little white one for the Moon.”
“Then Mars, the red one, and another small one ... oh, is that Ceres? ... Jupiter, Saturn, and you’ve remembered little Chiron as well! And then Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, all the right colours! Thank you, darling! Thank you! How lovely!”
And then it was the day after my birthday, and me up early as usual but this time all of a buzz to look again at my little rainbow of celestial spheres. Dear Jimmy, what an imaginative gift! They danced in my mind all morning. They glowed in my thoughts as I strolled the town for milk and bread and oranges.
And then came the moment that changed my life: there on the counter of the corner convenience store was a net of shimmering marbles. They were lustrous, translucent, ethereal. I wanted them. How much were they, please? How many were in stock? Could I take them all ? Fred the friendly manager was bemused.
“Grandchildren visiting, Mrs. Grace?”
“N ... Yes. Yes, several.”
“Need to keep them amused!” Fred brought net after rattling iridescent net from under the counter and weighed down two large carrier bags before reaching for a third. “Just kidding!” he said, finally keying £30 into the till.
By the time I reached the front door my arms ached and I still had to put away shopping and then find somewhere for my impulse buy to hide. I didn’t want Jimmy to see. I didn’t want him to think his gift was somehow not enough, or had started - what?
Once coffee was brewed for two and I was alone with my laptop I could barely wait for it to boot before Googling ‘marbles’ - and holding my breath. What would I learn? ‘Marble is a non-foliated metamorphic rock composed of recrystallized carbonate minerals, most commonly calcite or dolomite. Wikipedia’ Not that. ‘Cultured marble countertops...’ No. ‘Explore: Travertine, Slate’. No, thank you! ‘CNET. Beautiful art glass marbles: Hold space in the palm of your hand ... The "stardust" marbles you flicked across the dirt have nothing on these breathtaking art glass wonders.’
Oh yes. Oh, just look at these!
Jimmy had made me a little solar system of beautiful marbles - but here was the whole solar system caught in a single marble! I read on: ‘Gateson Recko produces what he calls "universe marbles" -- like tiny pieces of sci-fi space, complete with floating planets, fumed nebulae and speckled stars of coloured glass. The marble above has planets of coloured glass, with a swirl and burst of fumed colour, produced by infusing gold or silver with the glass. Typically, his works of this nature sell for around $1,500 to $2,000.’
I wanted them.
The trouble was, I didn’t have $2000 for a perfect marble, let alone a complete or maybe growing collection. A tear fell onto the keyboard, to be hurriedly wiped away with my sleeve. What else was there?
Marbles.com. Oh no, not another blind alley! I smiled at my spontaneous silent pun. Ahhh - House of Marbles ! Ohhh, Marble King ! At last I had found my treasure. The coffee had gone cold.
I had to ask Jimmy for extra house-keeping. Every morning I would be on-line before the birds woke, choosing glorious little spheres. One day a Chicken Giant; another day, a Wizard Medium. Spaghetti, Frosted, Lustred blue; antique clay. Fairy, Snakeskin, Tidal Wave. Special offers for collectors. Marbles of Tiger’s Eye, obsidian and copper. World globes. Marbles with flowers inside. And just sometimes a collector’s piece, a handmade sphere of pure magic which sent my credit card spinning into the red for several months.
I was getting ambitious. Now I wanted to make marbles for myself. I needed a kiln, rods, pipes, moulds, pliers, a bench, power, somewhere to create - how would I manage this?
Every tool I needed could be bought online, and I learned my craft covertly on YouTube. Exciting deliveries came while Jimmy was out at work. Our unused cellar became not just the hiding place for now thousands of marbles, but my magical secret work-room, and was always locked. And the glass? You need a lot of glass; and in many, many colours. I started my dawn raids.
Came the week when the local paper ran a headline story about the missing bottles. The Recycling department was increasingly puzzled at the apparent decline in wine, spirits and beer drinking, the unusual lack of jettisoned jam and pickle jars. Money earned from waste glass had diminished alarmingly, council tax would have to rise to make up for it, and the Council was looking for answers.
“Odd,” remarked Jimmy across the top of the paper at breakfast, “Have we noticed anything untoward?” Then,
“Aha. They’ve caught someone with a trolley nicking bottles on CCTV. An early bird, and apparently female. She probably doesn’t realise it’s stealing.”
At the very same moment there was an officious, heart-stopping knock on the front door, and as I jumped up my lovely gold pendant caught on the table edge, breaking its chain. That morning we began the long, expensive journey through shock and disgrace to divorce.
I had lost my marbles.