Death, Cutlery and Sherry: Picking My Way through a Busy Week

Not much of an email this week I fear, because thanks to you, (quite possibly), we’ve been inundated with orders. Consequently, I’ve been joining the team in the warehouse picking stock to help keep them fed with stuff to pack (and eating cake as well) and so time for thinking and writing, has been severly curtailed.

A difficult conversation

One thing I did want to pass on though, is this. Yesterday, a good friend emailed me to say her brother-in-law was dying from pancreatic cancer and didn’t have long to live; they’re counting weeks rather than months. She added that this was coming so shortly after her sister dying and she was finding both all a bit much, and at the same time apologising for grumbling.

I told her (under the circumstances) that it is perfectly ok to grumble and to say how sorry I was to hear the news and ask a bit more about him. She went on to talk about his pain levels and his fear of death.

To cut a long story short, I passed on my experiences of pain control, with Babette before she died and the importance of getting it right. For Babette, it was St Catherine's Hospice doctor, Geoff, who was the expert in this area, and got it right for her, and of course the relief for her, (and me) was incredible.

We then discussed her brother-in-law’s fear of death. And at some point we agreed that trying to gain some feeling of peace would be the right thing to aim for. However, she was wondering how to achieve that.

I suggested talking with him about the “untalkable”. Talk about the fears of death, both from his point of view, but also for the people he’ll leave behind. Now is not the time to avoid difficult conversations. Now is the time to have them. And of course, whilst there are no guarantees, my experience of life is that when the difficult conversations are aired, the fears are faced. And when the fears are faced, they are usually much less frightening than they were when left unsaid. Lets hope that they are able to talk about the various elephants in the room

Ok, so on that somewhat sober point let’s turn briefly to product. I’ve got a couple of offers for you this morning,

Windsor Cutlery 16 pc and 24pc Set

We sell a lot of cutlery just before Christmas, for the fairly obvious reasons I suppose, of larger than normal gatherings needing more place settings, and so more cutlery. These two sets are sold under Grunwerg’s Windsor label and we’ve been doing them since Noah was a lad. It’s a good quality basic range of cutlery of either 4 place settings or 6. Made from 18/10 stainless steel means its good quality and able to withstand dishwashers well.

Please note though, that depending on the dishwasher, the soap and luck, you may or may not get occasional rusting or marking appearing from time to time.* This however is 18/10 so all should be well. And it’s a reasonable weight, a pleasant design (rather than outstanding) and will last you years.

 The offer this weekend:

16 Piece Set £29.00 down to £25.00
24 Piece Set £42.00 down to £29.50
 
* If it happens to your existing cutlery all the time then you’ve probably got 18/0 stainless, which is far more prone to marking, but is cheaper.

Riedel Vinum Port and Sherry Glasses (Pair)

Here is yet another opportunity to test me out on whether these glasses actually do what I say they do. Because, as with pretty well everything we sell, if you try them out over Christmas and decide that they don’t do anything for your Sherry/Port drinking experience, then you can return them (washed up preferably) for a refund (albeit, if you’re a web customer, you pay the return postage). In this instance I’ll admit to not actually having used them, as I don’t drink Sherry or Port … bit uncouth I’m afraid. I can’t even blame this on my parents, who were great Sherry drinkers .

The offer though, is a tempting one I think, because their RRP is £55 per pair. Currently we are price matching at £43.95. but for you dear reader, use code RVPORT23 to buy them for £35.00 per Pair
 

The last word

"Port wine, olive oil and chocolate" - Jeanne Louise Calment's recipe for a long life. It killed her, of course, on the 4th August 1997, she was only 122yrs & 164 days old.

Taken from this informative article all about Port by Andi on theriedelshop.co.uk
Well, that’s it for this week.  I’m off to pick …. stock not nose.

Kind regards and hope you have a pleasant and peaceful weekend

Kind regards,

Andrew

Andrew Bluett-Duncan

Director