Amelia my daughter
loves to shop. She knows every charity shop within a five mile radius of
her flat because, with her limited budget, these shops are truly Aladdin's
Caves. She will emerge with a Ghost dress, a vintage bag and a gold lame jacket
and say to me:
‘Under twenty for the
lot!’
Even in the most unpromising
of locations she manages to find something to buy. And it has always been like
this. When she was seven-years-old we went on holiday to Portugal. By then Howard,
her dad, and I had parted and my friend Grace came along with us. After a week
of beach pleasures we persuaded Amelia to climb a steep hill to a monastery
with the promise of a picnic at the summit. There were frequent stops to
look at the view en route, but we finally made it to the top. Grace and I
sat on a sun-baked wall contemplating the silver-green beauty of the olive
trees spread out in the valley below us accompanied by the enchanting chorus of
crickets.
We spread our blanket and
ate our picnic. Before long Amelia was looking around and jingling the
escudos in her Minnie Mouse purse, the coins making a sound that was delicious
to her. She was, however, keen to be rid of them in exchange for new treasures.
I said she’d probably be disappointed. I felt sure the monastery would be a
retail free zone. But eagle eyed Amelia
had spotted a tiny information kiosk in the grounds of the monastery. She
insisted we go look at what they had to sell. There were no toys, only a few
rather predictable souvenirs with views of the monastery. Amelia discovered that
she had an urgent need to buy a china thimble bearing said image of the
monastery.
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| Image from greenquilts.blogspot.co.uk |
I blame her dad Howard. She
definitely gets the shopping gene from him. Howard worked as a production buyer
in film and TV and it was his professional task to buy and hire all kinds of
improbable objects as required by the programme makers. It was the
perfect job for him. In any one week he might have to source a Davy lamp; a
pair of Biba platform shoes and a Yeti costume. His love of buying went beyond
the workplace and most evenings he came home with some little loving nonsense
gift for Amelia.
So one Sunday morning
the doorbell rings and I hear Howard chatting in a friendly way to someone on
the doorstep. Then he comes into the kitchen with a bible he has just
bought - from the Jehovah's Witness.
And for the next 20 years
I had visits every six months, without fail, from the keenly proselytising
members of that church. They had logged the bible purchase many years before
and clearly hoped that it was a sign of imminent conversion. Whereas all it
signified was that Howard, like Amelia, could not resist a purchase.
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