I thought the thing I'd miss most this year would be my vintage dresses. I took the decision ahead of the challenge that my favourite couple of dresses simply wouldn't stand up to daily wear. They were handmade in the 50's and everything about them is just a bit fragile. I decided that I'd sell most of them and just put aside the ones I couldn't bear to part with for a years rest.
But they are not what I've missed most. What I've missed most has nothing to do with the challenge, except as far as my sense of identity goes.It's something I'm allowed to wear as far as the rules of the challenge go, but that through a little twist of fate I couldn't.
Just over 5 years ago a couple of weeks before my 30th birthday, Laura and I headed to the E17 Designers fair, if you live in or around Walthamstow it's worth looking out for. We have some talented artists and makers around here, and there is always something to spark your imagination. I'd picked up a couple of presents for people and was about to head out for a glass of wine when something shiny caught my eye.
That shiny thing was this gold necklace.
Something about it really appealed to me. I couldn't work it out. It broke both of the 'buying Ed jewelry she'll like' rules which are (or were), I don't wear gold, and chunkier is better. But I couldn't stop looking at it.
Anyway - I had a chat to the lovely designer Faith (her website is here) who gave me her card so I could go away and think about it. And I thought about it (a lot) and in the end asked Matt to buy it for me for my 30th - for whatever reason I didn't use Faiths website (I don't know if she had one then?) but just gave Matt her card and described the necklace as being 'like the sun'.
Looking back this was a huge risk - I hadn't seen anything else Faith had designed so I could have got anything. For all I knew she could have had a whole collection made up of those horrible grinning suns (she doesn't - all her stuff is very tasteful). Thankfully Faith remembered what I had been looking at and I got exactly what I wanted.
And since then I've worn it nearly every day, somehow everything else I own looks nicer alongside it. Even though it's tiny and it's light there is a comforting weight around my neck when I put it on, and when I'm nervous I rub it between my fingers.
Until I popped to Sheffield without it for a weekend, came back and couldn't find it anywhere. The weekend I was away Matt had taken up & relaid the bathroom floor, after turning the house upside down I came to the conclusion it was under the bathroom floor. I asked Matt to take up the floor to look for it and he (because he is in full possession of his senses) said no.
And so I started this challenge with simpler clothing, and a whole jewelry box full of other necklaces, but without the one thing that lifted everything I own. Every day I've got dressed and found myself lifting my hand to my throat and feeling the absence of it.
Until today. I have worked from home today and Matt is working lates this week, so when he went out to run an errand mid morning I assumed he was out getting drill bits or whatever plumbers use (really - Matt knows nothing about legislation around disabled children's rights, why would I know anything about plumbing...) Of course because he is an excellent husband he had in fact been over to Faith's to pick me up another necklace to replace my old one.
I can't tell you how happy I was to see it.
Matt put it on me straight away but something wasn't right, the comforting weight wasn't in the same place. The chain was a slightly different length to the one I'd had before. I still loved it, but it didn't feel like my necklace.
This is why it's so great to buy from local makers though - because when I texted Faith to say I thought my last chain was 3cm longer - she didn't ignore me, or call me a spoiled brat, or try and charge me gazillions for the change- she invited me to pop round to hers so she could put it on a longer chain. So I knocked off work a half hour early and did just that.
Here is Faith sorting out my chain and being very lovely about the second Archer home visit of the day.
And here is me on Day 46 feeling really comfortable and happy with my lovely necklace back round my neck.
I'm feeling so happy about the whole thing I've donated an extra tenner to Contact A Family - if you want to join me (as at today 7th July 2015 - we've raised £1270 plus gift aid so far) you can push us a little closer to our target here
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