Yesterday Sue and I fulfilled a plan that had been set for an age - we cleared out our box room

I won't bore you with too many details but, as I have mentioned here many a time, our house is small so, by inference, you may rightly assume that our box room is small too.

However, by the time we had divested it of its contents, almost every surface in every room of the house had a part of its contents spread across it.

And, by the time we had made the endless decisions that such an activity demands (and causes one to defer), we now have not only a clear and functional box room (and thus a successful outcome to our endeavour) but also a van half full of rubbish and the other half filled with items for next Saturday's flea market in Thomastown, as well as half-car-load of things belonging to Alice that Sue will deliver to her tomorrow.

Also unearthed, and this, if the truth is told, is what prompted me to make such a personal revelation, were two boxes of glass and glasses.

The most of their contents were small, pedestrian, not very old, pub, shorts-glasses for which, I have to confess, I hold an inexplicable fondness.
Something to do with 'in praise of ordinary, rather than exceptional' things maybe?

And I have found them space in our glasses cupboard - where they will, no doubt, rest as unused as they were when wrapped up in newspaper in their box in the box room!

But at he bottom of the second box I found...............

...............this glass vessel.

It was the only item of significant age and quality that I rediscovered and something tells me that I did once know its purpose - but I can't recall it.

And something else tells me that it will not be long before the answer will be supplied or, perhaps my memory refreshed, by a man from Herault.