The glue that holds families together

After I had completed my business at the bank and with the lawyer ten days ago, I nipped into the little shop where I had seen and fallen in love with the simple brass icon, and purchased that before joining friends for a final day of actual holiday.

When I took the icon from its packaging to show my friends it became apparent that the two parts had been held together only with putty, which had dried, crumbled and become loose. No matter, should be easy enough to fix.

When I got home I tried a few simple options, none of which were successful and it was during that process that I realised that the base is designed to hold a tea-light. Even lovelier than I had originally realised!

I figured that a dob of silicone was probably the best solution, but really didn't want to go through all the faff of buying a whole tube, along with the gun to squirt it from the tube, when really all I needed was the final teaspoon-worth from someone else's well-used small tube. What to do?

I phoned my brother. He lives in Wiltshire and has been fixing things since 1957 – he even has overalls which tell us so!

Yes! Of course he had the remnants of a tube of extraordinarily strong silicone, knew its precise location and was happy to deliver it to me in Kent. In fact, he would be on the Kent borders anyway on Monday evening.

And so I met my wonderful brother for dinner this evening in Rochester and he fished from his pocket everything I could have possibly hoped for.

It is late now and I have enjoyed a pleasant meal with my brother, so no, I shall not play with glue and brass right now, it is my bedtime. But tomorrow, in better light, I hope to reassemble my treasure.

Thank you bro!