My British fiancé, Richard, came with a dowry. Lest anyone think I married money, china and sterling-for-eight, let me set you straight: Richard’s dowry was a huge, wooden salad bowl, a carpet sweeper and a stool. My dowry had the china, sterling and a vacuum cleaner.
No stools were made for Charles III’s coronation, although many chairs have been for important guests. What a shame
The salad bowl was significant to our courtship as it held the grand salads that Richard indulged in on his terrace in Grandvaux, a tiny village, above Lutry on Lac Léman. When our courting became significant, Richard wooed me with his salads – heaps of the freshest lettuce, sliced tomatoes, spring onions, beetroot and cucumbers bought at the Lutry Saturday marché and sprinkled with his mother’s vinaigrette, consisting of the usual basics plus milk. The bachelor carpet sweeper went the minute we became engaged over Christmas 1971. I had a Hoover.
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