Cleaning the 'family silver'

Perhaps I should begin by qualifying 'family silver'.  There are no heirloom Georgian candelabras, or candlesticks or teasets or canteen of cutlery, so thankfully minimal cleaning required ;-)

Our family silver consists of a matching pair of small vases, left to me by 'Auntie' Sybil, a very special and dear lady who used to look after me when I was little. 

Yesterday I decided to clean them (and I must get into the habit of cleaning them on a regular basis, not just when they are tarnished) and was keen to try an idea I'd read about in Rhonda's Down to Earth blog.  She suggests a method using aluminium foil, bicarb soda and salt which sounded interesting so I thought I'd give it a go.  I tore off some kitchen foil and used it to line the sink.  I added a teaspoon each of bicarb soda and salt, added boiling water, and stood the vases in the sink.  In theory, the reaction between the aluminium and bicarb attracts the dirt and tarnish off the silver, but unfortunately nothing very exciting happened in my sink.  In the end I had to abandon my little experiment and go back to messy silver cleaner and lots of rags.  A little research later that day and I've concluded that not all kitchen foil is actually made of aluminium - I suspect the cheaper stuff is not the 'real deal'.  I found some brands stated their foil was aluminium, but the description of the one I have is simply 'kitchen foil' - goodness knows what it is.  I think I may invest in some proper foil because I really want to see if it cleans silver as easily as I'm led to believe.

Anyway, once the vases were cleaned and polished, I took a closer look at the hallmarks.  I've never really been interested in them before but curiosity led me to do a little bit of internet research.

Here are the hallmarks:

There are four marks, from left to right they are:

• Maker's mark
• Standard mark
• City mark
• Date mark

There are some very helpful websites, like this one, which I used to identify the marks on my vases.

The Standard Mark (the lion) denotes the quality of silver used, in this case it is Sterling .925.

The City Mark (the shield on it's side) is the mark of the City of Chester.  Knowing which city the item was made in helps when looking for the Marker's Mark.  This mark is not very clear on either of the vases, but N and I both studied the list of possible marks very carefully, and we are fairly confident that the mark is that of Stokes and Ireland Ltd (William Henry Stokes and Arthur George Ireland).  The final mark denotes the date the item was made; looking at the date chart, we think it is 1896.

It was really interesting researching this - I've often wondered what hallmarks actually mean.  

Today I continued my cleaning mission.  A window-cleaner does the outside windows to all the flats once a month.  That was yesterday, and today, with the sun shining through, I was shamed by the marks and streaks on the inside of our windows :o(   I decided to tackle them with the old-fashioned method of vinegar and newspaper . . . and a fair amount of elbow grease!  Hard work, but the end result was sparkling clean windows.  I was pretty impressed.

I can't remember how long ago I made the tree skirt, but it's put to good use every year

And finally, we decided we ought to embrace the festive season, so the decorations have been brought down from the loft.  For the last 3 or 4 years we haven't bothered with a tree - space is a big issue in the lounge - but this year we felt we should try to make an effort so this morning found us trying to solve the perennial problem.  We had an artificial tree (dating back many, many years) which we've never used here because it is too tall.  After much head-scratching, we finally came up with the idea of simply reducing the height of the tree to fit the space.  Easy, really!  Having found the solution, N set to with a variety of tools and, after several trips to the shed, produced the finished (and shortened) article.  We're very happy with the result, and tomorrow we'll decorate it.