Cambridge Cluster

Image by Tony the Misfit via Flickr

Going to stay with some old friends in Scotland for a few days in August.  Perhaps I will get the chance to try my hand at salmon fishing on one of the local rivers or a walk on the hills.  However, what do you take to a family not short of a bob or three?  But they know how to help; discrete mention was made that the years had taken their toll of the number of large soup plates.  Why soup plates have been damaged, I have no idea!

In the old days, I would have been searching every “antique shop” in East Anglia.  Now it is a quick surf for “Johnson Bros Indian Tree Rimmed soup bowl“.  The first site listed twenty such bowls but they had not updated their site and were down to the last two; very annoying.  So on I searched and then found that there are two Indian Tree designs, the old and the new, and two sizes of soup bowl, 20.5cm and 22.5cm. Decisions, decisions.  I asked for guidance and was told that all designs and sizes would be welcome.

More surfing found me on the Matching China site with bowls of both types listed as “Johnson Bros Indian Tree Rimmed bowl 20.5/22.5 cm Second hand Very good condition”.  The shopping cart was filled and paid.

E-mails to confirm the order and dispatch seemed to arrive almost simultaneously so I phoned to talk to the entrepreneurs.  Mrs Bone answered the phone and said that it was her business.  It had taken off when she and her husband had persuaded their tech savvy son to join.

With the name of Bone, I guess they had to to succeed and good luck to them.  It would be great to visit them in Dundee.  Mrs Bone did mention that she has to do all the lifting and packing whilst the geek son sits and keeps the orders coming in.  The Bone family have certainly developed a good business and I hope that their business plan is not as fragile as the china!

Now all I need to do is find out why soup bowls are dropped so often!