Please don’t be alarmed, I know I am not sending this at five-to-five on a Friday afternoon.

I wanted to say a huge thank you all who took the opportunity to avail themselves of the offer in the last newsletter, and for all your amazing support over the last year. I am not always the easiest of bedfellows, but the messages of support, phone calls and memes, have meant that I am able to see the other side of this.

Regarding the use of bedfellows… don’t get your hopes up, it is a metaphor for the close nature of our relationship, nothing more!

I have fought long and hard; and I look back over more than 21 wonderful fun filled years.

Yet, as I write, my fingers drifting wistfully across the keyboard, we are arriving at the end of an era…

Covid has worn me down, I have done unimaginable things over the last year. Given in to temptations I didn’t realise I had; baking cakes, folding paper and staring at the ceiling.

I rose and fell with the tides and waves, and until now stood firm against the Hot Gates at Thermopylae.

I was not 300. Yet my friends, like me, held our shields aloft, stood firm, but unable to form a phalanx.

Perhaps, I was Richard in need of a horse, or Custer and the Cavalry at little Big Horn.

I fear, I can hold back the tide no longer.

Do I feel the breath of a fair wind on my cheek, the kiss of dappled sunlight upon my face?

The snowdrops have appeared in my meadow, daffodils and crocuses thrust their shoots through the earth in search of warmth. Eats, shoots and leaves… I can feel my sap rising…

Emboldened by this onset of Spring, I will fight on.

New stock is on its way.

And yet, soon; you will have no need of me…

Plans are afoot to cast me aside.

After long years of service, I was looking forward to that golden fleece.

We don’t do watches in fashion; and personally I always knew I was more Argonaut than Cyberman. I’d rather be stripped to the waist in a skirt, than dressed in a silver Lycra body suit and a helmet that looks like a surprised Toby Jug.

Yes, I went clubbing the seventies and eighties, and I am in no hurry to revisit that look.

I have, a new ‘sharper’ tool is at my disposal.

I was a dreamer, I thought I was destined to drive a van, and for years I have driven this van, but I went to a comprehensive school and stared out of a window.

Yes, dreamer. Finally, it has come full circle.

By the end of next week Volpe will have an online shop, the need for me will be gone.

I will be here, just as I have been through this crisis.

However, you will be able to click and forget, no thrust and parry of conversation, no glass of wine, no cheery wave as you leave, just the squeak of a mouse and all my delights will be yours.

I will return to becoming the person who carries the things to the van.

Cry God for Harry, England and Saint George, let slip the dogs of war, this is Sparta!

My apologies to Micky Flanagan and William Shakespeare!

Copyright © 2021 Adrian Holdsworth. All Rights Reserved