pumpkinstrokemarrow

In the course of which I find I need something that I call packing thread. BH has a small amount of it, wrapped on a small card, from a certain J. Wenzel. But the card does not carry a label; nothing to say what I am supposed to ask for.

Ask the baker at Cheam for a haberdashery and they point me to a wool shop a few hundred yards up the road. They do indeed sell haberdashery items although they clearly major on wool. Shop staffed by a couple of ladies older than me who give the impression that they are not very used to having men in their shop. Have you any packing thread by any chance? What's that? Thick green thread for mending haversacks and such like. No. We only cater for needlework in this shop, not that sort of thing. Why don't you try the sports shop up the road. They can probably help you.

Try the sports shop up the road and explain what I want. Hmm. I've got the sort of string you restring tennis rackets with but nothing like that. Tennis racket string not suitable at all so no luck here either.

On the way to the butcher notice a dry cleaners which also does keys. Maybe he does shoes and has thread for them. And so he does. Big reel of green thread from which he gives me a couple of meters, gratis. But he has never heard of packing thread. Get the stuff home to find that it is the same sort of thing as my packing thread but a good bit lighter. Maybe half a millimetre in diameter rather than getting on for a millimetre. So it will do, but not ideal.

Next stop, thinking that the ladies of Inner London may be plying their needles in a way that those of Surrey clearly are not, try the Wandworth Road where I come across well stocked fabric shop staffed by a couple of ladies very much younger than me. Attractive. Who also look a little surprised to see me. And they have never heard of packing thread and certainly don't stock anything like that.

Getting a bit tired at this point so stop for a quick snifter at the bottom of Thorncroft Street. To find that in this part of the Wandsworth Road you pay 35p less for a bottle of warm brown Newky than I do in a very similar establishment in Epsom. Sit outside and count the joggers, all shapes, sizes and ages, going past.

Carry onto Wilcox Road where I find a chap who does curtains and upholstery. He's never heard of packing thread either but offers me a couple of lengths of some green stuff from a large hank hanging on the wall. Odd that he does not have it on a reel. Why does he prefer hanks of ready cut? He calls the stuff upholstery thread. Gratis once again. Get it home to find that it is about the right weight but a different finish. Doesn't have the waxed appearance of the stuff from J. Wenzel. But it will probably do. Search deemed to be completed.

But just to round the thing off, have a quick poke at Google. Who knows all about packing thread, which he seems to think is something mainly used by packaging machines to sew up tea bags. Presumably rather bigger tea bags than I might use. And I think I have seen other kinds of dry goods packed and sold in small brown paper sacks sewn at the top. But curious that I know this particular stuff as packing thread. Presumably the name that my mother knew it as, perhaps from a time when Montreal was a garment town like New York.

Then ask Google about J. Wenzel and he falters. There is a Wenzel Inc. but they are into something much more complicated than thread. And Wenzel thread products appear to have a presence on places like e-bay. But I don't find the company itself. Curious again.

PS: Mr G. on the case this morning. He thinks I want to buy a hat.