One evening last week, the table set for dinner, and food ready to be served and placed on the table, I turned around to look again at my place setting which had mysteriously acquired an elegant black bag with silver lettering of a local jewellery store. I turned to look at my husband, wearing a large grin and waiting for my next move. Which was to remove from the bag an equally elegant, and certainly promising black-and-silver box.

As I stood there, holding the box, feeling both puzzled and elated with anticipation, he urged me "open it!" And I of course, did, to extract a gold bracelet. Yellow-and-white gold, to be precise, a hinged bangle of a fairly modern design with two notional arrows intersecting on its topside, as it were.

A message in the design? The white and the yellow representing the genders? The arrows intersecting representing two hearts meeting and becoming irrevocably intertwined? Possible, but unlikely, simply my interpretation. The design was not one I would have chosen, but he was so clearly pleased with being able to present me with his gift. True, we hadn't exchanged gifts on the occasion of our 57th wedding anniversary but that was on the understanding that neither of us needed nor pined for anything.

When The Bay downtown had a special display of gold jewellery from Italy 35 years ago, he had taken me there, and selected at that time a heavy gold, swirl-design bangle bracelet to celebrate my 40th birthday. On select occasions he has since added to my collection, so I now have quite a number of such bracelets adorning my wrists. All quite lovely, all very much liked, because I have always enjoyed and liked jewellery, and haven't enough fingers on both hands to accommodate all the rings he has bought for me over the years.

This latest bracelet, whose sentiment meant worlds to me, even if the bracelet itself did not appeal to my aesthetic, joined the others. And promptly displayed its stubborn emphasis on opening, unexpectedly, despite the safety lock and additional catch. Obviously it didn't love me, either.