Category: Mystery items

Not necessarily mysterious – it just sounds more interesting than ‘miscellaneous’.

Generations

August 22, 2022

Here’s a picture I came across recently that shows four generations: me, my father, grandfather and great-grandfather (who lived a few years more, so that I have some memories of him). At the time, we could have done a female equivalent, ie my sister, our mother, our grandmother and great-grandmother, but I don’t think that happened. When I was a little older than I am in the picture, I suggested with childish logic that my father’s father’s father could marry my mother’s mother’s mother. ‘Well, tell her I’m ready’ he said.

Critique

August 20, 2022

While we were eating dinner, a fox came in through the kitchen and stood in the hall. I think it must have been looking at my nine-tailed fox spirit picture, but Katharine shooed it out before it could give a detailed opinion.

(The picture is actually one that looked in through the sliding doors several years ago. Probably Grandad to the current one.)

Unexpected Peaches

October 4, 2021
Fresh on the left, grilled on the right.

We bought a mini peach tree this year (‘Crimson Bonfire’) to grow in a big pot, but were not led to expect any fruit in the first year. However, quite a few tiny peaches appeared. They were bullet hard and didn’t seem likely to amount to much, so we didn’t bother thinning them out. Today they all fell off spontaneously and turn out to be perfectly ripe – and rather nice, albeit smallish.

Greengage Jam

September 13, 2021

Made with my own hands. It doesn’t look that great (or very green), but it tastes all right!

I remember when I were a lad there was always a competition over who got the single greengage one out of the box of Lyons’ jam tarts. Those were bright green – probably carcinogenic if not actually radioactive…

Pots

July 24, 2021

I painted some little flower pots for Mum’s birthday (shh – it’s still a few days away!). Light sanding, coat of gesso and away we go. The artistry is not great, but it’s a few years since I gave her anything home-made for her birthday. (Don’t worry, I have got some other items!)

A Lion and a Unicorn

July 14, 2021

Met a lion and a unicorn on my constitutional today. Lenny is a recent addition to the garden created by Claudio Funari just up the Wandle from us: I believe the unicorn is from CAOS, the Carshalton artists who do a lot of fun stuff, knitted hats for pillar boxes a specialty.

Pallets to planters

June 5, 2021

I made a couple of rough-hewn (rustic, let’s say) wooden planters for our bay trees, using planks from old pallets. As I explained to Katharine: what I’ve done here is take something that was basically a pile of scrap wood – and transformed it into two piles of scrap wood. Painted blue (Cuprinol forget-me-not).

Bench renewed

May 22, 2021

A little refurbishment project. This garden bench was a nice present from our in-laws many years ago, but was showing its age. We took it apart, sanded down the cast iron, repainted with more colours to bring out the design, and fitted new slats. Like brand new (or better)!