Porphyry-red letter day

Yesterday was a good day - firstly I finally managed to get the 4 seasons panels finished and delivered, having decided to put down the paint-brushes and declare that enough is enough. I think I have been - sporadically - going on and on about these things on this blog for about a year now, so I feel as though you have been with me on my journey. Please accept my gratitude and apologies.

As with everything that people like me do in the workshop, we can always find something else to do on it before they are taken away from us, kicking and screaming. I have been known to stop the lorry that is taking away a large carving so that I can whittle at tiny bit away that has caught my eye in a different light, and sometimes the driver gets fed up with waiting, so I run behind the truck with a mallet and chisel until giving up and watching it disappear over the horizon.

The thing about this particular project is that it had nothing to do with stone at all - unless you count the fact that the panels simulate porphyry marble in plaster. It didn't have much to do with sculpture either, unless - again - you count the fact that the figures almost simulate shallow relief, applied marble, complete with shadows.

Anyway, I am pleased to have been able to save them from whatever fate awaited them as they languished as dirty fragments on an unprotected palette in a dark basement - they are true one-offs and quite rare, Georgian artefacts. Now I can get on with the rest of the stuff which has been piling up.

The other thing is that Green-Eyes received a phone call yesterday telling her that she had - after all - been accepted for a place in the university of her choice, against all expectations. The head of department called her personally, and put an end to the week-long angst, heartache and anger that had been tormenting her as she began to make different plans about her future, and the call also put an end to our worries about what she was going to do as an early second choice, which we hoped would not be a bit of a downward spiral. I kept telling her that it is impossible to 'waste time', but that's easy for me to say, having wasted so much of my own.

The other event yesterday was the arrival of H.I.'s new shoes. She has always had a close affinity to palm trees - if you visit her website, you will know what I mean. She sat there in the morning as I unwrapped package after package to get to them like a Russian doll, and her eyes took on the aspect of - here we go again - Gollum, from Lord of the Rings.

And finally, I found this in a charity shop on the way home. Other than that it is a Chinese bronze thing, I knew nothing about it, but - thanks to the internet - I now know that it is a wine-warmer known as a 'chueh'. If I make a fortune on it, I will have to go back and give the charity some more money...