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Our local Tesco superstore has a little used book stand. I’ll usually have a look at why they’ve got. And typically it’s all of no interest to me. But on the most recent visit, they had a few artier titles (should I have got the Howard Hodgkin book, I wonder?).

Anyway, I got this book, on oriental rugs. I love traditional rugs, from the Old World. I also got a paperback edition of Kerouac’s Dharma Bums. Thinking I might give the latter to a young friend or relative (Sam, or my Godson Ailwyn, perhaps?).

Truth be told, I’m not blown away by the choices of rugs in this book. They’re fascinating, by and large. But also not to my tastes. But the same is true of the vast majority of rugs on any given trader’s website.

The above is gorgeous. And would be almost perfect, if it were the right dimensions, for our art studio.

Most of the rugs are Persian, some Indian. Not many are Chinese. The seat-back above is a rare example of the latter.

At present I’m just bathing in the opulent magnificence of the collection, from a purely visual and aesthetic perspective. I might take this book with me, today, on our brief barge break? I may even read some of the text?

I printed a Persian rug, for use in the model.

My printer’s not great, alas. It took ages to get the damn thing working at all. And when I did – equipped with a whole new batch of ink cartridges – the colours still came out very weak.

I tried to adjust some of the horizontal cladding that had gotten a bit out of alignment.

I also painted the ledges along the length of the back row of windows.

In the real build these windows prob’ won’t be as deeply recessed as they are on the model. They’re in that position ‘cause it was sooo much easier to do one strip than seven individual window panes.

And I also did all the window framing I’ll be doing on the bottom section of the model. I might do some more window framing on the roof section windows tomorrow? If time allows.

This project is taking longer than I’d anticipated. But I’m not rushing. And I’m enjoying doing it.

Some time later…

The last thing I did, today, was mask off the windows, and then paint the frames. I’ll prob’ do a second coat before removing the masking. But that’ll have to wait till tomorrow.

I’m thoroughly fed up with endless breakfasts of cereals. Every now and then, I’ll try something else. But the habit of cereal is so deeply entrenched.

Rick Stein, on his Far Eastern Oddysey, has a chicken and rice breakfast, in Thailand, which looks great. I think it might be this.

Obviously one of the chief reasons we eat so much cereal is time. The time taken to prepare the above Thai breakfast is far greater than that required for emptying some cereal into a bowl and pouring some milk over.

We visited Pat on his boat today. For the first time in aeons.

The Marina is quite pleasant.

The skies today were magnificent.

Patrick suggested a walk in Thetford. He had ulterior motives (that came to nothing in the end!). We wound up spending a lot of time driving to a suitable spot. But it was nice in the end.

Rather alarmingly, there were numerous ‘Danger of Death’ sign up about the place where we went for a walk. It wasn’t immediately apparent why. But we eventually found out it was re the risks of rolling logs.

Note the piles of deadly logs.

Anyway, we survived our walk. And returned to Pat’s boat, for pud’ and some Jeeves & Wooster. Very enjoyable!

I thought I’d look and see if Edward Lear’s Parrot book was available in print. Turns out it is. Well, it had to be Taschen, I suppose?

Most copies I found online were selling for £100-300+. Lots of them asking silly amounts. Maybe some of these on account of being the original XL edition, and also having separate colour plate prints?

Will the copy I’ve ordered have these, or not? I’m assuming it won’t. Certainly the copy I just ordered doesn’t mention the separate prints, and was ‘only’ £60. I’ll have to do an extra delivery shift or two to fund this extravagance. But it’s worth it, methinks.

Oh… I just cancelled that Amazon order. Found it on Waterstones for £30. I hope that doesn’t turn out to be a ‘false positive’? They said it’s in stock. But also mention a three week ‘order it from the publisher’ wait. Hmmm!? We shall see…

After my little prole lunch, I did the ‘asphalt’ roof of the art studio. I used a sheet of 150 grit sandpaper, from West End DIY.

I cut and folded the sandpaper to the approx size. Sprayed some adhesive on, attached it, and then cut off the excess.

I’m very pleased with the result. But there’s still a lot else to be done. The doors are waiting on some mini-hinges, ordered via Amazon.

Just now it occurred to me that we could call the studio The Owl & The Pussycat. It’s a beautiful pea-green, for sure.

Ever since I picked up a free copy of Edward Lear’s Nonsense Verse, fairly recently, I’ve been continually drawn back to him.

It was a surprise to me to learn just what a great artist he was, in terms, for example, of his natural history illustrations.

I found this excellent piece online today. Well worth a look! And I’m keen to get a copy of this, if I can:

It’s a gorgeous sunny evening. British Summer Time is about to end. I was feeling kind of empty, brittle, and, frankly, shitty. I’ve pulled up, parked facing the sunset. And I’m listening to Arthur Verocai’s sublime 1972 recording.

I find it astonishing that albums like this, and Shuggie Otis’ Inspiration Infornation, have taken so many years to find their audience. But I’m glad they have resurfaced.

I just read a nice piece from 2022, in the Guardian online, interviewing Verocai about his late-blooming music career. Read it here.

Track seven, Na Boca Do Sol, just finished. I don’t know Portuguese, despite a lifetime listening to Brazilian music. So I translated the lyrics. And – no surprise, frankly – they’re beautifully poetic.

Now it’s Velho Parente. Every single track is brilliant. What an album!

I’m not a massive fan of much modern music. And sometimes I hate rap/hip hop, for stealing from truly great artists. I’ll be honest, the hip-hop crowd being into Arthur was something I’ve blissfully ignored, up till now.

I still don’t know what I might make of that connection. But I have to confess I love the above MF Doom piece – called Orris Foot Powder(!?) – because it simply takes Verocai’s magic, and bathes in it.

Ah, me… the Simple Things.

I ordered two sets fitted bed sheets, yesterday. They arrived today. That’s triffick, ain’t it? A pair of beige, and a pair in white. So we now have – where before we had none – four super-king size fitted sheets.

I’ve also ordered another yellow and white ‘pomelo’ super-king duvet set. I don’t like the blue and pink version we have so having two white n’ yello means we can use one whilst washing t’other.

All is not quite fully peachy yet, tho’. Because I’d really like, either 1) all the pillows to match, or 2) at least the non-pomelo ones should all be the same. And they should enhance the vibes. The current mixed grab bag just don’t cut it.

Whilst re-making the bed today, I also took all the sundry other sheets, and either stuck in the dirty linen pile, or – if clean – stored them in our ‘new’ tall boy-ish chesty o’drawers. I’m not a fan of that material that’s made of plastic fibres – I dislike it so much my brain refuses to recall its name!

Ah… ‘fleece’. That’s the hideous and very untrue misnomer it goes by. In the drawer and out of sight with you. Begone, foul dwimmerlaik!*

Blah…

In other equally mundane and unglam’ news, I did a double shift delivering today. And unlike the last time I did the same (Friday the previous week), survived alright. In part that may be cause I managed to do my second (and longer) shift in just half the time allotted. But it must also mean I’m not quite so ill as I was, right?

*I love that line, in LOTR. I looked into the etymology of the word, and it seems Tolkien was poss’ adapting ‘a Middle English word for occult practices or magic’, dweomerlak.