We were very lucky to find a partially furnished house to rent initially, but we needed some beds, & various items of linen, crockery cutlery etc.
And of course Television, as the Cricket season was in full swing, & perish the thought that GOM should miss that! So we got the requisite TV, & a VideoRecorder, it seemed so the neighbour children could spend all day in our house, playing wretched games, or watching cartoons, since their mother was not too keen on having them mess up her house.
While we were out shopping for beds, GOM spotted two figurines. They are tall elegant ladies in the 1920s style of dress & thinness. He fell in love with these elegant figures & enquired as to their cost. One of the ladies had 'lost' a hand clasping a purse, & so we were able to purchase the pair of figurines for a fraction of their original cost. Apparently an errant child had broken the hand-plus-purse in a mad rampage around the shop.
And we have enjoyed them over the past 24 years, albeit one hand, clutching the purse, was always resting down on the base upon which the lady stands.
Over the years as we have moved from place to place, I have fancied the lady less the hand, has been comforted by her partner, the lady with both hands.
I finally decided it was time for some repair.
Well, that is untrue really. I had decided long ago to effect repair. I bought some Super Glue & duly glued the hand with purse onto the slim wrist. Of course the first time I moved it, it promptly fell off!
But I remembered over the weekend, that Mr Nice Neighbour is very artistic at mending things, & has on occasion, mended items for us before. So I asked if he was prepared to try to mend our lady less the hand. He agreed he would, & today he returned her fully restored.
And, you know, I swear I can hear her singing! And I swear she and the lady of two hands, are singing duets!
These are truly lousy pics of the ladies concerned, but you will get the idea.
This is the slender lady, who for so long was handless. Now happily clutching her purse once again, thanks to kind Mr Nice Neighbour.
And this is she of two hands, who is rejoicing with her friend- I swear. Perhaps now, if they go out for cocktails, the purse can be opened to pay!They are much nicer in real life. These pics do them no favours, the flash was most unkind, & as the light was lousy, I stood them on the floor to try to get a good photo.
Mr & Mrs Nice Neighbour brought their little boy Beau over to visit. It was largely a success. They have been giving Beau training & he has responded so well to it all, he is a very well behaved little lad now.
Our little Honey is in love with Mr NN, & also loves Mrs NN, so she tolerates Beau. But Leo the Lionheart... well he is another story. He is a very aggressive little boy, & thinks he should be biting Beau, or at least snapping at him, for daring to visit. So we had a little lesson-giving to Leo. And he responded quite well, for a beginner.
Mr & Mrs NN have kindly lent us a video on how to train your recalcitrant dog to behave, & we are now hoping to have two well behaved dogs to present to visitors, in the near future.
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We had Small Grandson here for the morning. He was very happy, & spent some time drawing- his artistic flair is not really evident as yet! - well not in pencil.
And he discovered some skeleton items I had, plastic & rubbery models, & a large vampire bat, a rubber one, I hasten to add. He is very like his Uncle B, in that he is not in the least scared by such things, he finds them very interesting. He told me he would mince the bat up, I could eat it, it would go down & around in my tummy, then I would wee it out, & it would be angry with me, so it would come to suck my blood! Which seemed to me to be quite a long thought process, & quite a well thought out story.
He went & played Donkey Kong on the old Nintendo video game, & GOM says he is quite skilled really. Just as well we have some of these old 'antique' things for little kids to play with now & then. A friend's little lad quite likes it -out of desperation, perhaps!
Emmylou Harris, Michelangelo.
