What lay behind the biscuit barrel?

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Considering the handle

Last post I was dealing with a crook back. Improving now, thank goodness. I was also recovering from a cataract operation, and that I found even less conducive to looking at a screen for writing, or a sketch pad for sketching. However, I can exercise again, and can see without peripheral bright light flashing, finally enabling me to do the post I’d planned. For two or more weeks I’d thought about drawing this old wooden barrel, which is a perfect container for loose tea. It did start its life as quite a different object which I’ll get to by and by.

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What a difference a year makes

The castle and me

This time last year I was in Edinburgh, many months before Corona virus had hit the world stage. It was my first visit, and I had been strangely unaware I would be among thousands of others who had ambushed the city for the Fringe Festival. I was thankful that our friends Mick and Anne only lived a thirty minute walk from the centre, in a lovely, quiet, suburban neighbourhood. We strolled into town past handsome stone buildings on either side; a cobbled street in between – so different from the wooden architecture and asphalt roads I am used to in my New Zealand surroundings.

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