A little idea

that I'm pleased with.

I have a lot of toys left over from my own childhood,

my mother's nursery school

and my own children.

Some of them have seen better days, 

and are mostly without their original packing.

I have a goodly supply of small boxes and so until recently

was happy enough just to decant and store into those.

But with lids on, these were not very helpful to little B 

who likes to choose toys and put them away herself on the shelf.

So I photocopied the contents

directly on the photocopier bed

and stuck the startlingly 3D image

onto each of the lids.

I'm going to do the same with Lego.

I sorted that years before I knew there'd be anyone else

playing with it, so it's all complete with instructions 

but there are hardly any original boxes.

It was such fun that I am casting round for other things to photocopy.

Food perhaps?

Tools?

Art equipment?

Mouldiwarp

 A Dead Mole - Andrew Young

Strong - shouldered mole,

That so much lived below the ground,

Dug, fought and loved, hunted and fed,

For you to raise a mound

Was as for us to make a hole;

What wonder now that being dead

Your body lies here stout and square

Buried within the blue vault of the air?

On a happier and more topical note for August, 

Mole's thoughts on returning home after travelling Abroad:

He saw clearly how plain and simple - how narrow, even - it all was;

but clearly, too, how much it all meant to him,

and the special value of some such anchorage in one's existence.

He did not at all want to abandon the new life

and its splendid spaces,

to turn his back on the sun and air

and all they offered him and creep home and stay there;

the upper world was all too strong, it called to him still,

even down there, and he knew he must return to the larger stage.

But it was good to think he had this to come back to,

this place which was all his own,

these things which were so glad to see him again

and could always be counted upon for the same simple welcome.

From the chapter Dulce Domum - Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame

Seeing red

Oh my goodness.

This is a trial of one's patience.

I have now managed to copy someone else's last, precious, 

but now unsupported, version of iPhoto

onto my computer in a bid to be rid of Photos.

And Hallelujah

it has let me upload from my phone to the computer

and now to upload from the computer to the blog

but not quickly.

Oh no. That would be asking too much.

We must wait and twiddle our thumbs

 long enough for the moon to rise and darkness to fall.

Woe, woe and thrice woe

I would love to be posting more frequently.

The 'upgrade' continues to cast a pall over all my endeavours.

The latest blip being that I can no longer upload photos

from my camera to Photos.

It has locked itself into a permanent state called Closing the Library.

I am therefore obliged to hover on the fringes of Support Communities

and forums

looking for someone speaking in a language that I understand.

Here are three photos which snuck in under the wire.

How lovely to be oblivious

to the woes of the world.