The new pool liner is grey. The solar powered pool cover is blue. This is helpfully pointed out by the pool man. He also points out that the skimmer flap and the light surrounds are white. ' Some folks might like the contrast' he says with what I can only imagine is sullen contentment. Angus quietly wonders to himself why the pool man couldn't have said something earlier.
Emptying the pool was easy. Filling it slow. The water has been on for 36 hours and it only seems to be three quarters full. The stone to replace the old tiles around the pool was supposed to be delivered last week. I call the stone mason. ' We'll get round to you just as soon as possible' he says employing French non-commitedness before adding ' Covids keeping us very busy'. The pool man who was going to lay the replacement stone says he'll come back when its delivered. One step forward, two steps back ?
Sophie, who by character is more of a supervisor than a 'get your paws' dirty participant, watches the pool man with disdain. Three days in a row he's been here and no Jaffa Cakes. The sun is a bit bright this morning so she moves to the grass where it's cooler for carefully observing what's going on.
Daily walk excitement update ! Behind the village hall we find the new mayor talking to two gentlemen rolling a large diameter drainage pipe along the road. Two more gentlemen are standing by a mechanical digger looking at the two men rolling the pipe. It seems that water has been leeching from the churchyard into the village hall kitchen. How and why this is happening seems to be ( as with so much of life in a French village ) a mystery. Sophie, sniffs the piles of gravel, the drainage pipe and the workmens shoes. All prove to be interesting but not that interesting. We make polite but brief conversation and head on our way leaving the workmen to their remedial drainage work. The new mayor knows Sophie's name and tries to chat with her. She ignores him.
Passementerie. A word I'd never seen before. This is a skill that nearly died out in the UK but has been revived ( saved ?) at the last minute :https://www.heritagetrimmings.co.uk/ Why there is a company in Glasgow doing this I don't know. I found myself reading the the past projects page from top to bottom. Fore-edge painting is the creating of images on the edges of book pages. This is the last place in the UK that does this. Came across this site when looking for someone to rebind an old book that has fallen to pieces and glad I did:http://gillianstewart.co.uk/
7 comments:
Oh, those two sites were fascinating! I had to learn to make a much simpler bellrope pull for my City & Guilds Embroidery course, and it is very difficult to get right, and takes a humungous amount of expensive threads. I was interested that both firms were very "young" - after all, both skills are Medieval! I hope the pool looks good once the water is up and the stones replaced.
Sophie, have the pool men not heard of Jaffa Cakes?
Toodle pip!
Bertie.
The pool might look better when the water is in. It won't be gray but a dark blue-green/teal. Our pool was beige and the water looked light blue with a hint of green.
Would so love to find an old book with fore-edge painting.
I am surprised there aren't some good binders in Toulouse. I seem to recall passing one and watching through the window, fascinated.
Thank you for the bookbinding link! I inherited several Edwardian books from my father's family - early photo albums, a household management book full of recipes for invalid cookery, how to starch collars and how to prevent the range smoking, and a scrapbook kept by my grandmother as a child. All are falling apart at the spine and I was resigned to handing them on to my children in an ever-deteriorating state.
I too am interested in a Scottish book binder, even though I live in New Zealand. Somehow, I have in my possession a book published in 1785, titled a New History of Scotland, print and sold by J & M Robertson and J Duncan Bookfellers, Glasgow. Still with it's original leather binding. Another book is Hays Clans of Scotland, published by David Hay, 30 Leith St, Edin. From memory I think it was published c1850, but I could be wrong. My mother's maiden name was McIntyre.
Two very interesting sites today - thank you. The book binding is particularly fascinating - and good to know that it's still a practised skill. With electronic reading devices so convenient these days, I wonder if it will eventually be lost for ever.
Intrigued that the pool liner is such a dark shade, but it will attract the warmth from the sun, so should heat the water fairly rapidly. I've read that black tiles or linings are the becoming vogue. We are not allowed to fill empty pools from the tap, but have to rely on a bowser to start with. Afterwards we can use the hose to top it up, when the level inevitably drops during the very hot weather. Lately we've had torrential rain, and although it's unseasonal, it's been rewarding to see the garden watered, and pool topped up for free!
Hari Om
I too enjoyed the links today...and have been enjoying watching the pool progress, sittings as Sophie has, on the sidelines!!! YAM xx
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