BLACK FRIDAY

I should never have got up on Friday.  By remaining in bed, I would have avoided personal injury, bad news and another defeat at the hands of modern technology.  Mind you, I would have missed the more pleasant events of the afternoon.

I don't recall exactly what business I was about, early that morning, when my feet got "wittered" in an old jumper which had fallen off the back of the armchair into a dark place between it and the storage heater.  I fell forwards and landed in a stupefied heap in front of my computer desk.  I rolled over onto my rear end, and began to survey my bits for damage.  Remarkably, my knees had escaped with only a small skin-burst low on the left one.  The worst injury seemed to be to the middle toe of my right foot, which is now a rich colour combination of crimson and purple.  The last time I saw that colour was on my rump, after I'd done an involuntary bum-luge down a slush-covered flight of stairs in Captain Flints pub on a winter's night some years ago.  I sported a full-colour portrait of Armageddon on my backside for weeks afterwards.

I managed to get to my feet, and found I could still walk without much difficulty, although my right foot was painful.  I slapped a band-aid on the graze to my left knee, had a bath, and decided to check my physical faculties with a walk down to Bolt's shop for my Shetland Times and other essentials.  My progress was a bit slower and more cautious than usual, but I got back safely.  After reading the news and some of the views in our local newspaper over a cup of coffee and a hobnob (a practice repeated in homes, offices and workshops all over the islands every Friday morning), I got down to some work.  I have two commissions and two "stock" works" under way at present, and I hope to have at least one of these finished during the incoming week.

I had made up my mind to visit my mother in Overtonlea Care Centre, where she is now a permanent resident, in the afternoon, so, after lunch, I made my way to "da Street", where I drew Mum's pension from the main post office, and £100 from my own bank account, and caught a taxi down to Levenwick (an expensive business, I know, but I won't be using that mode of transport very often!). I had completely forgotten that the residents of the home have their church service on a Friday afternoon, so I ended up providing some unrehearsed bass vocals to the hymns there.  I stayed to chat with my mother for another hour or so afterwards, coming away with some administrative work to do for her, and a feeling of how strange the day was turning out to be.  The misty conditions added to the feeling of strangeness.

Back in Lerwick, more bad news awaited me in the form of an email from my Swedish client, whose package had arrived damaged.  The painting (shown in the last post to this blog), which was on good quality canvas stretched over a deep-profile frame, had not been holed or torn (photographs of the damage to painting and packaging had been attached to the email), but ridging had occurred due to compression onto the frame-edges.  I suggested that he pack damp cloth between the stretcher bars and the back of the canvas at the places where the ridging had happened, and leave it for a while.  Fortunately this seems to have worked, and I have another satisfied customer.  This, however, is no thanks to the carrier, into whose hands I had placed the sum of £210 for safe delivery of the package.  No insurance was available to me from the shipping company, and I'm surprised that anyone wants to send anything of value by this means of transportation.  I had used polystyrene sheeting and bubble wrap for the interior protection, and this was inside thick cardboard secured with copious amounts of parcel tape.  The item was clearly marked "Fragile".

In the evening, further fragility was exposed in my temperament and technological capabilities when I attempted to copy some of the documents I had been given earlier by my mother.  No matter what I tried, the machine seemed to want to enlarge the documents and print only the middle section of each of them.  I went to bed that night in a poor state of mind and health.

But are we down-hearted?  On Saturday, the fog lifted, I corrected the error in my copier operation, my Swedish client emailed to say my plan had worked, and I put in an excellent day's work at the easel.  Even my toe was hurting a bit less.  Fortunately, black Fridays don't come around very often.  And, when I think of how dark are all the days of some people in the world, it puts my minor misfortunes into a more healthy perspective.

I hope to have an illustrated post here within the next few days.  Have a nice week.

IT'S A BIG ONE!

Since this photograph was taken, I have had my hair cut.  You'll no doubt be relieved to hear this, although it is a sad fact that even the most skilled hairdresser cannot make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, and the ravages of time are now all too evident on any image of me nowadays.  On the plus side (there's always at least one!), it adds a certain edge to my curmudgeonliness!

The painting featured in the photograph has now been carefully and stoutly packaged, and it will begin its journey to the man who commissioned it (who lives in the outskirts of Stockholm) with a short trip to the office of Streamline Shipping tomorrow.  According to the information on the Royal Mail Parcelforce website, the package will exceed their acceptable dimensional limits for transportation by about half a metre.  This is regrettable, as the carrier will probably charge more, but it can't be helped.

I'm sorry for the fact that I have become a stranger to my own blog recently.  I just haven't had the time to post, as there has always seemed to be something making more imperative demands on my attention than putting together some readable posts for this journal.  This is something I take quite seriously.  If I can't put anything worth reading together (and there are many subjects I want to address in these pages), I'd rather leave it until I can devote more time to the exercise.

So it is with my usual abject apologies (as well as some relief that I have posted anything at all!), that I leave you with the image of the "Force 9 Following Sea", which, along with the dimensions of 36"L x 53"H, is all I was given by way of instructions from my client.  From his response to the images I have sent him, I think he is pleased with it!  I hope to be able to post more regularly soon, and I thank you for your patience.