Entertaining Mr Trebus

The ghost of Mr Trebus lives on. Through me!* This time, it's worse than just a routine root in a charity shop with the resulting hoard of fashion-backward fabric. It's the irresistible urge to collect bits of stuff off the ground.

Some of these china shards (sounds perfectly acceptable if you say, "china shards", doesn't it? Almost curatorial) come from the knee-grazing slag-heaps of Stoke-on-Trent but most of the stuff hails from our garden, or from walks with the dog (who has perfected a withering look for such lowly activities as china-hunting). In order to justify this weird behaviour I tell myself that I am scrabbling around in the dirt and putting bits of it in my pockets in order to make something like this:

It's a Table Mosaic, by the amazing Candace Bahouth. Do have a quick look at her website, if only to see the fantastic mosaic shoes she made...One day I'll be able to retreat to my mosaic-covered grotto in my own china-encrusted shoes, shouting blue (and white?) obscenities at the council officials knocking at my door waving their notices...*sigh*.

I was playing with pots of a different kind at the weekend. This is completely out of character as usually the only time I do anything that could be described as gardening is when I run out across the lawn shouting and waving at the dog to stop eating Mr Yaffle's plants.

They didn't come with instructions, but I suppose that if I a) remember to water them and b) remember where I've hidden them so I can water them, I should have some hyacinths by the spring. Or earlier. Or the whole exercise might just turn out to be an extremely fancy way of rotting some bulbs. At least I can cover the pots in bits of broken china while I'm waiting.

*and a number of other crafters, for certain!