Old Japanese Printing Technique

Hi there,

Contrary to what I've been blogging about lately (cats, hiking, books, more cats) I actually do have other interests. Unfortunately they are all sedentary ones, that is to say I sit on my butt whilst I indulge them.

Because my guitar playing isn't good enough to share, and I have no garden to show you that comes up to my standards (I rent...need I say more?), I have decided to let you in on my other secret hobby: messing around with paints and whathaveyou.

Now, intelligent pragmatic that I am, I thought to combine the two: get off my butt (read: go out into the wild as it is around my wetlands and search for interesting 'stuff') and  experimenting with paints in order to produce a Gyotaku print.
A what? Yes: Gyo = fish, taku = rub in Japanese. And so far there were no fish harmed in the process! Not that I aim to harm any fish, ever.

Today I tried my hand at rubbing two types of garden fern and some ivy. The result is...
Well, you judge.
I need A LOT of practice yet!

Viggo's Blog - I Swear That Vet Has Added 2 Balls!

Hiya fans, Viggo here.

Did you feel sorry for sweet little Bowie, when I told you he had to have an operation?
Silly you!

I know castration is said to change us toms into placid, overweight, fussy, neutered (need I go on?) so-and-so's, but I have to admit this did not work for our Bowie!
Within one day he was tearing around the place again, and getting into trouble. Business as usual!
I am SO fed up with that brat! He jumps on me all the time, he tries to eat my food as well as his own at the same time, he claims the woman's lap for his own, he is a nuisance!

The vet told my woman to keep him inside for 10 days, 'cause 'he needed the rest,in order to heal'.
WHaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Never heard such bollocks in all my life! My woman told the young woman her jaw dropped when she was told this hogwash. She's grown up in the country, you see, where pigs and horses are neutered and turned straight out into the meadow again after. Sure, she gave Bowie the antibiotics as she believes this did him some good (and he loves the stuff, silly brat!), but she took a good look between his hind paws after a day, declared the nonexistent balls healed and opened the door to the back garden. Needless to say, Bowie was out there in a flash. Thank Frith.
Now, me and the mates had a long talk about his energy levels, and we've decided that they are not normal.

AND he's growing...

Song's Best Books Club - Hollow City by Ransom Riggs

Told you I could not WAIT to get my hands on the sequel to 'Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children', so me and darling daughter took ourselves to Donner (best bookshop in the Wetlands) and splashed out on not only 'Hollow City' but 'Library of Souls' as well.
I've read 'Hollow City' in 2 days flat. Being in bed with the flu helped. Heck, I had a headache anyway, so one on top of it didn't make a blind bit of difference.
And if you scrunch up your eyelids you might just - only just - pretend that you can see two pumpkinaffes in the photo.

Jacob and Emma and their peculiar friends have fled Cairnholm and land somewhere on the coast of Wales in their determination to rescue Miss Peregrine, who cannot turn back into her peculiar self. They embark on a perilous journey to London, to try and find the last remaining free ymbryne Miss Wren, meeting up with peculiar animals, Gypsies, and exciting new peculiar children on the way. Oh, did I mention that they are continuously being chased by the evil wrights and a hollow or two?

As in the first novel, Riggs paints a haunting world, totally believable even if it contains a speaking pipe-smoking dog called Addison. Their adventures take Jacob and the other children to war-torn London in the middle of the Blitz, and for me that was the best scene in the book.

The blurb claims this sequel is even better than the first book. I beg to differ. It is equally good. The photographs though, weird and haunting as they are, this time weren't as amazing. I think that's because the newness has worn off. Riggs himself has admitted he has turned the process around; instead of writing the plot around the photographs, he searched for photographs to illustrate the plot. This is perhaps contrived.
Anyway, as in my first review of Mr Riggs' writing, I will now repeat myself:

Read this book!!!

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