Here's someone who bought a bunch of Blue Willow from my mother's dining room in Wales--then brought the biggest piece back to ask for a refund. She'd discovered a tiny imperfection that we'd never noticed ourselves.
Our lane... Ellie to the right of center...
Ellie front and center, with very small pink parasol.
It was cool and overcast for the better part of the day, but there were moments, later in the morning, of bright sunshine, tempered by a pleasant cool breeze. Here's some of our stuff, including copies of art catalogues for which I wrote the text. Not big sellers, even with the extraordinary offer of an author signature!
More stuff. Including some of my mother's Blue Willow...
It's sad, honestly, knowing their previous life, to see these things laid out for sale, for cheap, on a table at a swap meet in the Southern California sun... We sold, too, a game of "Animal Bingo" which we had played as children in the nursery, back in the 1930s. Some nice person found it charming enough to want to take home with her. Her mother was one of the few to buy a catalogue--the one, two pictures above, with Don Bachardy's portrait of Christopher Isherwood on the cover. She bought it as a gift for her teacher, who keeps telling her to "put more red" in her faces.
My chair, temporarily abandoned in the midst of the turmoil. And...
... my chair, occupied. The dealers were around already at six o'clock, scouting. The event opened to the public at seven. At about two o'clock in the afternoon, we started to pack up.
Not to make a bid for sympathy, but all this with a bad back. It has been grumbling for a few days now, but yesterday put the finishing touches on the problem. Toting heavy boxes filled with books is no way to treat an ailing back, and since returning home I have been suffering the pay-back for the punishment I handed out. I have found that the best way to deal with the situation when my back "goes out" is to keep exercising it gently. Walking is usually the best cure. We drove downtown later in the afternoon to reward ourselves for our efforts with a gelato, and spent a while walking on the boardwalk.
A lovely end-of-the-afternoon, with crowds of visitors on the boardwalk. George was widely admired, and we ran into a couple of others of his breed--always an occasion for a pause and a chat. When we had our first King Charles--twenty years ago now--they were a rare sighting and attracted oohs and aahs whenever we went out. When he's not simply irritated by it, George tends to remain regally indifferent to all the attention. The truth it, his little brain is focused on the more plebian hope that, just possibly, someone might have a tennis ball hidden away in a bag or pocket for him to chase.
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