Hand-printed endpapers

I recently bought these lovely hand-printed endpapers, they'd be used in bookbinding on the inside of the covers. They're slightly winky-wonky which I like. They put me in mind of Phyllis and Dorothy but aren't really a patch on them once you compare.
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Here it is.

Feels like a while since I posted some toot photos, so here's a small haul for you:
Needlepoint boats.
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A flirtatious fox mask, I think it's the eyelashes that do it.
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This black pot is basalt ware - it looks like metal but is in fact pottery. Basalt ware is made in a mould and doesn't have a glaze, which makes it perfect in my eyes - nothing clunky or gloopy about it - just nice imposing black shapes. Black basalt fell was produced for many centuries until it fell out of favour at the beginning of the twentieth so I'm struggling to put a date on this one. It's spent one precarious week on the stall and now I'm moving it to the permanent collection - I know I must like it because every time someone picked it up to look at it on the stall my stomach jumped.
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What's this then?
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Oh, it's a pocket coat hanger, handy should an emergency arise and you need to hang up your coat at short notice.
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A hokey wire hanging basket - would make a nice drawing or basket in the kitchen or lampshade.
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Party decorations for grownups.
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An egg, the kind you put in a hen's bed to make it lay. Not sure why that works but apparently it does - silly hens.
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Dirty filing drawers for all your dirty filing needs.
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And a wartime games board, with two markers that slot into an ingenious holding device on the end.
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Very pleasing.
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There you go. I hope you like the bits - I'm at Spitalfields on Thursday and North London Vintage Market on Saturday, hope to see you there.

Osokool.

I have a new special friend aboard the boat. It's an Osokool, picked up from an old caravan of Pete's.
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It was made in the fifties: when product names were obvious and cheery.
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It's a dashing, chunky thing cast from a dense plaster with wire fittings and a polystyrene and plastic door.
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It's an electricity free fridge! Here's a nice old ad for it. I'm really pleased, it's working well so far. There's a dip in the top that you fill with water from time to time and it soaks down into the casing. It keeps food fresh on the premise that whenever water evaporates it has a cooling effect. This is how your average (ugly, noisy) fridge works as well - only they're chocca full of mucky chemicals.
osokool
One of the things I really love about the boat is that when I leave I know that it's dormant - I don't leave behind anything that hums or whirrs or gobbles electricity whilst I'm out. It gets me down to think of all the households across the country with fridges running all day every day.
I reckon I'm going to try and be without an electric fridge from here on in, even when I've got mains electricity. The Osokool has been a real revelation for me in case you can't tell, I could probably yabber on about it for ages. I reckon I might try casting my own bigger one sometime: a bit of a project.
What do you think? The Osokool doesn't make a drink icy cold for you, and you'd probably have to be a little more veggie orientated rather than stock-piling sausages. Would you go fridgeless or is it a silly idea?

The Plants have gone in to Foster Care.

Yesterday Dale and I crossed London in his swanky new van to attend a grotty car boot sale. And to take my plants to be made big and strong in a very posh new pad.
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It was amazing driving through London as everyone was going to work, seeing how the other half live - Dale slowed down so I could take photos. The fog made everything seem kind of ominous. Here's a picture of the Shard if you can believe it:
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I didn't take picture at the boot because I was busy but if you don't mind I'll paint you a mental picture . . .
I went to the loo and there was a lady in the queue smoking (a little annoying) then her phone rang and she answered it, speaking really loudly, which stepped up her score to really annoying. Then a cubicle came free and she hopped in, still smoking, still yakkety yakking away, and proceeded to do a noisy poo at the same time. Can you believe it!? My irritation had reached such a crescendo by then that it actually shifted over into a kind of admiration - she obviously didn't care one hoot for what other people might think . . . also multi-tasking like that takes a lot of skill.
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After a surprisingly long time at the boot and a lengthy natter with some fellow traders we motored down to see Lu and put my plants into this handsome poly-tunnel.
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I'm pretty sure they'll like it there. It was hard to part with them, but it was also getting a little heart-breaking to see them getting so little light in the storage space. I still have visitation rights and I'll get them back when I have a new place.
pilea
They have a whole army of gnomes protecting them.
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Then there was just time to pet an alpaca before heading off.
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Le weekend.

Hope you all had a good weekend. I attended The Movable Feast. I was selling Toot and didn't do myself very proud, stock is low at present. Still, I was very pleased with the fetching bauble tree I managed to muster. This year I will have a branch instead of a Christmas tree - much kinder to the ol' environment, not that I've ever really bothered to buy a Christmas tree anyway. Whilst on the topic a man at the boot fair last Sunday handed me a flyer for his business with the tagline 'Take the stress out of buying a Christmas tree!' - which I thought was hilarious
bauble tree
My usual buying places were a bit dry on Friday. But I did find this big, beautiful, red wooden egg which I love. Look at him, what a saucy hunk. He's going in the 'to put on shelf when I have a house' box.
red wooden egg
Also a very nice paper bag.
patterned paper
Then today I was rescued from the Toot drought by a very lovely man called Pete. Pete talks in a sing-song English country accent like Pop Larkin. I call in on him from time to time. He's a chronic accumulator and an old school 'oil lamps and mahogany' type dealer - he always shakes his head in disbelief at the things I buy.
two geese
He's got two guard-geese in his field, he's had the male one for sixteen years! He goes gooey over him, here he is saying 'Good boy, what a beautiful boy, yes you are!' and the goose is just hissing, straining it's neck at him and honking, it seems to be giving the goose equivalent of the middle finger while Pete coos away 'good boy!'.
pile of junk
And here's some of the stuff I pulled out of his shed - doesn't it look like an awful pile of rubbish? It all needs flumpfing and wiping down. I'll get to work on that and post some photos soon.
In other news, I'll be selling at Spitalfields on Saturday this week! A new venture by Mike the market manager, I encourage everyone to come down, I reckon it could be good.

A dutch tobacco case.

I'm staying with the parental units this weekend, which is nice.
When I have a house of my own I look forward to cultivating a fine collection of toot. I just sell it all at the moment, don't keep anything for myself really. In fact most things I do keep end up with the parents for safe keeping. Pretty tragic I think you'll agree.
So whilst I'm here I make sure to snoop their possessions real good.
This dutch tobacco tin is my Dad's, I love the pictures.

I'm fascinated by naive images, especially of people. There seem to be endless ways of representing a figure, a hand, a foot, that express so much character.
 I especially like these peoples sideways mouths, made with a single tap of a tool.
Yes, very pleasing.

some toot.

Hello there, here's some objects to look at. Little things really.
I'm limbering up for a lot of market stalls over this festive period, real busy, but hope to keep the posts up.
The boat is cold these days but the stove is lovely: I've moved the table so I can sit in bed and watch the fire which is pretty blissful. There's not so much sun around either so my solar panel isn't at full wack. I'm doing a bit more drawing and writing as a result: candlelight isn't good for reading but nice for drawing inky pictures that you can look at properly in the morning. It's a Luddite's dream really. And sometimes it's a modern person's nightmare - getting up at five in the morning stumbling around in the cold and dark.
cricket bats

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This old battery casing is knackered but I had to have it. It's the kind of household one you'd have to take back to get charged up - it's got dimples each side where a handle would slot on. I'm not sure whether it would have had a lid or not, some early batteries gave off a lot of gas apparently so would have to be open. Makes you wonder how dated and dangerous our technology will look in fifty years.
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 I like this fruity little forties vase.
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These mittens photographed weird but you get the idea . . . what a good idea.
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I was in Elephant and Castle yesterday and popped into the Cuming Museum, which is based on the collection of The Cuming Family. A lot of ethnographic bits which I really love. (Incidently I spent too much money today on some ethnographic goods of my own, 'citing). There's also a nice collection by one of the sons, all framed and boxed, it includes a bit of Charles the first's waistcoat, Queen Victorias gloves and Mary Woolstonecraft's autograph. Really sweet things, preserved in a wonderful way.
The most fun exhibit, however, was this dentist's hat - how hilarious. Just the idea of strapping your trade to your head is ridiculous, I might make a toot hat, but doing it in this 'orrible macabre way is double barmy. Those Victorians were fruity, fruit loops bleeding marvellous.
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Working at Borough

Working at Borough this weekend was exhausting, I can tell you there was not as much nattering as at Spitalfields, and at three o'clock we certainly didn't all sit down for tea and a twix. Still it was enjoyable. I got a sneek peek of the markets guts - we went out for a drink afterward and learnt about the market tribes: like 'the Monmouths' (from the coffee house) who mostly get on with 'the fish boys', hilarious in-talk.
Borough Market
As we were clearing up the lady on the left in this picture sat down right next to the stall, very much in the way, and said "I'm not moving" in a strained kind of voice as if she was making herself heavy in expectation of us trying to physically move her. Then within five minutes her friend had joined her and was pulling all sorts of goodies out of her wheely-bag: crusty loaves of bread, croissants, lumps of cheese, plants, flowers . . . what a good wheeze!
They reminded me of Alfie from Spitalfields who wanders around blagging cups of tea and biscuits. The other day I went to London Buddhist Centre and when I got in there I was really shocked 'Oh! Hello Alfie!' I said, to which he gave his usual reply - 'can you get me a cup of tea?'. The man in reception explained to me that Alfie goes to them every Tuesday after his first free tea stop - the Alcoholics Anonymous meeting down the road and before going next door for a sausage roll. For all the fuss Freegans make there's an incredible raft of elderly foragers out there living glorious food-filled lives under the radar.
cheese fondue
Yesterday we joined them - I made this enormous fondue out of all the cheesy trimmings, it tasted better because it was rescued from the bin. Here's to free food! What a brilliant thing.