June Already!!!

A weekly feast of whelks? Why did i write that in my diary? Gawd nose.
The last couple of whelks have whizzed by at an alarming rate. Can't belive it's the 1st of June today- feels more like February! I have the heating on and wearing my thickest shirt and jumper!
So back to the diary to see what I was up to - if anything - for the last few days.
Had to lock up Rob's chickens again. No sign of them in the gloom so presume they were snuggled up inside the coop. They all trooped out the next morning. I could see an egg far back inside but I couldn't reach it. Rob said we could have the eggs if we found any but these chickens are a wiley bunch and super glue them to the back wall.
I finished ICO , well except for the boring final boss and borrowed the sequal , Shadow Of The Colossus from the library. I'm glad I didnt buy it as its not as good as ICO and mostly fighting which gets very tedious. Amazing landscapes to explore though. We watched Avatar on DVD which I heartily recommend for 2 and half hours of escapist nonsense. I can see why its done so well. Shame it means that everything will be in 3D from now on though!

Went to boot sale in Nantwich at the Vagrants Club and got a couple of films by John Carpenter. Hazel found a few things for her cabinet of curiosities. Propelling pencils ( that I found) and other stuff that I forget now. See her blog for details. It was incredibly hot and so unlike the weather today. Too hot to stay there long. After an hour I found Hazel and Archie who had hidden in the shade of a large tree.
O yes, Hazel found me a nice old tin post box with a mangled slit - attacked by some mad child with a cleaver, trying to get his pennies out.
First bar-b-q of the year in the garden.
Hazel trimmed the lawn with the new strimmer which sounds like a Boing 707 taking off.

Went to see excellent Charity Shop Cabaret at Plumly village hall - part of the Cheshire Rural Touring Network. We sat right at the back so didnt get roped into the daft audience participations - like the After Eight mint stuck to your forehead and slid down your face towards your mouth!
Bought some wine vinegar and jam jars and made a batch of caramel-ized onion pickle.Which i can eat on my birthday in two weeks ( hint hint ).
I boiled up a whole saucepanful and it reduced right down and filled two small jars. Hopefully should be tasty though.
No boots this Sunday so went for a nice walk around Shackerly mere to see the gooslings and feed the ducks etc. Dropped Archie off over in Wettenhall to camp out in a field with some college chums. We ha d a drive around the lanes and ended up back at the Broken Cross by the canal for a drink. We shivered outside waiting for boats to chug passed but saw just one solitary duck that seemed attached to some underwater rail- it kept going up and down, mainly for our benefit.
Terrible pub- beer was off- had to have bottled and their sandwiches are rubbish. We had nuts instead.
Yesterday it was Bank Holiday so a boot at Frodsham. Nice and sunny. Got a couple of scratchy records- Burl Ives and Attila The Stockbroker. See Boot Sale Sounds for details.
Also Village of The Damned (another John Carpenter film )Dragon Quest on PS2 and some spillikins for Hazels collection from Betty. Surprised to see her there. She explained her daughter drove her - else she wouldn't have bothered.
Got Archie from the camping field. He hadnt slept much and is making up for it now. 4 o'clock in the afternoon and still no sign of him!
O well, thats my news pretty much updated. The collage above is for the Mary Greg project that Hazel is involved in at Manchester Art Gallery. Mary Greg collected all kinds of weird stuff, some mundane and some fanciful. The toy ark I saw and the broken animals gave me the idea of the hospital ark and the animals with bandaged legs and paws etc.

Mary Greg Collection

Went into Manchester with Hazel today to see the Mary Greg collection at the Manchester Art Gallery. Got the early train and met all the regulars that Hazel chats too - grumbling about the latenesss of the trains etc.
Hazel had to go into college first to print off a doo-dah for a student applying for a job on some headed paper.
We got a taxi to the annexe in some park in the North of Manchester.
Amazing inside - peeling grandeur of bygone days. Piles of old paintings and bubble wrapped frames. Lots of conservation goes on here now as well as housing the Mary Greg collection in the gloomy shuttered gallery.
The staff there are very friendly and showed us some of the restoration they were doing to some amazing old Burne Jones canvases which had been preserved with beeswax and some other stuff and they were laid out on a plank over it , picking off the wax with tweezers and a cotton bud! It would take months to do - just patience and such tedium but they seemed very happy in their work.

Looked through tons of drawers and cabintets full of the oddest collection - old spoons, keys and watch winders. Fragile books and wooden animals from ancient farmyards and zoos. Took loads of photos- just a few here and on Flickr.
With every drawer that was opened it was met by a "Oooh" or an "Aaaah" and the ocassional "Wow!"
Had a sandwich and tea in the staff room for lunch and then another taxi back to town. Hazel went off to learn about Wordpress from the IT bloke at the gallery and I wended my way home through the drizzle to the station and the next train.

Hazel has driven over to Lostok to get Archie who has been at a chums house all day. She didn't feel much like going with a broken tooth and a sore throat. O dear hope it's not the dreaded swine flu' !