Post 97: Plumber and Birds

The plumber arrived early at 8.15 am. Turtle turned up as soon as I stepped out on to the balcony with the plumber. He stayed for a few minutes in the hope we would feed him, but left disappointed.

The plumber was very efficient. The drain was blocked at the S bend - a build-up, he thought, of many years of dust, leaves and debris probably caught on a stick or a hair. He cleared and flushed it through. The pipe is narrower before the bend because the original tilers, he deduced, poured their left-over cement down the drain without ensuring it flushed right through, so some of it set in the pipe. It is not, he says, uncommon. Often it can be be chipped away, but not in the case.

There is enough room for water to flow freely through. He believes it will not need to be done again but recommends I flush it once a year from the hose or a bucket of hot water.

He talked to me about my paintings.  Josh, my usual plumber is on leave with a busted hamstring he did while getting out of a boat. I find these young plumbers really interesting and knowledgeable  problem solvers.
I settled down to finish the Nicola bird . The legs were tricky. It's very hard to  turn under an edge on such a narrow area and the fabric frays badly if cut. The French knots are a good cover, but apply them too close to the fabric edge and the legs get thicker. I spent more than an hour this morning trying to manage it. I was reasonably happy with the result. I think, however, that  with any of these birds I embroider in future, I will trace the legs and feet on to the fabric and embroider these directly on.

The next project is to embroider and applique the second of Nicola's  birds on to the back of the bag. The shape of this bird is more robin-like.

Silver Eye

I went through a list of Australian birds, until I found the Silver Eye (also called Wax eye, Silver eye, or, in South Australia, apparently, white eye. It is about the right shape for the next bird, and the colours should work well.

Late in the afternoon, Turtle turned up again and ate a lot of the seed.

















I sorted through my threads - choosing colours in line with the White Eye. I found many of them in my tine of DMC Mouline stranded thread, The greys took a bit longer to find, until I checked a bag of threads Vivienne sent me and there were the missing shades.

I also had a skein of Gloriana silk perfect for the breast.







I have just begun the head, but am falling asleep. I was up early this morning for the plumber.





In between these tasks I did some proof-reading and cooked rainbow trout fillets, bought yesterday, for my lunch. Jennifer has her little shawl ready for me to pick up and block, but I didn't make it today. For the last two hours Poirot has once again been solving Murder in the Clouds.  I may just about last the three minutes to the end. I'll try to pick the shawl up tomorrow.