Strutting My Stuff

 Ailz had her eyes tested yesterday; I should have had my eyes tested too, because I think I need new glasses, but I'm not yet ready to give up the ones with the strawberry pink frames. 

Ailz's new glasses (two pairs) will be pink and blue. If you have to wear face furniture you should make a thing of it- and choose the brightest colours available. 

As I younger person I lacked confidence and did my best to merge into the scenery: sober colours, casual wear but nothing that raised its voice above a murmur.  But I'm through with that now and I'm going out with a bang. I've grown my hair- and if I'm out for the day I wear bracelets and medallions. What I want now is a coat of many colours.

To Strip Or Not To Strip

 I bought a 19th century print of Tonbridge Castle yesterday. The castle looks exactly as it does today- apart from the ivy. 

Our ancestors of the romantic generation liked their old buildings clothed in ivy. It prompted pleasingly shuddersome thoughts of change and decay. Here's a very young Charles Dickens discoursing on the subject:

Oh, a dainty plant is the Ivy green,
That creepeth o'er ruins old!
Of right choice food are his meals, I ween,
In his cell so lone and cold.
The wall must be crumbled, the stone decayed,
To pleasure his dainty whim:
And the mouldering dust the years have made
Is a merry meal for him.
Creeping where no life is seen,
A rare old plant is the Ivy green.

There are a couple more verses. If you fancy them you'll find them somewhere near the beginning of The Pickwick Papers- or online, of course. 

These days we strip the ivy off in the interests of conservation. I can see both points of view. I'm not taking sides.