Spring

Eradicating cling wrap

There are different methods out there for making wax wraps. Some people use an iron, some people melt the wax and brush it on. Some people mix stuff like pine resin with the wax. I’ve seen people using newspaper and baking parchment under the cloth using an iron. Frankly that seems like a waste of wax as it gets absorbed into the paper or leftovers have to be thrown away and the idea here is getting toward zero waste. I’ve even seen one YouTuber painting on the wax and then putting the wraps in the oven to smooth out the brush strokes! That’s all too much of a faff and bother for me. And uses twice as much heat you have to pay for! This way is quick, and once you’re done you can just stow the tray and grater away for making more wraps another time or another waxy project. My only gripe is that the wax itself came in a plaggy bag.

April 12th…

A day out yesterday in the chilly April air…

The Long man of Wilmington is not made of chalk like the Cerne Abbas Giant ( bagged both these guys now!). Neither does he show off his best bits like the Dorset giant. Wilmington long man is made of white painted bricks placed along the original design on the hillside which was once only visible in certain light conditions. If you get up close apparently his proportions don’t look so odd from below! We sat and admired him from afar and raised a glass to the preservation of enigmatic drawings on British hillsides.

Then we went hunting and I spotted…

None of which took my fancy. Then I saw this

And delved into my bag for some paper, and got to work manually moving the platen along as the drawband was broken. The mainspring was still intact and I pondered…

I’ve never typed on it handled one of these though I’ve seen a couple in better condition with much higher price tags in antique shops. It was nice to get intimate with it but its price was too high and they would only come down by a tenner!

Just not quite screaming “take me take me take me” I left it muttering to itself about its nice blue detail and the fact that it was a Special … ah well!

Fairytale