Monday May 29

Finally in London (actually just outside London, called Bedford). I spent the day traveling from 11 am to nearly 7 pm after train changing, a bus, then more trains, the tube, then train again. It is great to see Tara. Her little house is wonderful. She has done such a great job with it and has plans for lots of other projects like the kitchen, extension, front yard which will be made into more parking . . .

In terms of my sculpture, now that I've shown them to Tara and Wendy, the Celtic boar is the most satisfying. He's real, he's active as if he is sniffing for truffles with his twisted snout to one side.

See what I mean? This is the bronze boar before getting all the ceramic off it and before being buffed with some beeswax. I liked its natural color and didn't want it patinated green. It will happen naturally over the years but will be a slow process. My boar is stockier with bigger ridges on his back. This image shows his support under his tail which we removed so that is the basic difference.





Here I am knocking the hardened ceramic off my boar - it had gone ito the water trough, then I hammered it to get the ceramic off it. I wasn't as strong in my hammer yielding so sometimes Mark gave it some brute force. I like how he could read me and know when I needed help without making me feel like a wussie. At this stage, the boar was still attached to its supports and cup which I hacksawed off. Again, Mark gave it some really good hacksawing brute force magic so that I wouldn't have to spend an hour sawing. I learned the proper technique though!

Last night, I was starving once I arrived in Bedford after my day traveling so we went for some Indian food before getting to her place. Her first choice was closed on Mondays so Radhuni was the next choice.






This is not exactly the dishes that we ordered but gives you an idea. The sag paneer was fresh and different from what I've had before - very tasty and I insisted on taking the leftovers back to the house. I had lamb shank - a recommended dish and it was superb. Tara had a garlic lamb with three hot pepper stars - mine had one. Both were great. We had naan and another dish with eggplant.

Afterwards, we came back to her house, I got settled, showed her my bronzes, tried to finish my blogging and was ready for bed.

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