Summer tea and fore-edge painting

Yesterday's visit by Handsome Son, first for a couple of weeks,  included a summer tea

Complete with lemon bars, plum cake, suntea with lemon and spearmint, and a little bunch of flowers from the front yard. Couple of early chrysanthemums, couple of daisies, sprig of creeping Jenny. Note that we're finally sharing the tea and cakes instead of individual Covid style settings.

Not sure if Handsome Son noticed any of this, but it pleased me!

And he was very happy when I presented him with his Dad's Cross pen and pencil set, all in working order. He hadn't known about it so it was quite a surprise. He loves vintage, especially if it's from Handsome Partner. 

And we pored over the latest dox from the condo association to fathom what they wanted this time. Took both of us to unravel the convoluted prose. Evidently the township has changed the Fire regs yet again. It seems we're still in compliance, though.

Back to reading, I noticed in the Inspector Rutledge book  a reference to fore-edge painting, without an explanation, and remembered what it is. 

Thought you might be interested in this very niche artform. As a kid I had no idea this was a thing, and tried drawing on the page edges of closed books. A few years ago I discovered it was a kind of art, going way back.

When the book's open, or on the shelf, spine out, the art's invisible. You can see it only with the book closed. It's fun to try, if you clamp the book closed to keep the pages tight shut so the paint doesn't seep in. 

This isn't a flip book thing which I expect we all did as kids, little drawings on the top right corners to make a kind of animation when you flipped the pages fast. If you haven't done this, it's fun. Also great for little kids to try, just sayin.

Yesterday's Freecycle listing included this entry

I wondered if she was having a dig at the likes of me, then found that apparently there's a magazine called Lady. And there was a missing comma after Lady. Ah. 

I do like this kind of thing, like the weak old chickens advertised in the local paper. And the eight week old doxins, all weened. Perfectly clear if you read it aloud.

And my current horoscope did a feature assigning characters in the Wizard of Oz by sign. Evidently I'm pretty scruffy but mentally alert.

So it could be worse. I keep telling myself this when I'm bored with being kept home isolated because of another heatwave. Big storms last night, saved me from needing to water the plants today. So there's that.