Three days lost a year...

I didn't quite believe it when I first did the sum - brushing your teeth for two minutes twice a day equates to about 2 hours a month or 24 hours a year. Thought of another way, that's three whole working days every single year.

I really can't quite get my head round this. I know that cleaning my teeth thoroughly is something very worthwhile and that it saves pain and bills in the long term, etc etc. But to spend three working days a year doing it????!!! Two minutes seems such a small amount on each occasion but does seems rather unproductive when multiplied up that far. Perhaps I should be listening to little doses of something instructive at the same time - brushing up on my Spanish while I brush?

I have been quite diligent about cleaning since getting a posh Oral B Triumph toothbrush last year. I initially scoffed at the fact it included a timer (or Smartguide to use their jargon) but have found that it does help spur you to the full two minutes by prompting you to to change quadrants every 30 seconds. And it does reward you with a smiley face after two minutes...



I've occasionally experimented with using it for longer - you sometimes then get one of several different winking expressions. Leaving it running on my desk for five minutes just now only resulted in one change so I'm no nearer to knowing how many expressions are in its repertoire.



Perhaps I'm out of favour because I haven't yet responded to its instruction to bin my existing brush?

Splodges - an enjoyable little interlude

I'm enjoying plodding on with time-consuming needlepoint projects including the Ehrman Spring cushion cover, but fancied getting sidetracked by something that would:
a) let me try out painting a bit of a design on some canvas;
b) allow for decision-making as I go along;
c) not take long to finish.

I duly splashed some splodges of Tesco's acryllic paint onto a piece of scrap canvas...



...and have been semi-following the splodges and semi-ignoring them, according to whim.



The inspiration is Kaffe Fassett's lovely millefiori-like Paperweight fabric in the colourway 'sludge' though it's by no means an attempt to replicate the fabric. The wool is Anchor Tapisserie, in the colours I had to hand that were closest to 'sludge' - some a good match, others less so. There are some shapes that are vaguely reminiscent of the ones in the fabric but I decided early on that any attempt at copying the design would be doomed to failure - and that it would in any case defeat the object of being able to invent as I went along.



I've no idea what I'll do with the resulting little piece - I imagine I'll back it with Paperweight and make it into a little bag - or perhaps leave it as a little picture. I didn't really think about that when choosing the size of scrap to work on!

Unfortunately, I've had to pause as I haven't enough of colour 8072 to finish the background. I thought I'd spotted some on Saturday in a big remaindered box of wool in the Singer sewing shop in Bury St Edmunds - but it turned out to be the next-darker shade 8074 so I'll have to wait a little longer. (Of course I couldn't resist buying a big bag of wool anyway!)

I'd really recommend this type of project. It's fun deciding what to do as you go along while having a bit of painted guidance - I can't imagine me ever wanting to do a precisely painted canvas. The acryllic was cheap to buy (about a fiver I think) and easy to apply. It is also easy to correct mistakes, either by sewing over a few stitches or by cutting stitches out if a bigger area is involved. For instance, I sometimes found that larger concentric circles looked a bit boring and so oversewed one of the rings with a few spots of another colour. I found that I got slightly better at making the shapes fairly circular as I went along.

My only slight misgiving is that it feels a bit of a cop-out doing something all in very basic tent stitch. I suppose I could have used something more textured for the background, but it was more relaxing to keep this in-front-of-the-telly-task as simple as possible.

Now back to cracking on with one of the neverending bigger projects...

My very favourite web shop

I'm always pleased when I can find an excuse to buy from Cult Pens. I've used dozens of online shops - hundreds if you count every ebay seller - but this is my favourite, even though I don't have reason to buy from it very often. When I do come up with something to order, I always spend ages pouring over the site to decide what else I can treat myself to.

They do one thing and they do it brilliantly. They sell every kind of pen, pencil or refill imaginable, ranging in price from a pound or two to hundreds. The descriptions are very thorough, so you know, for example, what brands of refills will work for a particular pen. They also manage to be very friendly, letting their own opinions come out. Comments like "Sorry - Red standard cartridges have been inexplicably discontinued by Parker" make you realise that the descriptions are compiled by people taking a real interest, rather than bored temps. As their about us page says, they love pens and pencils. I've had occasion to mail them a few times with queries about discontinued models, and they always respond speedily, helpfully and knowledgably.

They also have a very sensible and quite generous postage policy - you only have to spend £10 to get free delivery.

The highlight of today's parcel - ordered on Sunday evening, arrived Tuesday - was a bottle of Diamine ink in China Blue, one dozens of colours available at the very reasonable price of £5.95.

It comes in a very classy bottle, taking you back to a pre-biro and computer keyboard era. I bet my grandfather, who was an architect with the most beautiful handwriting I've ever seen, used ink from a bottle just like this.



I'd been wanting to try Diamine for ages and agonised about which to pick first. In trying to choose a colour, I came across this excellent review of the individual colours. I can feel another order coming on soon - perhaps I'll go for the tasty-sounding Damson or Pumpkin next. But there's a danger that I'll start collecting them - and there are 80 colours in the range, with new ones launched from time to time so I'd better resist the temptation...well, perhaps I could just get one or two...