Yay!, Boo!, and Eeek!

[ppfuf]

Yay! If you heard an undignified squeal the other morning, it was because one of the curators from the National Museums of Scotland returned my email. I wrote back with a few questions and answers, and this morning he sent a core-dump of email, with pictures! The NMS has three partial sets:

1) a 7 member single-belt-red-line set like the round set at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 
2) 4 hand colored Aesop trenchers that are less delicately-colored than the Kentwell Hall set and were colored by someone unclear on the concept of Chameleon. The poor lizard is bright red on a leaf-green background.
3) 3 really odd members of the 12 professions (so odd, the curator thinks they are 19th century reproductions). The professions set is based on the same verses as the V&A's Wonders of the World but the NMS set does not match any of the extant sets of that type.
Bonus Yay! I've got an appointment to see the set of trenchers at Princeton University this Christmas. I've got no idea what they might look like, or what posies are on them, so it's very exciting. :)

Boo! When did the UK's VAT get to be 20%?!!? No wonder the urban poor were rioting a few months ago. I can't imagine what Californians would do if our sales tax was more-than-doubled.

Eeek! I managed to startle GM the other evening when there was a huge and unexpected spider in the kitchen sink. You'd think, after almost ten years of marriage, he'd recognize the high-pitched squeal of my spider detection and early warning system and not think I'd cut myself on the knives I was trying to wash.

Comments

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

I normally relocate spiders outside to they can be free and happy (or be bird food, that's ok too), unless they startle me, then the ItsEvilKillIt reflex takes over.

Wow, more than one stomp? That's one buff spider.