Stage Two,

of making the table top level,

 back to the mosquito net shop, to have 4 pieces of square aluminium tube cut,

 stopping off at the builders merchants for a tube of silicone,

 these shops have everything you need to build a complete house, except the bricks, sand and cement, they have a yard for them around the corner!

 back home, first,

 then second square sections secured,

 weighted,

 and both ends finished, tomorrow I will see how successful my bracing has been,

 in the evening we decided on a Indian meal, so a Grab taxi to Central Festival, 

 and over the road to the Rajputana which is opposite,

 inside it is clean and spacious, 

 our first course arrived,

 masala poppadoms,

 and onion bhajees, 

  

 after a long break our main course,  

which does not look like very much, but was so filling, chicken samosa,

 and a real prawn puri, the bread exactly as it should be,

 seeing the puri like this, the course reminded me so much of a trip to India I made many years ago, by now we were full and finished, we could not eat another thing,

 so we crossed the road,

 to go to the Central Festival, 

 we had a cunning plan,

 dessert in Sweensens!  

so many ice creams to chose from,

 what could be better?

 a great choice by Diana,

 a chocolate delight for Diana, 

 and with an American flag I just had to name this one instead of the Colt Tower as it appears in the menu, I decided upon the Trump Tower, 

 we made our way back outside, the restaurant opposite,

through the crowds of people and stalls and grabbed a Grab taxi home, then a nightcap and for us we were off to bed.

We Went Out For An Indian Meal Last Night,

and noticed a number of Persian dishes on the menu,

 which made me think of the tales of the Arabian Nights, and with that in mind I looked up another book that had a number of the tales in it, the Anvār-i Suhaylī or Lights of Canopus, commonly known as the Fables of Bidpai in the West, 

 it is a Persian version of an ancient Indian collection of animal fables called the Panchatantra, the tales follow the Persian physician Burzuyah on a mission to India, where he finds a book of stories collected from the animals who live there, 

 much like in the Arabian Nights (which actually uses several of the Panchatantra stories), the fables are inter-woven as the characters of one story recount the next, with up to three or four degrees of narrative embedding, many of the fables offer insightful glimpses into human behaviour, and emphasise the power of teamwork and loyalty, 

 one passage describes how a hunter catches a group of pigeons in a net, only for them to be saved by a mouse who gnaws through the rope,

  the version celebrated in this post hails from nineteenth-century Iran and is particularly notable for its illustrations, 

scenes of tortoise-riding monkeys, bird battles, conversing mice, there are 123 in total, in this particular collection the artist behind the images is not mentioned, but the creator of the equally elegant nasta’liq style writing which accompanies them, is named by The Walters Art Museum (who hold the manuscript) as one Mīrzā Raḥīm, crikey all of this from looking at a menu in an Indian restaurant!

We Take Our Cactus For Granted,

but many years ago so many people had never heard of, or seen a cactus,

and many botanists were eager to study them,

 but with out modern photography there was only one thing to do, 

 paint them to be studied by other botanist who did not have specimens of them, and hopefully collate of of your pictures into one volume,

 these are all by French botanist Charles Lemaire, 

 devoting pretty much his whole career to the study of Cactaceae, alas he could not find a wealthy sponsor to publish his life's work,

the illustrations of cacti featured here are in Iconographie descriptivedes cactées, ou, Essais systématiques et raisonnés sur l’histoire naturelle, laclassification et la culture des plantes de cette famille, Lemaire was also editor of the botanical journals L’Horticulteur Universel and Flore des Serreset des Jardins de l’Europe, although considered an authority Lemaire lived in semi-poverty for most of his life, never publishing a major work on Cactaceae and never managing to attract the attention of a wealthy sponsor, after his death in 1871, Edouard Andre, his successor as editor of L’Illustration Horticole, said that “Posterity will esteem M. Lemaire more highly than did his contemporaries” and he was of course correct in that statement, back to the pictures, looking at ours, some of which are illustrated here one has to marvel at the accuracy of Lemaire's work, the prints are housed at the Internet Archive from the Missouri Botanical Garden.

If There Is A Geologist,

in your circle of family and friends,

 one of these mugs must be an ideal present for him/her,

 they are the work of Collin Lynch, working under the name Essarai Ceramics, 

 Lynch specialises in oversized coffee mugs, each one a riot of colour and texture,

Lynch works from his home studio in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he allows each crystal formation to take shape as it is constructed, in addition to alluring surface aesthetics, Lynch also finds inspiration in his efforts to “unveil perfection through imperfection, which is where Truth lies. Nature, being the most delicate yet enduring example of this paradox, is where through the rough surfaces and shattered angles, we are reunited with ourselves.”

 these mugs and other ceramic home goods are inspired by and named for specific stones like Smokey Quartz and Amethyst, pieces are available for purchase on Lynch’s Etsy shop,

 and you can follow his works in progress on Instagram, and I have to say it, no I am not on commission, I just thought what a great gift they would make for a rock hound!

Diana Popped Out To Go Shopping,

so I decided to make a start on the metal table I had bought,

 when upright the top of it was all over the place, so by adding weights and using a straight rule,

 I evened the hills out and used silicone between the table supports and the top of the table to keep it level when the silicon dried, 

 and in one area I placed a piece of card between the support and the table top to raise a valley, tomorrow there are two more valleys to be raised so I will put the table upside down on the floor and glue in a couple of pieces of aluminium to brace the table top when the silicon has dried, then a final look in the hope that the table top is 100% level, 

 in the evening I took a couple of pictures of the cats, Cable,

 Hogue,

 and Mariana,

 all playing with a shoe box, 

 after our evening meal Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, and scary it was too, we had watched it just a few months ago, but decided to watch it again, and this is what I wrote then, 'a fantasy that was for adults in so far as some of the scenes are nightmarish indeed, but enjoyable to watch, the special effects pulling out all the stops, so be warned if you are going to show this to the kids, watch it first (beware of the twins) and a few nightmares might be avoided, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, if you have kids watch with caution', we followed that with a few from Bargain Hunt and rounded the evening off with three more from Suits and with that we were off to bed.