A chapter of accidents

I really didn’t feel like getting down to any college work this month this week today, but I decided I had to do something, so I forced myself into the work room to roll some tubes. That went OK, apart from slightly dodgy cutting of the paper.

1. Then I remembered that I wanted to wax the tubes, got the liming wax out of the basket where it lives – and trapped my thumb pushing the basket back into the shelf unit. 
2. When I levered the lid off the wax with a screwdriver, the screw driver slipped and I cut my palm.
3. When I started painting on the wax the [admittedly cheap] brush fell apart.
4. When I was climbing back on to my stool with a new brush, I fell off it and landed on the floor. I suspect I now have a rather interesting bruise which I will not revealing to anyone except W. [No,I hadn’t been drinking!]
5. When I resumed waxing the second brush fell apart.

All the pain [literal and metaphorical] has been worth it as I am pleased with the results. The wax has made the tubes smooth and shiny, and it glued down the loose edges which even super Pritt refused to do. So I have assembled the ingredients to complete the piece tomorrow. I spent last night wrapping yarn round the ex-lampshade ring, which is not the most exciting activity, but fortunately there was lots of excitement in the cycling on the telly.

Though this piece is currently called ‘Compass’, the phrase ‘No Direction Home’ keeps running through my head, and I am thinking of renaming it. I find naming work difficult – as you may have realised, most of my tube pieces are named after the materials they are made of. Even ‘Chronicle’, which is made from our local paper – although it seems a good name anyway. W. is responsible for both ‘Postage of Time’ and ‘Storm  Cones’, which otherwise might have been ‘Envelopes’ and ‘Brown Paper’, which are rather less exciting. Obviously ‘Compass’ doesn’t follow my usual pattern anyway – but why does it want to be named after the chorus of a nearly 50 year old Bob Dylan song? – although it’s the Stones’ version I remember best.