Knicks and Knacks

It's going to be a busy two weeks coming up: Laurent's father is with us until Thursday, Friday we head up to Pesaro for the Rossini Festival and a week Tuesday the movers come. We decided to get a head start on a bit of packing - the things we don't want the delicate hands of the packers touching - treasures, Laurent's army, porno valuable tapes and DVDs, that sort of thing.

So Laurent is carefully packing each one of his 250 odd soldiers in its box while I am trying to figure out if I really need the instruction book from my Casio calculator circa 1987 which is so loving preserved along with the warranty for my first computer and a how-to-book for my first digital camera.

Every time we move it becomes apparent that we have too much stuff and some weeding out should be done. And we do get rid of stuff - honestly! But it would be hard to part with something like this family of Polish devils.

On a visit to a crafts store in Warsaw I saw this devilish family perched in the middle of the pop-eyed, coked-out-looking wood carvings that normally pass for Polish folk art - there is something faintly disturbing about a garishly coloured Holy Family that look like they've just visited a neighbourhood crack house in Bethlehem. In contrast this little grouping seemed so loving and fun loving that I fell for them immediately.

The artist, a carver by the name of H. Tarka, obviously felt the same way as he was creating them. These are no stand-alone sour-faced religious figures - this group is in it together come rain or come shine, and frankly it looks like its shining for them big time. I particularly love the way they have their arms around each other and even their - you should excuse the expression - tails are intertwined. The family that strays together stays together!

17 agosto - San Giacinto