Isn’t Instagram a useful tool. Much better than Facebook with its the asinine messages flitting back and forth between people who plainly have nothing better to do. Anyway, it’s run by that arrogant young man Zuckerberg and that alone is reason to be rude about it. Enough of that. It was thanks to Instagram that our very old - and I don’t mean very ancient - friend Kim Yashar-Bish alerted us to one of her latest finds, a small Persian Qashgai folk art rug. This one:
As you can see, the bird is a partridge (Keklik in Turkish and a funny squiggly thing in Farsi) and the Farsi writing (more squiggles) to the left says ‘welcome guest’ with the name ‘Ya Ali’ who is one of the 12 Imams and nephew of the Prophet. If you look carefully you can spot a hunting dog which in Turkish is called Tazı (note the lack of a dot over the i), which by a strange quirk is the name of our senior dog (though with a dot over the i). And all those trees are obviously pear trees so what with Christmas around the corner we had to buy it. For any of my readers who don’t know about Kim and Mahmut’s wonderful shop in the North Laines of Brighton just click on this https://www.yashar-bish.com. If you’re stuck for presents to give or receive it’s the place to look. Here’s a taster:
Amongst the many oriental rugs, runners, cushions and textiles you could also find patchwork and that’s what our newly re-turfed lawns now look like. This summer was so hot that great swathes of grass were killed off and re-turfing became the only answer. Fortunately a local firm - C B Winter and Sons from Berwick - not only supply excellent turf but do a re-laying service as well so I enlisted their services. Ian Winter and his pal Paul braved the elements earlier this week and here from start to finish is how the grass went from scorchwork to patchwork:
Happy Christmas everyone!