Today is St Nicholas’ Day – children will put their boots in front of the door and listen for some heavy steps pounding outside and then slowly peek around the door to see if he left chocolates, nuts, and tangerines.
If you read Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman you will know that there was a Sir Joshua Device, a Sir Humphrey Gadget, a Pietr Gizmo, a Cyrus T. Doodad and an Ella Reader Widget – they all invented “things so simple and universally useful that everyone forgot that they’d ever actually needed to be invented” and the utensils were named after them. I’m pretty sure that one of the thingies in my photos has been invented by Angus Watchamacallit, a Scottish inventor of (forgotten) renown.
I’ve been playing around with colouring pencils and the image compare tool allows me to concentrate on the colours rather the subject. FYI: I drew the snails to give to my German language students (absolute beginners/illiterate students). They can hold up the picture when they want me to slow down.