The Auction

https://www.lyonandturnbull.com/auction/search/?au=9131

Couldn't be a more stereotypical Victorian collection if it tried. Bit of everything going on here.

I'm tempted, though much of it is fusty or grotesque. The piece that I really like
(https://www.lyonandturnbull.com/auction/lot/203-george-iii-slate-topped-painted-wood-demi-lune-table/?lot=223220&so=0&st=&sto=0&au=9131&ef=&et=&ic=False&sd=0&pp=96&pn=3&g=1) would be entirely out of place in my house. Ironically had we bought one of those Georgian flats in Edinburgh centre, some of the Regency stuff would have worked very well. But even without lockdown the man would have been unhappy with a galley kitchen and the cats would have been unhappy with a lack of garden, so nothing to regret really.

Put the auction up on FB, then took it down because I felt... I don't know, as if it might be seen as impolite when so many people are struggling. Even when I couldn't afford, things like this always tickled me simply because if you had the money why would you? In the Anne of Green Gables Series, grown up Anne falls in love with these; https://uedata.amazon.com/Porcelain-Anne-Green-Gables-Ornament/dp/B0029V8UJ6
Apparently L.M.Montgomery loved such ornaments excessively. If so the Beal House auction would have been a paradise for her, (https://www.lyonandturnbull.com/auction/lot/15-group-of-staffordshire-pottery-spaniels/?lot=228300&so=0&st=&sto=0&au=9131&ef=&et=&ic=False&sd=0&pp=96&pn=1&g=1)
I couldn't have found room for one, let alone six of the things, but even my ever so chic mother had a couple at one time, so maybe this is where me and good taste part company.

Distant Thunder

So much for me doing nothing today. Not feeling work, not feeling great at all, so there was the ridiculous auction to point and stare at, and there was the life and art of Artemisia Gentileschi.

And there was Tarquin and Lucretia. And there was my hand, not helpless or resigned but reaching for the knife. https://artsandculture.google.com/story/iwUBuBlPUahxTQ

I am not poor Lucretia as he approaches. I put my hand on the blade and get cut, there's blood everywhere but the knife is mine.

He is not Tarquin; he gets nothing from me but prison.

Then, because life is like this, I get the message from the Victim Support Service this afternoon. I had forgotten! They contact me once a year to report on him. They tell me he is behaving according to the judge's license out in the community, that if nothing else untoward happens his probation ends in 2025.

It doesn't please me, I admit. I would rather he was in prison, that's the unreconstructed animal me. I can't scorn it too much, it saved me from Lucretia's fate and worse. When I tell them I have moved, they refer me back to the boundary I agreed with the probation service. Basically, he could not go anywhere prohibited by me. You have to be a bit careful about boundaries; too big and they can't be policed, too small and the perp knows where you are. So we were careful and wise. But because the idiot decided to s**t where he ate, his home was less than 3 streets from mine and he had to move out. Now they ask me if the boundary can be lifted, seeing as I am in a different country.

I said it could, but didn't think of my brother who is still in the same house as we lived in when it all happened.

Why don't I think of these things? Why is my head full of Lucretia and Tarquin and art and auctions and ridiculous things, and so devoid of common sense?

I'll contact them now.