Pens perdu...

When I started the final phase of this project I bought a box of twelve permanent markers. Now there are six. I am not very happy about this. I should say that these are specially tested (by the Michael the printer at Wells) markers: markers whose ink disappears in the heat of the furnace. Markers that I can draw with on enamel panels in the full confidence that no mark up lines will remain. Markers that will make me look good and furthermore markers that I hunted out on the net and ordered specially.

I accept that all families with kids lose the pen-by-the-phone, the only roll of sellotape on Christmas Eve, the one pair of scissors that actually cut. I know I was guilty myself - I can clearly remember taking my mum's dressmaking shears and (helps if you read this in a rising octave) using them to cut paper...

Trouble is that my son is on his way to being an artist himself so, instead of growing out of pens-by-the-phone and into motorbike parts, he's grown out of biros and into propelling pencils and fine sable brushes. The upshot of this is that he's had half of my boxed, individually wrapped, pristine black markers.

I challenged him about this, waving the rattling box under his nose while carrying on about my 'professionalism' and 'needing these specially for the factory'. He wasn't contrite and said, justifiably, that I'd let him ransack my sewing fabrics for his bookbinding, use my best scalpels and have almost unlimited access to my paper store, so why would he know these pens were off limits? 'Besides' he said reasonably 'I'm very careful with your stuff - I'd never use your dressmaking scissors on paper...'