Mineral green

For today's TinyTuesday theme of 'mineral' with thanks to freespiral for hosting.

These two duck spoons and their bowls are souvenirs from our trip to Beijing in 1993, with the parents-in-law and the two sons, then 7 and 6 years old, these objects are replicas of scholar's instruments, they are made from soapstone instead of the jade objects that an ancient Chinese gentleman scholar would have in his studio. The small bowls would be filled with water, that water would be used to make calligraphy ink by scraping an ink stone and mixing the scrapings with drops of water. The bowls fit in the palm of my hand.

I thought of these because it's our wedding anniversary today (36th!) and (mandarin)ducks are a Chinese symbol of wedding bliss, as they are partners for life. See a picture of us 36 years ago in the extras, sigh, I'm now about twice that size :-( Festive applepie standing ready to be consumed as soon as Jack and his parents have arrived.

Thanks so much for the kind comments, stars and hearts for yesterday's glumes mono , I'm glad you liked that