Quills

A bunch of gull feathers collected on the beach gave me the idea of making quill pens for the girls. Using a sharp kitchen knife I cut and slit the shafts in the appropriate manner... but there was no ink (who keeps a bottle of Quink handy these days?)

 Dad, ever resourceful, quickly grated and squeezed some beetroot and hey presto!  Yes, the pens worked and 5 year old was able to write her name in bright carmine. (3 year old perhaps more interested in the possibilities of the sharp point.) 

La plume de ma tante - or mon oncle....
which clumsy link takes me to the film we saw later after our day chez les grandes filles.

Called Much Ado About Dying it's a documentary about the last years and days of an old man and former actor, David, made by his nephew, Simon,  who reluctantly becomes his principal guardian, advocate and intermediary as his uncle holes up and burrows down into his increasingly chaotic interior and exterior worlds. 


If this doesn't sound a fun watch - it isn't. It's an incredibly touching, tender, revealing and yes, hilarious, human story that ends in the inevitable as tragedies  always do (although in many ways David was luckier than most.)
There's a review and trailer here and by the way if you're a Shakespeare fan you will never hear King Lear's famous speeches more passionately recited.
 (And didn't Shakespeare write them with a quill pen?)