The Destruction of Sennacherib

I was just thinking about posting this picture and it reminded me of the only poem I ever remember learning, by heart, all the way through.

All I can remember now, is the first two lines, thus:

The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold. (it was the purple bit that reminded me)

Nice. Suddenly I became curious about the forgotten remainder of the poem so I looked it up and found this:

 The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, 
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; 
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, 
When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee.
 
Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, 
That host with their banners at sunset were seen: 
Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, 
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.
 
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, 
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; 
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, 
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still! 
 
And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, 
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride; 
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, 
And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf.
 
And there lay the rider distorted and pale, 
With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail: 
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone, 
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
 
And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, 
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; 
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, 
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!  
--
George Gordon, Lord Byron

Very nice. The odd thing is, though I like it very much and am delighted by the imagery and the stylish way it all fits into the meter without any awkwardness and how all the phrases and sentences make sense, I don't remember it at all...not another word, not an image, not even an idea of what it was really all about.
So much for the value of learning stuff parrot fashion!

Well, we've had fields of rape and fields of flax and though I quite like yellow and pale blue in their places and in decent proportion to their surroundings, I felt they had got a bit out of hand, landscape-wise. So are we now going to have fields of thistles? The purple haze is more in keeping with the general tones of the average English landscape, d'you think?

Well. Bampton, to which I didn't exactly hasten after the wet flopping of Art on the Park, (I love it there but the rain dampened my enthusiasm just a bit), was mainly wet. And otherwise very, very windy. So windy that several tents spent most of the weekend bending, reedlike, into sort of cartoon tents and let in a lot of the rain. There were many wet beds and cold people and I'm so very grateful that ours is of the old fashioned solid variety that doesn't really do bending except just before total catastrophe and collapse. And it didn't do that so we slept dry and relatively warm while others shivered and were sadly awake. Two newcomers to the Bampton Experience were told so often that it's never been as bad as this before, that they must have wondered what they'd done wrong (apart from being persuaded to come, that is).
But both said they enjoyed the good bits and I think they'll come again :)
Tent trying to have a lie down

So onward to Oxford. I may as well start by saying that it rained steadily all day until half an hour before packing up time and then the sun came out and a very sweet lady bought two cards.
Actually it was a bit like Bampton..all the regulars assured me it wasn't usually like this and they'd had shit sales too and usually it was much better, really! Hoped I wasn't put off by the bad day! All very sympathetic and my neighbour, George, was particularly kind and looked after my stall several times while I went to the loo and bought coffee and soup and attempted to put more money in the car park ticket machine.*So I spent the day shrouded in billowing plastic watching and learning. Punters (that's you and me when we're wondering whether to buy things instead of wondering if we're going to sell things) are fascinating. You can tell a mile off if one is likely to stop and look and you can tell almost immediately if such a person is likely to buy.** There weren't actually very many of them and mostly they were shrouded in rain wear and hurrying past.
Still, I've learned lots of things. You mustn't huddle down in a chair waiting hopefully, you must look busy and wrap and unwrap things and re-arrange stuff and generally look as though you've got lots to do apart from waiting for a punter or two. You need to have lots of stuff...my stall was far too plain and simple so it was easily dismissed. I need to have lots more sunny pictures! With brightly coloured frames...rainbow frames maybe :) Also, my plastic sheet needs to be weighted so it doesn't envelope me every time the wind blows! And I need something to hang up at the back of the stall. Maybe put my prices down a little bit and have a few little cheap things to tempt people to get small cash out. I might cut some of the card blanks in half and sell some tiny ones. And I need to have my display boxes looking prettier. I might tuck a few old scarves or silk shirts in to make then look more colourful? and I need to be ready with a few friendly but not pushy comments so that punters make eye contact if only briefly. Because it's very bad for the ego when somebody picks up some stuff and pretends they haven't noticed you're three feet away smiling politely and pretending you haven't noticed they're actually there!***
It's all experience and weather really. I'm not deeply concerned, yet, about not selling anything because just as one swallow doth not a summer make, one wet day doth not complete failure make.
However, I am definitely considering plan B, which involves shops. And plan B (1) which involves nice people I know who want me to make cards specifically for them:) As, after the big build-up to all this sitting around in the rain, it's a bit embarrassing to have so little to report!

Took a brief walk in the woods on the way home :) It had brightened up quite a lot by then!
And there will be canal pictures appearing at irregular intervals, since apparently I took over two thousand. Barney has looked through one folder before becoming exhausted but found time to add up the contents of the rest!
Next Thursday is the Farmers' Market. I'm told this is always much busier. And of course a quite different kind of crowd attend Farmers' markets...usually, I suspect, local people with more money than the weekly visitors and perhaps more interest in greetings cards than the tourists. Which does make me wonder if Oxford is the right place. We'll see. So I'm not feeling too bad about the whole thing. Though I'm not quite ready, today, to start improving my display. Tomorrow will do! And although, sadly, I don't need to do much replenishing :( I do need to make some more 'jolly' cards! In case of more rain, see. Cos I suspect that in the wet, people might be more attracted to sunshine and flowers than moody, arty stuff!
So regretfully, I shall still be buzzing around like a demented bluebottle next week, printing and cutting and sticking and muttering a lot!

Hmm. Sleep well. I'll visit tomorrow.


*The car park machine was a monster from another planet. As well as being horrendously expensive, it wanted me to use my mobile phone to open a parking account and pay by debit card. I managed to tell it most of the numbers it wanted (one was my mobile phone number which of course I don't know...who ever knows their own mob number?!!!) but when it came to entering my car reg using the phone keypad, I gave up after the third attempt. It's too complicated to even begin to describe how you're supposed to tell it whether you're entering a number or a letter! But George gave me a little china bunny and obviously this was lucky because I didn't get a parking ticket.
**I know there was only one of the buying kind but there were quite a few of the other kind, mostly quite nice, but clearly not intending to part with cash!
***Conversely, I must remember to smile at the people I'm not going to buy things from when I next go to the market!