Just about to start cutting glass for 4 tall lancets for a 19th century chapel. (Painting starts next month, and continues through till June.) About two-thirds of the windows we’ll cut from brightly coloured glass (vigour, energy, glow). The rest is clear glass.

And some of it is seedy.

Seedy glass – which reminded me …

Seedy glass

Seedy glass

A big window we made 9 years ago required a lot of seedy glass.

We set to with determination one bright morning. By lunch-time though our noses twitched. What was that smell? Did we forget to put out the garbage? Maybe we were sweating …

“No: I know what it is. It’s a dead mouse: there must be a dead mouse somewhere.”

So we searched and searched. And searched.

Nothing.

Thankfully by now the smell had gone (it was awful). So we returned to cutting.

And straightaway the “dead mouse” smell returned.

Turned out it was the glass.

Cutting it, the broken seeds released a gas … a vile-smelling stink which made us think of perished rodents.

Fast-forward to today: you’ll appreciate how, even more than usual, finishing the cutting and starting with the painting will be a real pleasure.

Update #1

Oh dear. David – smiling – has just reminded me that some of the coloured glass is also seedy:

Seedy coloured glass

Cold as is it is outside, I’m going to open our front door right now.

Update #2

Still smiling, David has just told me he needs to make a few adjustments to two of the designs upstairs …

Small last adjustments to two of the four designs

Yes, he’ll work upstairs while I start cutting downstairs. We’re a team, you see.