Bank Holiday Monday

The weather being good for the purpose, bright but not too hot, off to Hook Road Arena for their bank holiday special. We got there about 1000 to find things in full swing, more or less full, with what must have been some thousands of people. Just one Silver Cross pram, possibly belonging to one of the wives from the fair which was in one corner of the arena. See reference 2. In around two hours we passed maybe two thirds of the stalls, looking at, if not exactly examining, maybe half of those. Just one anglers' stall.

Ground in oddly battered condition given that we are early in the car boot season. Maybe the ground was wet for the recent monster car event.

Various oddments, including a top-up of our kitchen tumblers at 5p a pop, cheap enough that one overlooked the slightly odd shape, tall for their diameter.

Good selection of DVDs, including, at long last, a collection of the Jeremy Brett version of Sherlock Holmes, whom I had not spotted at such an event before. Seven DVD's for a fiver, containing a total of 15 episodes, drawn from both the casebook and the memoirs. Slightly shabby box, very low on flannel, but I presume that what we have got is a selection from some much bigger total. We are now well covered against failure on the ITV3 front.

But the star of the show was a reproduction of Vermeer's 'View of Delft'. We already had one of these, maybe 2 feet 6 inches wide, which I believe to have been a wedding present to my parents from my father's engraving brother-in-law, plainly framed in dark oak. This one, maybe a bit more than half the size, is more or less identically presented, including the same ancient brown paper strips holding it all together at the back, so at £2 I had to have it and it is now hanging up in my study. Colours rather faded compared with those we already had, so perhaps either a different brand or it had been in the sun for rather longer. But nice to have two; I suspect that prompted by compare and contrast, I will get a lot more use out of the picture now. Maybe we will go and see the thing for real - it is not as if getting to The Hague is that big a deal these days.

With thanks to wikipedia for the use of their picture, rather brighter in colour than either of the two aforementioned. Perhaps it has been cleaned - and presumably the Maurithuis is fairly relaxed about copies, although a quick peek does not reveal a download capability. I am fairly sure that I visited the place as a child and would have thought that we would have made a point of finding this picture but I have no memory of doing so at all.

Reference 1: https://www.mauritshuis.nl/.

Reference 2: http://www.psmv2.blogspot.co.uk/2015/04/the-power-behind-fun-fauir.html.