Perhaps it's time for some new oil painting brushes - and paints

If you've been painting for many years, you will almost certainly have a collection of quite elderly paint-tubes, and brushes. Two little accidents over the last week have suggested to me that maybe it's time I blew the moths from my wallet and did a bit of investment.... Number one was the ancient tube of Mars Orange - I knew the cap end was partly plugged by old dried paint, but thought I could squeeze some out if I pushed a match-stick through it and cleared a passage. And indeed, I did squeeze some out - snag is, it came from the wrong end of the tube, all over my hand - the tube is so old the metal has begun to disintegrate. Time for a dignified retirement, I think. Number two was a filbert brush which had been owned by another artist before I inherited it around 45 years ago - one of Winsor and Newton's finest in its day, and still useful now - but when I stood back and withdrew the brush, the handle came back with me: the ferrule and bristles stayed stuck to the paint on the board; solved with a bit of wood glue and a pair of pliers, but my message is a) we all have to spend some money on tools at some point, b) how am I expecting companies to thrive if I keep using products made by the grandfathers of their present employees? And this leads one to look at one's other equipment: the mahl stick that's a bit of garden cane with cotton wool wrapped in a fragment of old pyjama stuck on top, the cane held together with sellotape and hope; the painting knives which were once flat and are now warped; the tubes of paint on which the labels have long since departed, leaving me with all the excitement of the lucky dip, because I have no idea what's in them; the ancient bottle of Copal oil medium, which I don't think you can get now (and probably just as well). Once Spring dawns, a thorough clean-out and replacement programme is called for; wonder what's the oldest and possibly most useless relic in your painting kit collection..........?

They were rather swish pyjams in their day - a woven stripe, no less: not looking quite so swish now, though. There's a picture of it in my e-book (an absolute SNIP on the Amazon Kindle Store - amaze your friends..).

Actually, Peter, I tend to sleep au naturel: I keep quiet about it because I don't want to cause hysterical excitement.

We're made of hardy stuff down here, Carol. And anyway, I think it's getting warmer (which probably means rain).