Tale of a tile

My Mother likes to try her hand at anything and everything especially all things artistic.  Before they left Portugal in 1997 to return to England she wanted to record the last house etc in the Portuguese Azulejo style.  Nearby a tile factory let her buy the basic blank tile and presumably the inks to decorate them with and she produced several of the house, garden flowers etc and they took them back and fired them for her.  I have one of the practice flowers and the posh ones are beautifully framed and hung on the wall in their conservatory.


When I discovered that she still had one blank tile left I thought she could make me one for Bobcat like the stained glass portholes.  Well trying to find anyone in England that would be prepared to include this tile in their next firing was proving to be impossible.  They were all concerned with Health and Safety, wasn't one of their tiles, could blow up their furnace etc etc. (Which I suppose bearing in mind the age of the tile probably wasn't so outrageous)

As luck would have it they were going on a trip to Portugal and contacting one of her old muckers from over there managed to locate a tile factory that would fire it for her.

Of course their trip wasn't without incident (remember the National Express Coach debacle?).

They got to Gatwick fine and got on the plane where they sat for up to three hours before being returned to the airport for lunch.  I was asked to email the hotel in Madeira where they were going to first to advise that they were still coming but were a little bit delayed by the Nueva da Cinza.  After overnighting at Gatwick they did eventually get to Madeira and on to Portugal.  The tile was fired and survived the firing and the travelling.

It then got posted up to me.  I was on the boat and small boy was on alert every morning for the knock on the door by the postman.  This didn't happen and we were getting a little concerned - no little parcel and no note advising of any attempted delivery.

At 9.30pm a knock on the door on the day I returned from the boat resulted in the tile finally reaching it's destination.  It had actually arrived the day after posting and my neighbours across the way had taken it in.  However they were confused by the lack of car on my driveway and they thought the lights going on and off randomly were a clever anti burglar system.  (Yup all 6 foot of him).

So here it is

One unique tile with cork backing.

On another note my mother has also knitted a jumper for my dad starting with the wool off the sheeps back, carded, spun etc etc.  She doesn't do things by half my mum.  I am a very proud daughter I just wish some of those skills had been passed on to me.  Hey ho.