Packing up and moving on. Time to stop posting on this particular blog. Many thanks for reading and commenting. I will be setting up another blog from my new address within the month (using Bagnall in the title). Adios!

Old School Sign Writing. I've had a couple of sign-writing commissions lately. From these photos of a church sign in progress readers will see I like to follow old methods: lay-out in chalk, lettering in enamel paint, painted with a sable brush. My only concession to modernity is the font style which I initially print out from my laptop. Old craftsmen would snap their Mahl Sticks in disgust!

Modernist Catholic Churches. These concrete and clear line edifices all date from the late 50s to the turn of the 70s and are from the Archdiocese of Cincinatti. Their mammoth size and confident style all testify to a boom time for American Catholicism when Mass attendance was huge and vocations to the priesthood were at an all time peak. Even new convents were being built at this time. Unthinkable now, when (in the West at least) the thought of a religious vocation is not considered a marketable option.

Here is an overdue posting of vintage shop signs photographed on my holiday to Malta. All of these flaking and crumbling beauties were seen in the lovely capital city Valletta. The majority of these fascia stood above vacant businesses so I suppose some will be disappearing shortly.

Hail, true cross, of beauty rarest,

King of all the forest trees;

Leaf and flower and fruit thou bearest

Medicine for a world's disease;

Fairest wood, and iron fairest -

Yet more fair who hung on these.

Extract from today's (Good Friday) hymn for Morning Prayer, Divine Office Volume 2.

Happy to announce that from Tuesday 17th March I will be on holiday in Malta. This Mediterranean island has 365 churches and its Cathedral in Valletta is home to Caravaggio's painting of The Beheading of John the Baptist, a gloomy baroque picture I have long wanted to see in situ. As this is the third week in Lent it is too early to see any splendid religious festas in Malta but I hope to soak up the island's devout Catholic culture and also some early spring sunshine.

Pub Signs. These foam-board signs were commisssioned from me by my niece Sarah and her fiancee Craig for their wedding which took place last Sunday. Why pub signs? On their evening "do" they held a pub quiz with team leaders each representing a fictional pub. These signs swung from wooden posts in eight sections of the real pub. The winning team (my sister Elaine's) received cup trophies. Oh and there was fish and chips too. Congratulations Sarah and Craig!