Erbil Ervil

Our Head Marbler couldn't believe her luck this weekend; the opportunity to attend a course taught by Carolyn Trant, of Parvenu Press, on print making. We normally keep the HM away from too much creative work, but I was laid low with flu and this an seemed innocuous chance to give her an incentive in these dark days of Credit Crunch.

There were only 2 beginners on the course; but the HM was rather thrown when Carolyn asked what she planned to do. The honest answer would have been "nothing", but gallantly she pointed to a piece of plywood and gasped "a poster".

Kindly, if unwisely, Carolyn passed her a chisel, explained which was the business end, blanched when she placed her hand on the table in front of the blade, and left her to it for a moment or two. Long enough for the HM to get stuck in. And the chisel. Six hours later she'd done: the words "Libre Livre" gouged out of the ply, backwards..ish.

Carolyn said it looked fine, but "odd" somehow.

The HM inked up the ply, a natty green with an orange stripe along the middle, applied the paper and put it under the press. "Erbil Ervil". No two ways about it, the letters clear and bold, the words reversed. Irretrievably reversed.

The HM is hereby confined to marbling duty for some time to come.