Still Life - Minute Books

My Editor's been away for the last couple of days visiting her Mum. I decided against holding a series of wild parties (did you think I would?!) and decided to knuckle down to some jobs that have been waiting for a while.

I've been promising to do one of these jobs for almost 4 years (and it's a little over 4 years since I started blipping...I wonder if there could be some connection between that and not getting other jobs done...?!!).

The task in hand is to sort through the archives of the North of England Ophthalmological Society, of which over the years I've been a member, Trustee, Hon Secretary and President and latterly have had the honour of being made a Life Member (so I don't need to pay my £25 pa subs any more!). When they were asking for someone to do this sorting I foolishly volunteered, thinking that being quite newly retired at the time I'd have lots of time (silly me!!). So since Wednesday I've spent several happy hours leafing through old agenda & minute books, letters, synopses of talks, etc, etc. Lots of this paperwork has gone in the rubbish pile (we don't really need to keep copies of letters about a member's change of address 35 years ago) but some of it has been really interesting and is worth keeping. I guess that's not surprising as the Society was founded in 1914: one of the interesting things has been reading the letters discussing how to cope with problems during the World Wars (quite topical as we approach the centenary of 11/11/1918).

Once I've finished with the sorting, the archives are going for safe storage in a library somewhere in the region.

And so to my blip. I've only rarely attempted "still life" photos - I'm not very good at them, probably because I don't have an artistic bent so I'm hopeless at setting them up. But I thought today I'd have a try at a simple one. I chose a couple of the books - the upright one is open at its first page, concerning the initial founding of the Society back in 1914. Candle lighting seemed an appropriate choice...once I found where my Editor had hidden the decorative candle, and after I'd sawn a bit off the top to allow oxygen to get to the wick!

Please look large if you've time.