Burglary

Saturday night and it was our eldest sons birthday. An urgent phone call comes through....."...your mum's house has been burgled"! What can you say, "It's empty because she's in a dementia care home"?

Apparently the place is trashed - upturned drawers, the usual mess made by someone looking for items that are easy to sell. Luckily there is nothing there of any value to some "Herbert" looking for an easy sale. The lady is 75, there are no laptops, mobile phones, flat screen TVs or jewellry. As our youngest son said, "I hope whoever was responsible for this suffers". What can anyone say? I'm with our youngest on that vote.

So yet again we need to dash up to the Midlands - 3 hours, 150 miles. But we won't be allowed into the house until the police SOCO department have done their bit. Let's hope they catch them.

Medallion cane work

It's been a very busy week but I am finally getting on with some of the outstanding work in hand - that'll teach us to take time out of the office! Medallion cane work is satisfying, but very time consuming. I't's always pleasing when the "circles" are in because you know that the diagonals will seem to go in much quicker and at least you can feel like you're getting somewhere.

In between times cane panelling has been the ideal "fill in" job, so at the cost of catching up with the rushwork at least six more panels have been finished. Luckily none of them needed to be tinted.

Nothing could be done on Friday, we needed to make another trip to the Cotswolds to see Mother in law and make sure she is settling into the nursing home. The staff have been so wonderful, we're certain that she is being really well cared for.

Chinese baskets and Banyan trees!

For anyone interested in baskets, here are a few pics of some in use.

A beautifully crafted shallow basket full of dried fish.

The cat in the basket had no tail!

And I fell in love with the Banyan tree......it isn't difficult!

The Asian Rattan Adventure - part four

The first four stages of weaving cane panelling are done on a loom much like fabric or carpets. The looms are quite small and operated by one person monitoring the whole process. The working area is full of bobbins of cane ready to use on the machine to replace any of the numerous strands should a join break or a bobbin run out. It is noisy, but not as bad as you might expect, we could still easily hold a conversation despite the fact that three machines were working! This part of the process produces the base four way "chequerboard" weave.

 

The rolls of four way weave pass to another group of workers in a large bright open area. Lengths of pre-cut cane about 30" long lie in large bundles alongside each workstation. Each station has a wooden workbench with an assortment of corkscrew tools.

The corkscrew tools are amazing! In the picture you can see the assortment of different sizes used. They are fed through the four way weave diagonally with incredible speed and dexterity by the workers, on the end is a metal "eye" for the cane which is on a kind of gimbal allowing full rotation. The cane once threaded into the eye is pulled through the weave with ease. A wooden guide is clamped to the bench holding the panel in position to keep the weave square and true.

Once the weaving is finished the rolls go for quality control inspection before being packed. The whole process is very impressive, the level of skill, attention to detail and efficiency of the workers is amazing. It was a privilege to meet them all.

The Asian Rattan Adventure - part three

Our visit to the rattan processing factories!

The first thing you notice when you walk into the large barn where the fresh rattan is stored is the smell, a sweet "fresh air" smell a bit like newly mown grass. The recently delivered long lengths of Indonesian rattan are stacked high awaiting grading and sorting. It is surprising just how soft and pliable the fresh, unprocessed rattan is, it has an almost velvety texture and it feels moist, it bends so easily. First stage, the vines have to be measured by diameter.

The sorters sit on a bench with a series of thickness gauges attached in front of them. As they pass the rattan through the gauges, they are constantly manipulating the vine to make it straight ready for the next process, it is fascinating to watch. Their hands are so sensitive to a change in diameter that they hardly seem to need the gauges, every so often they will cut a length and throw it into one sizing section, then the next length of the vine may be only 1mm thinner or thicker, but that too will be measured and thrown into the next sizing section along. As they do this there is a constant clicking sound as the rattan taps together like drumsticks beating.

Next the rattan goes for cutting. One operator feeds the rattan into the rear of the machine, whilst a second sits in front catching the split rattan as it flies out. It takes a great deal of coordination between the two workers. The machines may be cutting the cane to different widths so are separated by boards to prevent the cut canes from each area becoming mixed up. Once cut, the cane is hung out to dry either outside or in one of the barn like storage areas. Then it is bundled together and taken to the weighing and packing area.

Here assorted lengths of cane are hung on hooks over a deep pit, bundles of the different lengths are then  selected, equally combined, weighed and tied together ready to be hanked or wound into rounds.

Finally the rounds or hanks are packed ready for boxing and weighed again, ready to be sent all over the world. All of the photos above have been captured from video footage that we took during the visit. I am hoping to edit it soon and eventually make a short film available online, the trouble is, (as always) time is money and I have so much work that I need to catch up on I can't really spare the time to do the editing!!

Part four will unravel the mystery of how pre-woven cane panelling is made.

The Asian Rattan Adventure - part two

Before moving on to the rattan processing, a little more about Hong Kong - because it is such an interesting place!

Having visited Vancouver more than three decades ago and enjoyed the friendly multi cultural society and wonderful harbourside scenery there, I felt very much at home in Hong Kong. The large open spaces and urban concrete commercial sprawl works so well. The parks are terrific, an oasis in an otherwise noisy environment, sanctuary in fact.

It is noticeable that change is on the way for this place. Every available bit of land is being developed to its full capacity, it is an area of optimism - a breath of fresh air in an otherwise pessimistic World. It is possible to leave goods on the side of the street for collection later, no-one is likely to steal or damage them. We saw bamboo scaffolding being dismantled and left at the roadside, the poles were still there when we left a week later, office supplies, fish and vegetables were commonly left outside closed premises for hours on end until opening time - no-one helped themselves to these "abandoned goods". In most other countries of the world if something is left on the street it is likely to be considered "ownerless", it seems in Hong Kong people see such things as "awaiting collection by their owners", a whole different viewpoint.

Baskets are used for everything, from collecting rubbish, to moving rubble and storing food. Most that we saw were made from split bamboo, very few rattan, although the woven rattan baskets we did see were exquisite.

We are finally beginning to recover from our travels, having managed to get a few jobs done, this week, yet more danish cord work chair seats and I've started a cane medallion back. I think it's good to be home...?

The Asian Rattan Adventure - part one

We arrived back home at 10.30pm last night completely exhausted and at bit jet lagged after the 12 hour flight. I think it will take us at least two or three days to fully recover.

What an adventure we've had, what a wonderful part of the World  south east Asia is and how beautiful the people are - their gentleness, grace and good manners, all presented with a smile - it is so easy to love them all. We started off in Hong Kong "delivering" my aunt into the safe custody of my cousin! Hong Kong is now officially part of China following the end of the UK's 100 year "land lease" in 1997. It is now described as an SAR or Special Administrative Region of China and is home to some 6,000,000 people - it is easy to believe that every single one of them is on the city streets all of the time, it is such an incredibly busy and vibrant place but with hardly any crime. It was warm, up to 26 C and humid "T" shirt weather, very comfortable compared to the UK of late. The harbour is just breathtakingly beautiful with dozens of islands shimmering in the sea mist and the skyscraper buildings defining the boundaries of the coasts edge. Every night at 8pm, these skyscrapers are artistically illuminated in time to music - the show last about 20 minutes, it is a sight to behold...

The streets are full of bright colours and would probably be thought of as garish when compared to the European/Western equivalent, full of neon signs and adverts. My cousin summed it up perfectly - it is always daylight in the city, it never goes dark and it never sleeps, we even saw a MacDonalds that was open 24 hours per day. But equally there are peaceful parks right in the centre where in the morning many practice Tai Chi in glorious natural surroundings.

From here we ventured further inland to witness first hand how the rattan vine is turned into the materials used for chair seat weaving and basketry. Loads more details to come yet.....as soon as I can get over the aches and pains from walking so many miles and the interminable jet lag!!