People say I'm crazy ...

I love paint by numbers from the 60's. I just can't resist them! They're all horses and fleeing ducks and sailing ships and cabins in the woods ... and dogs.

I've an aunt, my Auntie Paulette, that used to give my sister and I a paint by number every Christmas. My sister would set upon hers the minute she opened it. Never mind the unopened gifts, a paint by number was there for tackling! She'd have filled in all of numbers 1 and 5 before I'd figured out which side was up for mine. It'd be "PHFFFFT PHFFFFT PHFFFFT" all Christmas Day, her trying to dry her board, so's to get on with the next number.

Meantime, Mum spread newspapers across the kitchen floor, wrapped me in one of Dad's old shirts, opened my wee pots of paint and left me to it. Toppled pots of paint and palm prints across my "canvas" ensued.

And now I snap them up when I come across them in the junk shops. They're never more than a couple of bucks, despite being hardly faded. This Lassie was 99 cents at the Salvation Army at Hillside and Quadra. Cut price due to a few slight chips here and there ... but naught to worry about. They weather well pegged out on the wall across the deck.