If -

Damn your dried up hide!

...you meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters just the same - something - something - something. You're a better man than I am Gunga Din. 

I had a bit of a disaster this morning when I tried to add decals to my Gladiator. I used the decal set that came in the box and they just crumbled as soon as I put them in water. I've only recently started adding decals to things, so I've never had this problem before. I'm not sure what I can do about it - beyond buying another sheet of decals, though these appear to cost about the same as a new kit. This annoyed me greatly and took the shine right off my morning, which was further soured by the necessity of sorting out the House Insurance. 

However, I did have a spot of triumph in the afternoon.  After several false starts I finally managed to get the hang of cutting mounts for pictures - this was mainly due to practice and the timely advice of Mr. Kinch Senior, who worked out what I was doing wrong.  This is a print of an Aubrey Beardsley drawing of a heroine of Mrs. Kinch's. 

Mr. Beardsley looking rather windswept and interesting. 

Beardsley was an odd fish, but a fine artist with a beautiful line. If you're not familiar with his work, I would recommend looking him up. The lady is Mrs. Patrick Campbell, who was a particularly talented and famous actress of the late Victorian stage who is most widely known for her association with George Bernard Shaw. 

Mrs Pat as Mrs Kinch always calls her

The Battle of Luzzara

Once got the knack, which cost me considerable waste of good mounting board and a non trivial quantity of swearing - I knocked out another few mounts.  This is a print that Mrs. Kinch picked up for me last year. It depicts the battle of Luzzara from the War of the Spanish Succession. It's rather nice actually and comes with a satisfactory number of charging horses. 

Interrupted by R. Caton Woodville 

I actually came across this while looking for something else. R. Caton Woodville is best known for his battle scenes, but an eBay seller had listed this along with some other bits and pieces and it struck me as exactly Mrs. Kinch's sort of thing. As it turned out, it was and she's grown very fond of it. I had laid in a stock of moulding as I was hoping to teach myself picture framing. However, Mrs. Kinch Senior has viewed the moulding and pronounced it shocking bad stuff.  She will be appearing with the real deal later in the week. In the meantime I suppose I shall have to busy myself with cutting mounts. 

There's quite a collection of uniform prints to work through. 

Still spitting about those decals though.