#401

A Christmas Gift For Kayleigh

Purple Heart and Chrome Fountain Pen

PURPLE HEART - Peltogyne

When freshly cut the heartwood of Purple heart is a dull grayish/purplish brown. Upon exposure the wood becomes a deeper eggplant purple. With further age and exposure to UV light, the wood becomes a dark brown with a hint of purple. This colour-shift can be slowed and minimized by not leaving the pen in direct sunlight for too long.

Sometimes called Amaranth, this colourful Latin American hardwood is tremendously popular for furniture and other designs that call for a unique splash of colour. In addition to its colouration, Purple heart has excellent strength properties, and can be used in applications where strength is important—a wood for both form and function.

Purple Heart is considered to have energies within the wood are strongly biased towards female. Most woods have much more even male and female aspects. Purple heart is a considered quite a spiritual wood. It enhances energy dealing with creativity and knowledge. One of the best woods when dealing with spiritual healing and health issues, purple heart would be especially useful in eradicating the negative energies that create strife in the home.

It was only a short cruise north from one of our favourite moorings at the bottom of Audlem to one of our favourite towns, Nantwich. Although it's only a little over two hours journey it was the stillest most foggy trip we have ever had. Luckily the Shroppie is fairly straight but trees and bridges still leapt out of the murk. I even missed all the massive canal side signs giving directions to Hack Green 'Secret' Nuclear Bunker!

The trip to Nantwich was predominantly to have our rear end measured up for a pram cover that will enclose the open rear deck from the elements and give me some shelter from the summer sun (yeah right!) and the rest of the weather from our unpredictable seasons. Unfortunately the weather was so bad on the appointed day that Hazel and Tim from Cratch covers and Canopies were unable to carry out the pattern making and measuring so after waiting for a couple of days we decided to head up to Chester and arranged that the guys would drive up to us in drier and less windy weather.

We were lucky enough to spend a few hours en-route in the company of Martin on fuel boat Halsall, a proper working boat. Martin delivers coal and diesel in a continuous loop around the four counties ring getting up as far as Ellesmere Port on the banks of the Mersey. The plan was to end our day a few hours south of Chester but in the warm afternoon sunshine we decided to stop early away from houses and roads with the backdrop of Beeston Castle, which dates back to the Bronze age but more recently has the ruins of Ranaulf de Blondeville's castle dating from 1220. What a magic place to make some special pens!