Mythical Beasts #2

I was surrounded by the huge number of wherewithalls that it takes to make a dragon out of pool tiles.

My kitchen table was nowhere to be seen under the assorted accoutrements necessary for this task, and now came the moment of truth – I would have to transfer the pool tiles from the abstract design on the plastic to the finished work of art on the big tiles.

Not only is this a fiddly job, but as everyone knows dragons are more sinuous than square, so I would have to nip the tiles to make them the right shape. I selected Mick’s tile nipper from the array before me (he’d lent it to me for my dragon project) and commenced nipping. Nipping is fun! There is a slightly destructive element about it, added to which the end result is so satisfying!

In no time the dragon was finished and stuck down. Full of a sense of my own cleverness I stood back, admired it for a minute or two, and commenced the other mythical beast; the Unicorn.

My concentration was absolute, broken only by the click of the nippers and an occasional short word as the glue went where it shouldn’t or I dropped a tile, or both. Any Roman expert in mosaic floor laying who had time travelled from the early centuries AD and landed in my kitchen would have hitched up his toga and stood back in admiration.

The only things missing were the eyes for both dragon and unicorn and the unicorn’s horn. I wanted iridescent for both these; everybody knows that dragons have glowing eyes, and unicorns have sparkly horns! As yet this problem is not resolved – they are eyeless and the unicorn is hornless.*

Mick, he of the nipper, duly put my masterpieces up on the wall without comment – he’s not stupid! But Dave, when he arrived to minister to my wind damaged pergola, was not so savvy. Maybe Mick had not pre-warned him.

‘Did you notice my mosaics?’ I enquired in a voice that oozed pride.
‘Er, yes’ he said. ‘That’s a….’
‘Dragon.’ I interjected helpfully.
‘But I can see this one.’ He turned his attention to the unicorn. ‘It’s a cow.’

*Anyone got any iridescent pool tiles? I need about a dozen. Marbles won’t do, I need flat, so that they can be stuck on the flat surface of the big tile.
Or marbles will do, as long as someone has squashed them flat!