My creative journey on my sabbatical in India and beyond
I bought these 2 figures who were pencil toppers. The female is much bigger than the male in this pair. I bought some more later on and this size difference was reversed. I enjoyed taking them on adventures around Pushkar and Ajmer nearby. Whilst at the Ajmer Fort, Tanya and I were in the sculpture gallery. It was pretty empty and so I decided to run down it with Tanya filming it. We had such fun on this trip.
In Pushkar, I went with Ravi and this time Tanya as well to the rose factory. They were in the middle of setting up the complicated process of rose essence extraction. It was fascinating. Whilst there I bought rose essence, rose water to clean skin, rose water for consumption and rose jam! I decided to use some of the square of hand block printed cotton from the Anokhi museum to make these rose pillows. I used waxed thread to make tassels in India and yarn from my stash in Israel. So far I have made 4 pillows. I used dried rose petals from the market in Pushkar and have doused one side in rose essence.
When I was mooching around in Pushkar I found a shop that sold bits and bobs for Hindu devotees. I bought a dress and elaborate headpiece for a small idol and brought her back to Jaffa hoping she would fit one of my Barbie dolls. And it did. The sleeves were in the wrong place so I removed them and instead covered up her top half with some lovely fuchsia braid. Pushkar is a Hindu holy city built round a lake with lots of flower fields. I took goddess Barbie to Ra’anana so I could photograph her with all the vivid colours of nature and street architecture wearing her vibrant outfit. I had such fun photographing her. Enjoy.
I knew it wouldn’t be long before I could continue my Barbie themed photography projects. I had finally returned to India after a five year gap. I wanted to mainly trip down memory lane. So I started off by staying near Amber Fort. And on my way to the Anokhi Museum, I found this doll. I did place a rather large red velvet bindi on her forehead and checked with a non-observant Hindu colleague at work who suggested that I call her “busty, bindi Barbie”. I know it is cultural appropriation to a degree. But she is what she is. And I am what I am. This is now the 7th book in the series. Obviously good as this is my low number favourite prime. The other one is 19.
She has a lovely lilac dress which keeps falling down – see the penultimate page where all is revealed, including loss of a leg. All the people I met on this short but intense busty, bindi Barbie journey were all delighted to take part and be in the photos if asked.
I followed in the footsteps of my Norwegian knitting friend Toril who went on a printing workshop in Bagru. She had made me some fabulous lilac sheepskin cuffs with a gold printed flower stamp. I wear them all the time. Bagru is between two of our destinations so it was not difficult to fit in a 2 day outing to Bagru. I elected to stay overnight with the family in one of their rooms but Tanya headed back to Jaipur overnight for some R and R.
We were able to do three types of printing over the course of the 2 days. Firstly there was a tour to see how these crafts are being kept alive in this village. It seems everyone is involved.
This is like a batik. It is a resist printing using mud and other ingredients in place of wax. We saw it being done on our initial tour. I then did a scarf and 2 placemats. Tanya made a lovely bedspread. Once the mud has been printed on the fabric using the wooden blocks, sawdust is used to help dry and fix it. It is then dyed in vats. The dark blue one I used was indigo. Most of the other colours are lovely and rich. But they aren’t natural like the indigo (and a grey/brown colour).
I thought these would make a nice gift for Christian and Maria. They were delighted and here they are in use with their dog Rui eyeing up the food – but there was none!
This is a highly specialised printing technique which uses only 2 colours if natural dyes are used. Red and black. The fabric is first mordanted and then dryed. The dye is applied using hand carved wooden blocks. Once dry the fabric is boiled for 20 minutes. During this process the colour becomes enriched and is colour fast.
The final type of printing we did was regular block printing using bright synthetic colours. We made rugs and printed them on both sides. And I did a large sheet with lots of purple animals and fruits/veggies. I plan to cut them up and probably “imprison” them later on!
Elephants, camels, fish, rabbits, horses, frogs, cows, dinosaurs, peacocks, tigers, dolphins, marrows, pineapples, carrots, onions, garlic, aubergine, strawberries, apples, pears, tomatoes, chilis, peppers (23 – yeah, yeah, a prime number!)
I watched these being made and bought a machine made one (the hamza) and a hand made one (an elephant). They can be seen above in pink and black respectively.
Well in a word. Very. What is it that makes one person confident and another not so, muses Carly? She has such a terrible memory, and she isn’t sure if she has always been this confident. Is it being the oldest of her siblings? Having to fight all the battles against the parents? Or is it being middle-aged? Maybe it is the sort of job that she does that affords her this unstinting confidence. Being a paediatrician does mean she is pretty good at diagnosing health problems in kids. All children from zero to 18. But that doesn’t make her so knowledgeable in other areas and there is a great deal more to life than children who are sick. And actually, very rarely sick, she thinks. Phew. That is good.
Are her parents or siblings so very confident? Probably not. Or her children? Again, probably not. So, this confidence thing probably isn’t a genetic trait. Certainly, she was pretty confident that she wasn’t going to catch Covid at all or if she did, she wouldn’t be very ill from it. She was really rather angry about Covid. Not at all like many people who were incredibly anxious. Like her ex-husband, Ades. Funny how you can live with someone for over thirty years and not have a clue how they would react in terms of their own health to a pandemic!
So, what does confidence bring you? It feels, to Carly, that she knows her own mind. But maybe that is being a woman in her mid-50s. But even if you know your own mind, you could be completely wrong about what is going on in other people’s heads. This resonated with Carly who had clearly got it wrong in her marriage which recently ended. And as her children are forever reminding her, she certainly can’t see inside their heads! Ok then. Confidence doesn’t always equate to knowledge. And being confident may in fact hinder your ability to see what is really going on. And as Carly is always saying to her students; they will never be the most knowledgeable doctors in terms of facts. This is available to anyone who has access to the world wide web. They need to learn how to talk to patients, to be compassionate and work well within a team.
Carly wonders where confidence sits with vulnerability? Carly is a complete and unabashed follower of Bréne Brown. The vulnerability guru. Her talks and podcasts are so meaningful and helpful for Carly. Bréne would argue that you can be both confident and vulnerable and say they were probably inextricably linked. Well Carly thinks that Bréne would say that. How would she know? It isn’t like she is inside Bréne’s head. But she is sure she could find some podcast Bréne has done on this matter. And is Carly actually vulnerable? All this crying and wailing and woe-is-me. The poor, unfortunate divorcee. Maybe this can still sit with Carly being confident? For instance, does Carly only cry when her confidence is knocked? Hell no. As a matter of fact, Carly has always cried. Like a lot. Happy times. Sad times. Just the music from the opening scenes from the film “Love Story” is enough to set her bottom lip quivering. Carly won’t go to funerals as she cries more than the main mourners, and this could be seen as a trifle overwhelming for everyone. And particularly for Carly who really isn’t sure why she is this sad.
Does confidence equate with leadership, considers Carly? Certainly, now Carly has a number of leadership positions. It is to be expected at this stage in her career. Taking various leadership roles has allowed Carly to develop and be exposed to many different people and exciting ideas. Excitingly for Carly, as it means she can go on courses to develop these skills and meet even more people and ideas! She does love to go on courses so very much.
Carly is one of the wise-old-birds in her paediatric department. A sort of exuberant leader. She reflects up this. But as it says in some religious old saying. If not now, when? Carly has found that this is the title of a book by the amazing writer and man Primo Levi. And joy of joys. The internet. Here is the whole saying.
הוּא הָיָה אוֹמֵר, אִם אֵין אֲנִי לִי, מִי לִי. וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי, מָה אֲנִי. וְאִם לֹא עַכְשָׁיו, אֵימָתָי
He [also] used to say: If I am not for myself, who is for me? But if I am for my own self [only], what am I? And if not now, when?
Carly rather likes this phrase. Shame, as nearly always, it is about a man and not a woman…
She wonders if her confidence is to do with her high energy levels? Or is it to do with her extrovert nature? Maybe being confident is the sum of these two aspects of her personality? For sure Carly is an extreme extrovert and needs lots of people in her life to feed off their energy. Carly often conflates or rather confuses extroversion with confidence. But the two are completely separate. And being an extrovert and confident with fantastically high energy levels does mean that she experiences extremes of emotion a lot of the time. She lives life to the full and others can feel worn out and dismayed at her passion and drive. She feels she is at a crossroads. Lots of people have felt like that during the pandemic. Time to consider what is important. Particularly fundamental core values, friendships and relationships, how to conduct yourself and how this relates to the ability of others to both manage and interact with Carly. Even this last paragraph feels overwhelming. Like a written manifesto of a campaign. The homage to who Carly is. Her essence and core.
Carly does worry about the overbearing effect she may have on others. It can be tricky enough for Carly to be Carly without having to worry about the sensibilities of others. And for sure, others do feed off this energy. Sometimes they actually drown in it. And sometimes it can be difficult for Carly to see what it is that crushes these others. Maybe they are just too scared to say. Because in addition, Carly is quite scary. They don’t always say, but just slope off. But Carly isn’t short of insight. She knows pretty well when others have had enough of her. She hunkers down and slopes off herself. If she isn’t sleeping, Carly invests a lot of quiet time into crafting. Or doing yoga. And she goes on writing retreats where you are helpfully “forced” to be silent until lunchtime. All this helps to allow others to have a break from Carly. It isn’t that uncommon for Carly herself to have a break from all that is Carly!
Another thing. Carly is very confident, but not all that secret. She wears her heart on her sleeves and overshares with pretty much anyone indiscriminately. TMI – too much information – her children reprimand her regularly. But of course, like others, Carly has a few secrets. And because Carly is probably overconfident with many aspects of her life, there are quite fundamental aspects where she is not at all confident. But as that is personal and private, Carly isn’t going to share what that is. At all. Well, not with Uncle Tom Cobbly and all!
Carly was coming to the end of her wonderful and nurturing sabbatical trip to India. She’d started off in the north in Rajasthan, but when it started getting cooler, she headed off southwards. All her kids had been out individually to see and stay with her. At her own expense. But that is nothing new she muses! They were still under 25 and all at Uni. She had one final month to go and decided she would head to Hampi – home to enormous boulders and huge numbers of Hindu temples. This was on her colleague - Eli’s recommendation. She did this out of duty as she felt she needed to pay Eli back. This was due to the real underlying truth of why she had persuaded Eli to let her have one of kittens. Eli’s cat had had a litter and Carly wasn’t all that truthful about why she was so keen to have one of these kittens.
Carly’s family had recently re-homed a lovable canine rogue - Bryn, from “All Dogs Matter”. But despite being told otherwise by the pet charity staff that he was fine with cats, this clearly wasn’t the case. Bryn was a tri-colour collie who terrorised their cat StinkyMirandaTalulah (known as Mandy or Fatne) who sometimes found herself in his mouth. Never a cool look for a cat. Or really any good at all. Bryn had clearly been badly treated before and couldn’t manage stairs and kept trying to gobble up large garden pebbles. With love and affection, Carly and her family were able to help Bryn with this. He became a wonderful therapy dog and got so many brownie points in the local chemotherapy unit where he went weekly for patients to stroke. But clearly, he had a thing about cats that no ordinary amount of love, affection and clear boundaries could sort out.
So, Carly brought home one of these kittens in an attempt to teach Bryn otherwise. His birth family called him Panda, on account of his multiple black and white splodges. But Boo, Carly’s daughter, didn’t like that name and called him Gus, short for Asparagus. For some bizarre and unfathomable reason, Boo and her brother took to calling Gus another name – Miss Kitty. This is strange for a male cat who isn’t having any binary or other gender issues. Anyway, Carly brought in a pet psychologist into the home. She took a toy kitten, similarly patterned to Gus, and rubbed it in his scent. Then she presented it to Bryn. If he went snappy, snappy straightaway, then Gus would need to be returned. But he didn’t and so the training could begin. The family could teach Bryn to treat Gus with respect. This was all to do with testosterone. Well, that makes a change, laughed Carly. They had to buy an enormous cage for the kitten. The same size as Bryn’s. Carly would feed Gus inside his one with Bryn watching from the outside. If he desisted from going snappy, snappy then he would be rewarded with a couple of pieces of dried kitten food. Things went well and Bryn learnt to respect Gus, who, like most cats, ended up in charge. Except for Carly. She really is in charge. All the time! Well so she thinks. Cats have another idea of who is boss…
So, as a token of her gratitude to Eli, Carly goes to Hampi. She actually stays in a place across the water called Anegundi. She saw lots of boulders and visited a few temples, but really, she did what she always did during her sabbatical. Making things to fit with her theme. Purple, Spiral, Prime. She even had banana flower curry there as it was purple. She walked around singing Anegundi to the tune from “Fiddler on the Roof” called Anatevka. She isn’t sure why. They have the same number of syllables, and both begin with an A. But there is very little else that is similar. But it was amusing. Well, it was for Carly. Additionally, she did hum it pretty quietly, so she didn’t invite so many strange looks.
Carly then arranged to stay at their sister site Andeshe, outside of Pune, near Mumbai (previously Bombay). The website made it look sublime and it would be a quiet and isolated place for her to complete her projects before returning to her normal hectic life in “The Smoke” (London). So, Carly left on an overnight bus to Andeshe which only had three rooms and she was the only guest. She was a bit hesitant to be so isolated. But she was welcomed by a wonderful Nepalese couple who were running the establishment, Bishnu and Ganga. They spoke limited English, but Carly is tenacious, and she knew she would get by. She was worried, however, whether she could last three weeks by herself there? Oh and no phone signal or Wi-Fi. She quickly went to sort out a sim card and reader for her computer so she could continue to publish her blog. And then one morning, Meenaxi arrived. Phew. She was the owner’s mother and spoke impeccable English. They got on like a house on fire. Eating all their meals together and planning what they would eat. But for the bulk of the day, they did their own thing. Meenaxi sorting out her organic rice she grew at Andeshe and Carly making her stuff. Carly marvelled at how long any person could sift through this rice to prepare it for sale. She was impressed. She certainly would not be able to commit so many hours to something so very monotonous.
Every morning before breakfast Carly and Meenaxi would do their own thing. Carly would do her yoga on the roof and run with Johnny the dog. Meanwhile, Meenaxi would do her stretches and prayers. This arrangement suited them both and they sat down to a hearty breakfast. Carly was trying to complete her list of 133 (19 x 7) ideas for making things she had set herself for her sabbatical. Meenaxi suggested she help. One was balloon sculpturing. Rather than make various animals that entertainers do for small children at parties, Carly had a different idea. She had 53 purple balloons, and everyone helped blow them up. She noticed that even balloon blowing is cultural, and Indians blow it up to the side of their mouths! She then put all the balloons on the open water of the small freshwater pool and jumped in. The wind picked up and they all hopped out, popping on various prickly plants. It took longer to blow them up than for them all to come to a sudden bursting end. Carly collected a few of the ruptured balloons and “imprisoned” them in one of her A3 montages. Homage to a balloon monument!
On another occasion, Meenaxi baked a banana bread. Carly decorated it with purple icing and ticked off both bread and cake making from her list! She also allowed Carly to use her very efficient treadle-foot sewing machine. This was the most efficient machine Carly had used in India. She was very pleased to be ploughing through so many projects. Zip, zap, zop went Carly working at an intense speed. Towards the end of her stay, Meenaxi invited Carly and some neighbours to a ceremony to celebrate the installation of a machine to prepare rice. It was a great, big ugly metal thing, but Meenaxi decorated it with important Hindu symbols including swastikas. She was very careful to point out to Carly, who she knew was Jewish, that this was an ancient Hindu symbol, misappropriated by the Nazis who flipped it over. Carly was so touched that Meenaxi respectfully decided to explain all this to her.
At the weekends, they returned to the bustling and busy town of Pune. Meenaxi to her son’s home and Carly to a hotel near the synagogue. It was fun for Carly to go there. On the Friday night there was only the caretaker and cantor who took the service and had come from Mumbai. At the end of the service, the cantor blessed Carly who felt very emotional and cried. No great surprise there. Carly is forever crying. Happy. Sad. Whatever. Carly is crying. The Saturday service was much busier. On the second weekend Carly brought along a fancy purple challah (bread) cover she had made for this warm community. She also made beetroot halva to share with them. She gave a short talk about the colour purple in the Old Testament. And explained that the food she had brought connected them. The beetroot was a typical staple of Ashkenazi Jews from the West where they ate borscht and halva was a favoured dessert of Sephardi Jews from the East.
When Carly thinks back to her time in India it was chock full of people looking out for her and after her. It was such a special place. It was such a special time. Yes. So good. Carly is really grateful. And, of course, this has made Carly cry. Again.
Carly really loves going on train journeys. She lives in London and has for all her life. The big smoke with lots of people and congestion. She really does know how to appreciate her life and see her friends who live all over the United Kingdom. She can hop on a train to rush off at speed through patchwork fields and emerald forests to leave her city. For her this feels the best way to travel. It is freeing and fun and gives you a different perspective. This is even more so abroad. The chaos and excitement of trains in India, the cleanliness and punctuality of trains in Switzerland and her very favourite journey going over gorges in Myanmar (whilst bouncing so high even she nearly hit the ceiling of the train!) And, let me tell you, Carly is not tall. No, actually. She is short and a bit fat. Like many middle-aged women. That tummy bulge just won’t go!
Carly loves the easy effort afforded by train travel. Sitting there. Doing nothing sometimes. Carly isn’t very good at this. She is obsessed with being busy. But on a train, you can daydream as the train purrs along. Of course, sometimes journeys don’t go to plan. You can be stuck in a siding for hours and not be allowed off the train. Then Carly is seething. Don’t these train operatives know how busy and important she is? Clearly not, as they would make exceptions and open a door so Carly can clamber to the nearest station and move on with her day. Never mind the signal failure. Someone else can sort that out and other customers can be inconvenienced, but just not Carly. Then she realises she is just like everyone else. And it will get sorted. She breathes deeply and tries to practice some mindfulness meditation. Poorly to be honest.
But she does wish she didn’t have a watch or a phone to obsessively check the time. She can work out relentlessly how many hours, minutes and even seconds she has been kept waiting. She is impressed with the customer service announcements. They rarely say anything of substance, but they are apologetic and at least sound contrite. They clearly have been on a railway-calming-customers-down course. She wonders how many days long it is? Do they practice announcements? Do they do role play? They often mention how you can claim travel costs back if your journey has been delayed by X minutes. Pach. Really does anyone actually do it? It will be a lot of effort and for a minimal amount of compensation. Certainly, too onerous for people as busy and important as Carly.
Carly has an insatiable appetite for leaving London. Don’t get this wrong. She loves, loves, loves living in the capital. But she needs to be out of London, to not only truly appreciate it, but also, she finds it too easy at home to get embroiled in low level nonsense. When she is away, she finds it so much easier to be truly creative. When she stays put, which she has had to do in times of a pandemic, she feels she is constantly treading on hot coals. If she doesn’t escape soon on a train, she’ll burn her feet. She realises that being on a train and visiting any old friend that will let her stay, grounds her. She can be calm when she knows she has these trips planned.
Carly does try to consider what this train obsession is all about. Well, firstly, she is not keen on driving. She can drive well enough and has access to a car. It is not to appease her eco-warrior friends. No. Driving just isn’t relaxing. Trains are all about that motion. Pshtakoof, pshtakoof. It is those relaxing and repetitive movements that are so very satisfying. It reminds her of her favourite craft - knitting. Similarly, this is very relaxing and repetitive. After all, there are only two stitches. Plain and purl. It is like a chant. The train sounds like someone is reciting a mantra that you can feel all over. Knitting feels like your hands are creating a yarn mantra. For Carly, who is thrilled by change, doing something that is defined by something very repetitive, feels grounding. And of course, when she is on the train she can knit. She usually travels alone so no one interrupts her, and she can listen to one of her favourite podcasts and feel the train throughout her body and the yarn in her hands. How very sublime, she chuckles to herself! Then she feels she is a self-sealed bubble. She loves to try and work out the names of stations that they whizz past. But mostly she is just in a daze. A type of reverie. Trying to be. Rather than trying to do which her default setting. Carly usually bizzes about all day from 5am when she wakes up, until she conks out in the evening.
It is funny that she loves train journeys because of all the stories she used to read to her children Thomas the tank engine was her least favourite. So absolutely dull and tedious. She would save that for babysitters to read to them!
Carly likes to sit facing the rear. This is partly because she likes to be different and alternative. She also feels sorry for the rear-facing seats. She has a bit of a thing for supporting the underdog. But also, it is nice to see where you’ve been. Not looking in the direction of where you are going. It is a sort of philosophical time travel. Which is best? Future or past? She knows she should try harder to be in the here and now, rather than inexorable future planning or relentless unpacking and redistributing of the past. Sometimes she pushes her face up to the window, so her nose touches the glass to clock where she is right at the very moment of ‘now’). Hmmmmmmmmmmm, thinks Carly. Actually, she is being really pretentious. Being in the now is just almost impossible.
Sometimes Carly goes on trains when technically she wasn’t allowed. But Carly isn’t really one for silly rules. It was at the hight of the second wave of the Covid-19 pandemic when only essential travel was permitted. There were cordons of police at Euston station checking why customers were travelling. Carly would show her badge. She is a doctor of note and distinction. Well sort of. Anyway, having a title and a work badge was enough for her to be waved on into the station. She had a whole long story made up in case the police asked for more details. She was going to say she was visiting a patient in Daventry. This is because she is a world-expert in a rare genetic disorder. This is actually true. It is just her patients live near Reading and really, she didn’t need to visit them at this precise moment in time. But she got onto the train easily. She just needed her NHS badge and no explanation was required. Phew. Another small victory. Carly justifies that she needs to go on that train to improve her mental health with the outcome that she will be a better doctor and mother when she returns. She doesn’t want to have a row with the government about travel. She just needs to leave Euston and head up to the Midlands where her friend has kindly agreed to host her. And as for being a better mother. Really? Who is she kidding? Her kids are all adults and now all the damage has been done. Her parenting journey is nearly over and no visits on trains are going to appease her children of all the mistakes they continually remind her that she has made. Being a better doctor? Maybe. She isn’t sure this trip will change that. She has been qualified for over 30 years and working all the way through the pandemic in a hospital. A bit old now to learn new tricks. But for sure. Better mental health is good all round and going on train journeys is part of her recovery. Recovery? From what? Well just living – especially at the time of the pandemic which Carly thought was really there just to ruin her life. But she isn’t alone there! And really Carly isn’t ill. She just has an insatiable longing to go away. It didn’t matter much where. Her friend Sandra was happy to have her to stay as long as they snuck in through the garden entrance under cover of night. Sandra was happy to cook for Carly and let her stay in her spare room, whilst Carly regaled her with stories to amuse her.
Carly would mostly like to travel in the “quiet carriage” on the train. But she never could understand why others couldn’t follow this rule. She would often point out the signs to others, but often they would laugh at her and make more noise. And then most train companies removed these carriages as it was impossible to police them. So, Carly just had to be more mindful and not listen to the conversation of others. And she could always put on headphones and listen to educational podcasts. Trains have taught Carly lots of things. How to be calm in a crisis, how to plan her time and how to see the change in location and weather. She could count the sheep and cows and horses. This made her relaxed and calm. She loved it when the train ran alongside a motorway. She could see who waswinning. The train or the cars? As Carly is very competitive by nature, she loved it when her train overtook all those polluting cars. That means Carly won in both the environmental realm and being the fastest. Double hit! Yay.
Carly loves trains despite there being no nursery rhymes about them that she remembers. Row, row, row your boat and the wheels on the bus are the only transport ones that spring to mind. But Carly’s memory has always been shocking. If it hadn’t been for the Trainline App she would have no idea where she’d been at all. Luckily, she remembers to look there. And it can help her know where to get on the train, change and get off. She hopes she doesn’t lose her phone. That really would be a disaster. That is pretty much the case for everyone as well.
Lizzy and Sarah insisted I take Carlos with me to Oslo. It was a short trip with a small rucksack but that was ok! Carlos is not that big! We stayed for 3 nights with my good friend Astrid and on the middle night went to stay in a hammock outside Oslo in a forest with Toril as well. It was super fun and I can add it to my list of new activities – hammocking, surfing, paddle-boarding, goat herding and feeding, tangerine and orange picking to name a few!!
Adri is very good a finding crafting courses for us to go on. We went to a dotty mandala painting workshop in Jaffa with both Israeli and Arab women. There was a really lovely atmosphere. The instructor pre-paints the canvas and draws circles and lines faintly to help the painter. The second two I did at home using a purple background.
Then I found some very small ones to paint in purple and turn into dotty mandalas in an art shop in Hove. I even used tipex and some new metallic pens.
Chaya was quite interested to investigate. But probably only because she thought they would satisfy her hunger!
I managed to buy some more square canvases in Hove. So they were painted and dotted! And then I bought even more but this time used different paint which ended up being very thick. So I painted it in a spiral form. An alternative dotty mandala!
And then I found a large square canvas in the rubbish pile. It needed a little TLC and once I had painted it black it was as good as new. I also painted the back and made it into a halloween scene for the children (all 2 of them) in my building.
