Hi John,
Just going back to the painting of the names on pebbles (above)... I have had for a while some terracotta tiles that I am planning to write poems/sayings and the like, on. I bought some tubes of weather proof paint with a very fine nozzle that you snip off the end of and use like a pen. I fear, however, that it will take a great amount of skill to get both even hand-pressure squeezing the tube and even speed in writing out the words to ensure neat, legible writing.
The tile then needs to be baked in the oven for a while at, I think, 120°C.
Did you use a brush to write your pebble labels? What kind of paint did you use? This project has come back to mind as I found 8 slate roof tiles in a second hand shop and snapped them up immediately. Lock down in Rome to continue so no time like the COVID present to buckle down.
One of the poems I would like to have in my garden is:
Wagtail and Baby
A baby watched a ford, whereto
A wagtail came for drinking;
A blaring bull went wading through,
The wagtail showed no shrinking.
A stallion splashed his way across,
The birdie nearly sinking;
He gave his plumes a twitch and toss,
And held his own unblinking.
Next saw the baby round the spot
A mongrel slowly slinking;
The wagtail gazed, but faltered not
In dip and sip and prinking.
A perfect gentleman then neared;
The wagtail, in a winking,
With terror rose and disappeared;
The baby fell a-thinking.
and another...
The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.