Starting with a small quiz about the ones in this picture. Anyone who can tell me what they might or might not be or where they came from originally is obviously a much better gemologist than I am. Whoever gets most of the answers right will be rewarded with a small piece of jewellery made out of silver by me.

Other things I will be posting about, hopefully much more frequently, will include commodity trading in prehistory and antiquity since the ice age, the evolution, domestication and selective breeding of horses, donkeys and dogs, and the evolution and development of boats, the history of beads, and the development of early technology and tools of my trade, which haven't changed much since then. 

 I do hope this will interest some of the people I've met o n Facebook and Twitter and Instagram recently. It's a different perspective on the history of mankind from, based entirely in reality, about where raw materials come from and how things were made out of them as well as where they were made when, and who made them, since the Stone Age. 

I will try and post an image or two every few days and provide the answers to the question I posed about the one on this page next time. So leave a comment with your answer on Facebook or Twitter, or here, if you'd like a unique piece of silver, based if you like on a design you suggest, if it's feasible, weighing no more than half a Troy ounce of silver, which is the equivalent of 14 grammes.  

 

The first batch of paperbacks have arrived at last and are on sale in the Store for £9.70, which includes first class postage within  the UK.

I came across a wonderful shop today which turned out to be owned by an international company who promote the work of illustrators and authors of children's books and do free events for kids at the weekends. So I popped in to show them a copy I had with me and they liked it very much and advised me to contact their art coordinator to see if she would be interested.  They act as literary agents too, so we might try to pitch a few ideas to them as well. 
 
Meanwhile I shall be wearing out a bit of shoe leather in Fulham and Chelsea, where there are several independent bookshops and lots of trendy little gift shops and child-friendly cafes, where I might buy a coffee and leave  a book by mistake! 
 

Unlike my flat, which could do with a clean-up, the first FlutterBy Press picture book is ready at last and is now available as an eBook as well as a 8" x 10" paperback that will soon be available on Amazon...it takes a while for a new book to be listed, apparently.

So now all I've got to do is market it online and in person, the old-fashioned way, at gift shops and toyshops, as well as in bookshops. I suppose we ought to have a launch party at some point but I'm too tired to think right now. I need a few days off before I plan anything, but I'll keep you posted when I get round to it.

Meanwhile I'm going to take it easy for a few days before I decide which project to tackle next. There are a couple in the pipeline that are almost finished and several old ones that need resuscitating, but I think I'll forge a bit of jewellery first, there's nothing like bashing a piece of metal  for clearing the head, in my opinion. 

I've never really bothered much before,  but I'm getting the hang of it slowly, in my efforts tp promote the book and the business, although I still keep forgetting to add hashtags sometimes. It seems to be working, but it seems you have to be relentless and try and post something every day, so I'd like to apologize to my family and friends for bombarding them with messages on Facebook.
 
But needs must, apparently, which is why I decided to try and illustrate this old bit of doggerel verse inspired by a remark made by Lord McAlpine in 1993.