Tea with Mr Berry and his friends Rasp and Black

I've been having some serious troubles with my Messy Book. It's simply amazing with what the others in the Messy Book Group come up with, all these different ways of misstreating their books, and creating a wonderful mess. But I've been struggling. I'm usually messy and choatic enough, and I've no problem in constantly creating a mess in my home. But when it comes to books, and art, and paints, there's my little tendency of perfectionism coming through, that wants to create something lovely, something nice, and that simply doesn't want to rip apart a book, or bury it in the ground, or throwing it out in the rain.

But I'm determined to give it a go, and I've forced myself to do something I wouldn't usually do. So meet Mr. Berry. He lives in an ancient little town, far far away behind the mountains, and he loves to spend hours on end in his comfy chair, with his somewhat undefineable, but very friendly, cuddly pet Black at his feet and his feathery friend Rasp sitting conmfortably on his shoulder.

They drink innumerable cups of fragrant Earl Grey Tea and Mr. Berry makes up stories about fairies, sea monsters and other fabulous creatures, which have a tendency to come to life behind his back, hiding behind the chair, without him ever noticing.

If you suspect that the words in italics have more to do with this creation than just serving as random names for the characters and their preferred beverage, you're absolutely right. I used all the ingredients of my delicious breakfast that day for this page: rubbing the juicy paper bit at the bottom of the raspberry basket on to the page, rubbing in some Ear Grey tea leaves, and squashing a whole blackberry between the pages.

The blackberry was already a bit mouldy, so it was perfectly juicy and it didn't involve wasting a perfectly good blackberry. For which they are far too delicious really :). But aren't the colours just gorgeous? I guess the fact that they're among my favourite colours made it a lot easier to mess up the page :)