A bird beyond?

I love my latest Ebay win*, this oil painting of a swallow which is supposedly from 1889. It's just the kind of flea market find I was looking for in Paris (to no avail). It arrives on Wednesday and I really hope it is as impressive in real life.

I am carefully considering how many birds one two-bedroom flat can accommodate before it is bird overkill? So far, I have this painting, and I am planning to have both these bird wallpapers on feature walls:

My friend Jenny gave me an adorable little plate with swallows on it, which is going to have pride of place on the chimney breast in my kitchen, and should I find myself in gainful employment soon, I plan to blatantly copy my friend Emma and get this Rob Ryan print. Is that a bird too far?

Perhaps I need to put on some bird brakes. A more useful strategy, at least for now, would be to put on Ebay brakes. I recently sold some very tasteful clothes on Ebay, and got hardly anything for them (I blame the credit crunch, my taste is impeccable!) and so it seemed logical that there would be bargains to be snapped up as well. It was with that attitude that I got a little carried away searching by my favourite keywords; trees, swallows, Polaroids, hummingbirds...

This win was not cheap, in fact I know I paid too much for it. But with the stock market down the drain, property dropping by thousands by the day, perhaps investing in art could be the way forward? Or perhaps not.