When my granddaughter came to stay.....

 ....ten days ago I was contemplating the next window display and I suddenly realised that Annie was the perfect person to instal it.

After all, she grew up with tiny objects of all kinds - Playmobil houses and people, Sylvanian families, and of course my own dolls houses and string puppets.  In fact she spent a long time when she was around four years old trying to explain to us which "town" she wanted.   I offered her various sizes of tiny wooden houses and they were all rejected.   It wasn't until I remembered that on a visit to Germany she had played with two or three Playmobil houses belonging to the by-then adult

children of a friend, that we realised that was precisely what she had in mind.  Some years later we had a whole town's worth in the spare room and it wasn't just children who enjoyed playing with it!

I had already decided that the window theme would be something truly summery and at first thought inspiration might come from the TV programme Midsomer Murders (Vraždy v Midsomeru) which is very popular here. I suspect that many visitors to Britain from Europe will avoid UK village summer fetes like the plague, fearing that they will fall over a dead body at the back of the flower show marquee or the tea tent.

However I realised I didn't really have enough stalls to make it an easy installation. I do however have a great deal of children's playground equipment and the makings of a small camp site.  And I also have many Sylvanian families whom you have met before...

So if my granddaughter were willing to set the whole thing up, life would be very easy for me. Just as well, because the visitor numbers to Small Worlds are rising exponentially at the moment and I never seem to stop talking.  It can be quite tiring to repeat the same thing many times a day, sometimes in different languages, and to remember which couple you have said what to....

And of course it wouldn't be Annie's first rodeo (when did this phrase turn up in British English by the way?). I have blogged before about scenes she has created.  This time I am also handing over a bit of the blog to her as well...

Here you go Annie....

Thank you, GG.

It has been a while since my artistry and creative flair have blessed a blog. Today is the day that my talent with tiny toys resurfaces, and it does so in my (if I do say so myself) wittily curated, character-rich and detailed Sylvanian Family display for Small Worlds!

At first glance the scene is sweet, playful and colourful. 

It features many a Sylvanian Family animal, lots of props and furniture, a campsite nicked from elsewhere in the museum to grace the animals’ holidays, a painstaking picnic setup, and lots of greenery that truly brings the scene to life (I would even go so far as to say that the trees and moss are my favourite part of the display bar one – we’ll come back to that one later!)

On closer inspection, however, past the lovely greenery, the happy families and the playground, are many stories. In fact, the final reveal of this park’s intricacies likely isn’t too far from the Midsomer Murder TV show previously mentioned…

The first example of small storylines taking place within the display, is amongst the tents in the campsite. A meercat sister (who started here as a wife, but as you can see from the small photo, that storyline did not honour Butterfly’s previous LGBTQ+ meercat marriage lore in an earlier blogpost),
is scolding her brother for not understanding how to read a map, therefore leaving the responsibility with her entirely. To me, her expression perfectly conveys a: “Really?”

Next, we see a squirrel family having a picnic (this is the one I previously referred to as painstaking because I had to place the food bit by bit with tweezers due to how tiny and fiddly it all is.) Both squirrel parents are exasperated, tired and frustrated because their son just Won’t. Get. Off. The.

Swing. Boat.

“Get off and come and eat or you will not eat at all!” The children are out of control at this park. (Note from GG: These are clearly not Czech children!)

However, I would just like to draw your attention to one part of the picnic I am quite proud of: Bagel Boy.

He doesn’t care that his brother isn’t present. He’s got his bagel. That is all that matters.

Reminiscent of the squirrels' problem, is an issue ramping up for the bunny couple close by the picnic…

The bunnies did what bunnies do best, and now cannot go out in public without a toddler mutiny!

One is asleep in the pram........

.......two refuse to leave the seesaw behind.......

......while three have run off all at once. 

What is a bunny to do? The two parents are arguing, trying to figure out what to do next, while two of their bunnies are heading for the lemonade stand, and I don’t think it’s going to end well…

But really, what can you expect with seven toddlers?

Finally, most scandalous (and frankly evil) of all, is the featuring of the cannibalistic pig hotdog stand.

I’m not sure if this is a father selling his child or a case of kidnapping, but regardless it is deeply disturbing and I love it. It began as a joke and an attempt to shock GG, but she (and Butterfly) liked it so much on the mock-up table that it made its way to the final window display. Mind, the other animals don’t seem too fazed, considering the hot-dog vendor has animals queueing up for his food!

Thank you GG for suggesting I create this display! I really enjoyed it, and I can’t wait for next year’s window! xxxx

Excellent work Annie, both on the stage and in the script.  Definitely wittily curated!   Shame you live so far away.  Thank you and come back soon.

The campsite was nicked from here: 

and was hastily replaced with this which actually features my son Adam (Annie's father) as a little boy armed with his birdwatching binoculars....

We were very grateful for Salve's height which allowed the magnificent, recently donated,  balloons to fly free.... 

I think Annie and Salve both enjoyed themselves:

I will end with a few more photos of happy (?) scenes from the countryside....:

And a reminder that if all else fails for the frazzled parents they can always go Up Up and Away!  

Or of course launch the children....

A huge thank you to Molly and family for the balloons - here is the third one currently in temporary quarters - all the balloons are scheduled to fly across the museum at some point in the not too distant future, so watch this space!

In the meantime Butterfly and I are now contemplating Agatha Christie as a possible source of further material....should it be Poirot or Miss Marple?

Have an excellent summer and if you get a chance to visit Small Worlds we should love to see you.

Transport(s) of Delight...

I think translating some of this post will be a challenge to the excellent Deepl Translate program which now allows me to put a Czech copy of each post up, without having to find someone kind enough to translate it for no money.   What is it going to do with the title for example?  It will certainly lose the pun in translation.   People of my generation in the UK will know what

Flanders and Swann did with it!   I can remember seeing them at the Fortune Theatre in 1957;  I remember, too, laughing so much that I fell off my seat.

This post is focusing on the new window display in Small Worlds.  Christmas was whipped out by our friend Jana and we have replaced it by a little nod to Easter (more inside the museum itself) and my version of transports of delight, paving the way for them with a road map created years ago by my daughter in law Laura and son Adam for our Playmobil town.  Works for the Sylvanian Families as well....

It was a relatively easy change.  Butterfly is in England at the moment and so the truly creative displays have to wait for her return.  Not that I have thought of the next one yet anyway.  By the way - the red car outside is my fullsize transport of delight.

For many years, alongside other forms of miniatures, model cars have snuck into my collection.  As I said in my last post, an interest in them goes back a very long way. To the age of four in fact when I clearly remember driving with my father from toy shop to toy shop trying to find some Dinky Toy cars. These had just come back into production again after the war. We had little luck finding any at the beginning and I remember too that we made up a song "Never, never Dinky Toys..." as we left yet another toy shop empty handed.  In the end, thanks to my father's persistence, I had many, including their boxes which even then I preserved.   All gone now sadly.

Amongst other makes, I have collected a number of Burago 1/18 scale models, mainly from German Ebay, which are scattered around the houses in the museum. I know that the scale is too small for the twelfth scale houses but it's fine for the Triangs and actually I just like seeing them in use. 

Too small for the opera singer's house!

But just fine for the Triangs

The models are beautifully made and amongst them is the world famous Blue Bugatti raced in the 1920s and 30s by the first female winner of a Grand Prix race, the Czechoslovakian Eliška Junková. She lived till the age of 94, and made motor racing history.   

Post race and ready for the pits....

And as a tribute to another Czech woman driver, my mother, there is also a parade of Jaguars, one of the loves of her life.  

She drove one like this for several years....

...but my guess is she would have preferred to have emulated Junková (they were much of an age) and to have driven this one....

Since the new windows were installed in the museum it is almost impossible to build a display that is not divided down the middle, which can be very irritating.  On this occasion it has worked fine. On one side there are a variety of smaller models on the ubiquitous stands I am so relieved I bought several of when they appeared in our local cheapie shop; they are worth their weight in gold. (As usual, apologies for the quality of any photos taken through the glass.) 

As you can see, many of the models emerged from the motor trade in its widest form - special offers from Shell, Mobil and Michelin, amongst others.

Taking pride of place is a cardboard model of a bridge, dating from the late 1950s and made by a company called Victory Industries, based in Guildford. As you can see from the box, the price was 6/6 Sadly the road itself appears to be absent, but no one needs to know that!

Standing in front of of the bridge you will have noticed another item from the 1950s. Another car boot sale purchase, long ago, which has been biding its time to make an appearance.

I am thrilled to not just own six Triang houses but also this delightful breakdown truck with working crane and trailer still attached.  At last it is getting a chance to show off!  It was 29/6 back in the day but nowadays these come up quite frequently at auctions of collectable toys and the makers would be astounded at what they fetch.  Especially if they are complete with trailer and box, as mine is.

One vintage toy that did not make the cut into the window (space!) was yet another car boot sale purchase, possibly here in the Czech Republic or Germany. 

It's an Esso service station, with limited roof top parking and once again, complete with box. Made in the 1970s by a German company, AK Stelco, known mostly for its rather strange (to my eyes) model cars. Stelco also made a whole range of service stations and multi-storey carparks, including this rather impressive one!  Somewhat better than mine in fact....

The other half of the window is occupied by kits of various kinds. 

In fact I am pleased to say that we were able to demonstrate that it is not just plastic that can be used for kit creations since we have on display models from wood, plastic....

metal....

....and in a further pride of place, thin card. 

This magnificent car was built by, yes if you follow my blog you will have guessed it, Colin Rose of osprey and paper castle fame. And we must not forget the brilliant 3 dolls houses he made for Small Worlds. 

At the back of the display sits the inspiration for the Flanders and Swann song that introduced this post. The Transport of Delight itself, the world-famous bright red London Omnibus in a scale of 1/24 by Revell . (Scroll down through the link to see how many pieces of plastic one is faced with!)

It is still neatly packed in its box, waiting for that "one day" to happen that is so much part of my hobby. "One day I shall build that house, install a model railway, put together that kit...."  I do realise that at 81 there is only a limited supply of "one days" ahead. Heigh ho.

In fact I have three large boxes of beautiful vintage cars in the same series as the one standing in front of the Walmer Victorian dolls house. They are all waiting for that one day to come along. This one, complete with lordly lady (can one say that??) and chauffeur is the only one that has been made so far. 

Butterfly and I did it some years ago and spent hours on the engine, where every wire has to be attached to its terminal.  Imagine our horror and disbelief to read the final instruction in that section: "Now glue the bonnet down over the engine".  We didn't do it!

Two weeks ago we had the Spring Fair in the village and Small Worlds always opens, even out of season, on such occasions.  Since the focus of the fair was Easter I put a small display into the museum itself, plus an Easter tree, slightly incongruously, in the window.

So, as Easter rapidly approaches I leave you with a series of Easter Greetings in the form of photos and all best wishes for a festive break, or as we might say here in the Czech Republic:

"Přeji vám sezonu plnou pohody, radosti a krásného počasí. 

Veselé Velikonoce!"

"I wish you a season full of well-being, joy and beautiful weather. 

Happy Easter!"

See you again soon I hope and thanks for visiting!