Monday 6 May 2013

Mice on the move - houses too.

Much action in Small Worlds in the past two days.   The mice, having sent in an advance party to choose the soft furnishings for their new home, have arrived in full force to take up residence.   And the houses have all been on the move as well.

First the mice - you may remember this house 
which stripped down to a tasteful brown, revealing the teeny, tiny front door, much smaller than any of the windows.   It has now undergone a complete makeover, which you can catch glimpses of in photos later in the post, though according to Butterfly it still needs another strip of differently coloured bricks part way up to finish it off.   (She painstakingly made a bay window since we were one window short.  There was some swearing when a fifth matching window emerged from a box this afternoon......) 


Once the advance party - clearly consisting of the staff since they are all in some sort of uniform, had chosen the curtains, carpets and bedding, it was time for the main party to arrive, which they did in style, and in something of a rush, as you can see.





They pulled up smartly, right by the new front door (and hiding the bay window - photo to come) and got ready to take possession of their new home.









Inside the servants had been very busy, putting up curtains and blinds and laying down rugs on the newly polished floors.  



I suspect that the two lounging on the sofa in the French Drawing Room are troublesome teenage mice that Maximilian had not wanted to be bothered with on the journey.


Maximilian is of course a very famous mouse, who after retiring from a career in the bull-fighting ring, formed the troupe of performing mice who are about to take up residence here.   You will note he now wears a yellow tailcoat, not a red dressing gown.....

You will undoubtedly be hearing more of this famous troupe of performing mouses - for example, there may be trouble ahead if the hitchhiking pigs, clearly on the run from that pesky wolf, actually succeed in moving in.....

Whilst mouse-moving was going on, Butterfly and I were moving things in the real world, shifting out of workspace mode into a display set-up ready for the Open Day on Saturday.   This, of course, involved a great deal of chaos again, as things from our beautiful working shelves were bundled into fruit boxes whilst we tried to squeeze a quart of tools and paint into a pint pot of space.  Or temporarily into what will become the Children's Corner.....
That was yesterday.

Today the houses, the drawers they were standing on and, in the end, one of the giant ex-BBC cupboards, were all on the move.   Butterfly excelled herself with much "heaving and hoving" as my then-four-year-old granddaughter once described it.   At one point the previously tidy room had barely one house in its original position and surplus drawers all over the place.

But by the end of an exhausting day, everything had found a suitable place

and the big Walmer Victorian dolls house - its redecoration will be fully described in a coming post - has taken up its position by the entrance door, with the large department store-to-be surprisingly ending up in front of the door to the "facilities", as the Czechs neatly describe them.   Fortunately the store is on castors.....Photos of these when everything is tidily in place.

And finally the frog-infested woodland window display has been removed, and the window covered ready for a grand reveal of the new display later in the week.   One of my readers will certainly recognise the house on the poster!

Thank you for following the journey so far - please stay with me for further adventures.......

25 comments:

  1. Gosh you have been amazingly busy, both of you! This will blow them away - if it doesn't they don't deserve to have the museum!!

    Looking forward to reading/seeing the progress reports/stories for the individual houses :)

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  2. Oh my, oh my oh my! I am beside myself with mousefulness. This is an initial comment, as I need to look much more carefully at the delights pictured. The museum looks BEAUTIFUL - what a lot of hard work!
    I'm running out of hats to remove to you and butterfly...
    A xx

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  3. PS I literally (correct use of word) laughed out loud and clapped my hands when I saw the mouses' (correct use of apostrophe) wagon...

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    1. I knew that wagon would come in useful one day....

      Sadly the appropriate horse got left behind in England so a highly skilled circus horse found itself out of the ring and between the shafts.

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  4. Which did you say your nearest station was? We may have to make a detour to come and visit all this loveliness during our InterRail tour next month!

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  5. Well there is a station actually in Bavorov but not so many trains. However I do a good taxi service from Pisek or Strakonice.....

    And we are very close to Cesky Krumlov, a UNESCO heritage town which is a must-see if you are in this part of the world.

    It would be lovely to see you :-)


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    1. We will travel armed with your phone number and let you know! Or before we leave, if we are that organised....

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    2. Have you cleverly found it on the new museum page on the blog? It's there and I hope to hear from you.....:-)

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    3. Oops - I notice it doesn't tell you that for English phones it needs prefacing with 00420....it's a Czech mobile number.

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  6. What an enormouse(!) job the servants had to get the house ready for its occupants. They've done a grand job though, and the mice should be pleased and grateful for their lovely new house. We so wish we'd had room to keep our dolls house when we moved, but at least we can have fun reading your adventures. Hope the pigs managed their escape from the wolf!

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    1. Yes they worked incredibly hard - they made all the curtains, blinds and bedding of course, as well as choosing the materials.....

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    2. Whilst you and Butterfly put your feet up and watched them no doubt!! ;)

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  7. Those pigs have "trouble" written all over them. How enterprising of them to hitch a ride like that.

    I'm a bit anxious about the number of beds for the mouses - will there be enough? Perhaps they sleep hugger mugger rather like they were on the wagon. I guess they have to keep their practice up (hup! hup!)so perhaps they sleep in shifts? I'm pleased to see that they are well-piano'd. Where does the horse live? Does he have a stable? Do the servants live in or out(with the horse, perhaps)?

    More mice! More mice!

    A xx

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  8. Susan Merskey7 May 2013 at 19:40

    I've been following all the changes since the two of you arrived back in the Czech Republic and am filled with wonder at all you have accomplished. I hope that Saturday's Open House draws a large crowd and that that is a harbinger of things to come when the Museum opens fully. I'm only sad that my chances of visiting it will have to be limited to your blog posts!!

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  9. What a lovely scene with all the mouses :) Wahat a lot of dollhouses you have...amazing.

    Kind regards of Xandra

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  10. Oh! This is getting exciting now! Love the mouses! I hope you have a lovely(and busy) day on Saturday! Chrisx

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  11. Wish all our stuff was going to fit in one wagon! Nearly there...
    xx

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  12. Cestina what a wonderful post, the mice are just soooo cute, all those fabulous houses,how cute is that tiny door, I looove miniatures so its amazing to see everything here.Butterfly making a bay window fabulous, even if you can't use it there it will go somewhere,if I know you girls:). That wagon looks packed, with all sorts of goodies I bet,what great servants you have,there is always some pesky teenagers in the mix:). I have not heard of Maximilian, but I do live in Canada, he looks very fine in his Yellow tailcoat.I'll be excited to hear about the famous troupe,and those sneaky pigs, i hope they don't move in but I wouldn't want them getting caught by that mean wolf. BBC cupboards excellent, I loooove the Victorian house gorgeous. I didn't see the Thatched cottage,that is my favorite type of house, my dream to live in one:O). I would have like to have seen Butterfly heaving and hoving,it sure didn't stop her from creating all her wonderful art, masterpieces I call them.
    I do hope you have a fantastic day on Saturday, I went back and looked at the pics on large and I think I saw the thatched cottage in front of the window.Everything look top notch, wonderful job. Have a wonderful week...

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    1. Hi Dianne, thanks for this lovely detailed comment. Have no fear, the Thatched House will feature in detail in due course, in fact all the houses will, one way or another.

      The pigs have made it as far as the front door - watch out for the next post :-)

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  13. Hmm, yes, I do seem to have seen that house in the last image somewhere before...

    Seriously, what an amazing collection, and what an amazing amount of work you and Butterfly have put in. I have a small chorister mouse who I know will be extremely envious of your mouses (or meesen as we say in Suffolk) and their new des res. Very best wishes for a great day on Saturday!!!

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    1. A chorister mouse eh? That's funny given what is about to be shown in the next blog post....

      I do like meesen but I feel the Czechs might become even more confused than they are with house/houses and mouse/mice. Why they cry? Why not hice? Or indeed mouses....:-)

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  14. "Why not hice? Or indeed mouses?"

    As indeed we probably all thought aged five or thereabouts! I dunno - English is so illogical I'm just grateful to have it as my first language...

    I shall await the next blog post with interest :-)

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    1. Don't worry about the double posting - I shall magically remove all trace of it!

      You are right about the benefits of having English as your first language. The more I meet people struggling with it here, the move I wonder that anyone can ever learn it at all!

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    2. Hello. Sounds like you might need my book, If Houses Why Not Mouses?

      Best wishes
      Damian O'Brien

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  15. I have just visited after seeing Alison' s post . What Wonderful creations and Thank you for sharing them with us. Hugs from Scotland Rita xxxxx

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