A garden is a lovesome thing.....

....and I am lucky enough to have two of them now.   The full-size garden - courtyard really - has been in existence for a number of years but since opening Small Worlds two years ago I have rather neglected it.   

This year my excellent neighbour, Bara, who takes care of things when I am in the UK, and who cuts the grass at the back of my house, urged me to "bring the courtyard alive again", promising to schlepp the containers around and plant them for me.

So I had a perfectly lovely time at the end of May buying lots of beautiful plants and leaving her to do all the work.  It's so nice to be able to come back from Small Worlds in the early evening and just sit and look at it.

I had long been totally fed up with two granite troughs that never got any water when it rained so I resorted to cheating - and sneaked some mini items in at the same time - those who know me well will not be surprised to see evidence of my obsession with fungi....

 

The mini-garden was a somewhat different story.   The need for it arose because of an unexpected space in Small Worlds.   Whilst moving the dilapidated Triang Cex to reach something behind it I found traces of dreaded woodworm dust beneath it.   Although I couldn't find any signs in the house itself, its condition was anyway so bad that I decided to dispose of it.   The furniture from inside - my examples of 1960s Czech Tofa, covered last year in a great article by Rebecca Green, editor of the Dolls Houses Past and Present online magazine - are waiting to be sprayed and monitored although thank goodness I can see nothing sinister at the moment.

So I was left with a large bottom shelf with nothing on it and a need to fill it rapidly before Small Worlds opened to the public on 13th June.

As luck would have it, just before I left the UK I went to a giant car boot sale in Cuffley and picked up a strange little house, of uncertain scale - smaller than 1/24th anyway.   Butterfly (who is having a lovely third birthday giveaway on her blog) cast doubts on its usefulness......

And buried somewhere in the drawers around me I knew there was a substantial amount of the component parts of a Britains Floral Garden - though not packaged in such a nice tidy box as seen here of course!

I had been vaguely thinking about some gardening after reading the delightful Miss Barbellion's Garden by Irving Finkel.   The illustrations, by his sister Jenny Kallin, were clearly based on a Britains garden. 

The company of William Britain was best known for its lead soldiers and farm animals.   But it also manufactured a garden range in the scale of 1:32 which had to be constructed from fiddly, tiny parts.   Made in lead until the end of the 1940s, the range then went out of production, only to reappear again in the 1960s, in plastic.   

I have no idea where my collection came from - I probably picked it up in a charity shop at some point.   I certainly didn't pay the sort of prices that are being currently asked on ebay!

I scrabbled around for hours in the garden drawer, finding many tiny bits but no flower heads.   Fortunately I remembered that they were actually neatly filed away in some little drawers.   

After a considerable amount of searching I laid out everything I had unearthed on a large pin board. 

I found I had no fewer than five greenhouses!   Thoughts of a market garden crossed my mind, but I rapidly rejected that idea as I had no vegetables at all.   

I took the greenhouses home to wash, along with a few other shed-like parts.

I called on Jenny Kallin for help in identifying some of the bits and pieces.   Crucially, she explained to me how to make the roofs stay on the greenhouses. And that the red and green squares did not belong to the range.  

The greenhouse shelves are a nightmare - as fast as one is lodged into position, the one on the other side falls off again. Grr!  

But in the end I managed to get one greenhouse to stay together, complete with shelves, pots, and the only two seed trays that I possess.

Having gathered everything together, it was time for some garden design.   The size of the garden was easy - I wanted it to take up the whole of the shelf space available.    I measured, and then laid out a base which in the end consisted of two polystyrene ceiling tiles and one piece of foam board covered with the only three original pieces of Britains lawn that I had.   The little house was placed at the back of the base.

The walls and hedges are of course a fixed size and so it required some juggling, and ingenuity, to make everything fit as I wanted - it wasn't until right at the end of the process, for example, that I realised I would do better with a zig-zag path to the front door....

I was acutely aware that it was going to be difficult to find enough seasonal flower heads to fill the beds.   I had plenty of leaves and stems but relatively few heads other than daffodils, which I really didn't want to use alongside the roses.   (Though in this strange year I could well have had them flowering alongside each other.)   

One of the reasons for the lack of summer flowers was that I had turned the delphiniums (or they might be lupins) into wisteria a couple of years ago....for the Karlovy Vary spa colonnade.

I  love the rose pergolas!   But like the greenhouses, they fall to pieces as fast as you put them together.   And as for the tiny pin holes in the rose heads into which you have to insert the not very firm minute plastic bits on the stems....suffice it to say that my language was not suitable for young Czech ears.   Just holding the rose heads is a challenge.

And that was nothing compared to trying to hinge the gates. Arrrgh is all I can say to that.   You have a tiny plastic loop that fits into the wall - and nine times out of ten falls out again - and then you have to insert the hinge on the gate into it.   Because I had decided to double up the gate height I had to get four hinges into place at the same time.  

Hah!  Three in, one out.   Two in, hinge falls out of wall, four in, drop whole thing on the floor.   Swear a lot and in the end leave the gate hanging on three hinges.   As long as no one wants to go up the garden path that should be just fine.

The layout was now taking shape, complete with trees and hedges and it just remained to fill the beds.  

I had little choice over trees - although I have a vast quantity of foliage for what seems to be a pine tree, I had no trunk or branches for one.   So I was left with what the Britains catalogue describes as an apple tree, a weeping willow and something that looks a bit palm-like. 

The rockery and flower beds were a doddle after the gates.  It was just a question of trying to eke out the available flowers as intelligently as possible.   The system is very cunning - you have a little gardening tool with which you press the stems, complete with flower head, into the holes.  Distribute rocks around as you please and there you have a rockery and flower beds.

There are dinky little bricks to finish off things neatly.   I was determined to have a vegetable bed to join the shed, kennel and rabbit hutch at the back of the garden.   No vegetables however.....but as long as one doesn't ask about the precise nature of what has been planted, I think it works fairly well.  There are certainly lettuces and tomatoes.   Possibly some asparagus too?


I not only had a surplus of greenhouses, but also of ponds - four of them.   So I felt able to sacrifice one and cut it up to frame the garden path which looked rather lonesome making its way from the gates to the front porch.   






One of the other ponds took its place centre stage by the rose pergolas, with the addition of one of the few non-Britain items, some water lily flowers.   I am afraid the leaves were added yesterday, after I had taken the photos......but they are there now, plus a few more lilies. 

I will end with some more views of the finished garden. For once it is an advantage for something to be on one of the lower shelves because it is best viewed from above. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this indoor gardening, even if it involved much swearing and cursing and I can't wait to get my hands on some more garden stuff, particularly people.  The lack of people makes me very jealous of this gardener....  Tantalisingly, I am fairly sure I have a bench like the one in the article but can I find it?   Not at the moment anyway.

And don't forget to close the gates gently when you leave!

I hope you have enjoyed this tour of my gardens and I will leave you with one of my favourite poems, by Thomas Edward Brown -

A Garden is a lovesome thing, God wot!

Rose plot,

Fringed pool,

Fern'd grot -

The veriest school

Of peace; and yet the fool

Contends that God is not -

Not God! in gardens! when the eve is cool?

Nay, but I have a sign;

'Tis very sure God walks in mine.

Long time ago....

It seems a very long time since I sat down to write a fresh blog post.   As I have said before, when I am in England I find it extremely hard to connect with Small Worlds and what goes on there.   Especially if I have forgotten to take enough photos to see me through the winter.....


But that excuse has now evaporated since I have been back in the Czech Republic for nearly two weeks and in fact Small Worlds has been open for just one morning, to coincide with the local Farmers' Market on 23rd May. 


Although the market was less well attended than usual this year, we had a number of highly interested visitors in the museum - it is always a sheer delight when adults engage fully with what they have expected to be just "something for the children".  And I think I may have also found another seamstress prepared to tackle tiny dresses.   The Gosthwaites fashion buyer will be delighted!

As soon as we closed the doors at noon (we had opened at 8am -things start early here) the friend who was helping me and I unloaded the stuff I had brought over from England.   I spend much of the winter months trawling the local charity shops to find new items for Small Worlds.   There are very few similar opportunities in the Czech Republic since charity shops barely exist.   And nor, of course, are there many dolls house items - the hobby is almost unknown here.

So I was once again faced with boxes......

But I am getting ahead of myself - I arrived back here on the Wednesday night before the scheduled Saturday opening and during the drive from Germany I had been racking my brains about a new window display that I could set up as quickly as possible.   People had been looking at the same display since the end of last October....

No brainwaves whilst I was en route but as soon as I arrived in Small Worlds, my friend in Bonn's prophecy that I would think of something once I was there, came true.   "Cars" I thought - I have many, they are easy to shove in the window and will also serve the dual purpose of showing that there is more to Small Worlds than just dolls houses. 

No sooner said than done - not my best display, and I shall change it soon - but it has attracted quite a lot of attention, particularly from men and boys whose noses are glued to the window amidst loud discussions about what cars they are looking at.

One other task before I got to the boxes - I have been lucky enough to be given a dinky little set of drawers by "the doll people", Anna and Jiři Šlesinger, who you have already met several times on my blog.   I now stay with them at their lovely home in Bavaria on my way down and back up again.  It's stuffed full with amazing dolls, nearly all made by Anna - you can see some of them here at an exhibition she held three years ago in Lanškroun.

I was very much hoping that the drawers would slide under one of the working tables to replace some of the untidy shelves there and sure enough, the fit was as if made to measure.   Butterfly would be delighted to see the way paints, glues and other necessary items are now neatly stowed away - she is so good at creating order out of chaos!

When I finally got to the boxes I decided to unpack the whole lot and spread it out so that I could take photos before trying to find a home for everything.   Eventually you should be able to spot where some of the things turn up in Small Worlds....

So here's a closer look so that you can recognise them -

The chef and the wonderful set of kitchen table and chairs were both gifts from followers of Butterfly's blog - many, many thanks Chrissie and Sandy.  The table and chairs have already found a home, though it may only be temporary 

Needless to say, when I began putting things away I got side-tracked and found myself setting a scene instead of shoving things in drawers.   

It occurred to me that one of my many breadbins had just the right wall paper to give a home to the elderly couple who have been sitting comfortably in their Raine's Take a Seat chairs on my bedroom bookshelf all winter.  (I love this series of chairs and it irks me dreadfully that most of the ebay hits for it are in the US, and thus out of my reach because of the postage costs. These two came back with Butterfly after her sojourn in New York last year)

Since Darby and Joan have been out in the world for months it seemed a little churlish to now banish them to a drawer!  By the way, does anyone recognise their maker? They emerged from the box of Lundby furniture I acquired somewhere.

I ended up stealing so much from a very ancient roombox made out of foamboard that I decided to retire it completely and replace it with this new scene.   I think they look very contented in their luxurious abode.....

I think that's about it for this time - just two more new additions, both from the animal world.  They  came from the best flea market I have ever visited - a giant event on the banks of the Rhine in Bonn.   The setting is amazing and it is so large that we only managed just over half.   I can't wait for the next one in October!

So on that fishy note I will sign off for now and return to getting Small Worlds ready for Saturday 13th June when it opens properly for the summer season - its third!   Thank you for following the journey so far and I look forward to seeing you all again soon - very soon, I promise.

A View from the Orient

It is with shame that I realise that my last blogpost still says "Season's Greetings" - we are now almost half way to Easter and I am still extending Christmas and New Year good wishes!

So I am determined that before I head off for a four day break in Budapest on Monday - I wonder if there are any dolls houses in Hungary? - I will somehow get a new post up on the blog.   I did in fact start writing it more than three weeks ago but it has fallen foul of the depressing days of late January and early February, when I find it hard to settle to anything constructive.

On with the post - this one comes from Japan - well, the virtual, small bit of Japan that can be found in Small Worlds.....

It's almost twelve months since I wrote about the many houses Norman Randall had made for me over the years and mentioned that I would write more about the Japanese one at some point.   So that's where we are heading - to take a closer look at this unusual house.   

You can see it here in 2012, gearing up for the Great Move from our home of forty years.....

(hmm - I think that's actually just the roof)

........and then again last summer in its new home in Small Worlds.







The plans for it came from The International Dolls House Book.  I think it was the third house that Norman tackled.   Much more unusual than the others since, apart from the solid base, most of the structure consists of a frame made of half inch strips of wood, with recesses ready to receive panelled screens or doors. There are around thirty of these.  

The house has a moulded roof which caused Norman some difficulty in that the thin sheets of plywood had to be moulded to a curve.   He was very successful in achieving the right result and the bare bones of the house were handed over to me to decorate both inside and out.

I knew very little about how the Japanese lived, and pretty well nothing about how their houses looked inside.   So I turned to some books to find out - no access to the wonders of google in those days.

I had two main source books, the most useful of which was Japanese Homes and their Surroundings, a Dover book publication.

Cue short digression: for those of you who do not know it, the Dover press is an amazing resource. Sadly their bookshop in the centre of London's theatre district has now closed, but happily they can still be found online.

Both books are sitting on the shelves in Small Worlds so I cannot at the moment post the title of the other.

Armed with these two books, I set about decorating the exterior and creating the interior of the house.    The roof provided the first challenge.   I wanted a 3D effect, so that ordinary paper depicting roof tiles was not really an option.   Nor would it be possible to attach cedar or ceramic tiles, because of the pronounced curve.   I finally managed to source - no easy task in those days, in the absence of the internet - some ridged tiles which came in the form of sheets.   Expensive, but well worth it.   

Sadly, the roof has suffered badly since the house has been in Small Worlds because it has to be lifted for every visitor so that they can admire the interior.   The edges are in any case fragile, as the backing paper has aged, and we cannot always find somewhere safe to put the roof down whilst displaying the interior.   We can often be found muttering under our breath as we stand holding it and at the same time politely encouraging the visitors to take their time!

It was easy enough to source postcards to fill the panels of the interior doors but the external doors presented more of a challenge. 

I decided to use expensive airmail parchment within the wooden frames - the kind that was available many years ago was lightly textured and lent itself very well to this useage.   Fortunately, since one of the panels was torn and needed replacing, I found I still had a couple of sheets in my stash.  Although I have hunted for a new supply I have not been able to source one - too many people skype and email nowadays rather than write letters.   

In the second book I found a door panel inscribed with a welcoming text for a Japanese inn and asked a calligrapher with whom I worked if he could reproduce it.   This he duly did, and it has now been redone by my young helper because it had faded badly over the years.   I hope we have been precise enough with the Japanese letters and that it does not say something inaccurate or undesirable!  I fear there is no photo to allow you to judge.

For the other doors I tried to reproduce some of the wooden patterns I found in the book, using whatever means whereby I found to hand.  

These now provide the first of the popular "What do you think this was in real life?" questions that challenge people as they go through Small Worlds.   See if you can work them out - you will find the answers at the end of this post.

I decided that it was really too tricky to create a traditional Japanese home, given the eclectic nature of the items I had collected to furnish the house.   So it is in the nature of a folk museum....

I apologise for the interior photos - I did not take them with a view to writing a blogpost 

and Bavorov is a little far to pop over to this afternoon for fresh photos.   






The mats on the floor are of course bamboo table mats.   The vases are nearly all beads of various sizes and the pearl plates are earrings from that wonderful cheapie shop, Kik, where one can find all manner of good things whose purpose can be diverted from the intended one into something for the dolls house world. 


When the house was in its original position in our front room in Hoddesdon, it had a large Japanese garden alongside it, the remains of which travelled to the Czech Republic.  

Unfortunately, there is no space for this in Small Worlds but I decided that it would be a pity not to use the garden artefacts so I set up a smaller version using as many of them as I could find space for - there are two more "guess what this was?" amongst them by the way.

The dolls have just turned up over the years and I have allowed my reasonably precise sense of scale to be a little flexible over their size.   The latest one to arrive is the one in a blue kimono.   I found her, made by a teenager, at one of the local farmers' markets last year and I have been buying a number of her dolls for other houses too, in particular the thatched cottage where they seem to blend very well with the corn dolls.

I hope you have enjoyed this little glimpse of my Japanese house - I do not make any claims for its authenticity but I was delighted last summer when a young Japanese designer visited Small Worlds and gave it the stamp of his approval.   Take a look at his website - he is a most ingenious young man!   I particularly love his shape-shifting sofa and the step-stool car for kids.

I was a little taken aback this morning to find an email in my inbox from Rebecca Green, editor of the Dolls Houses Past and Present on-line magazine, with a call for new articles including this: Following my article on chalet-style dolls houses, the topic of Japanese dolls houses has been suggested. If you have a Japanese dolls house - whether a house in Japanese style made outside Japan, or a dolls house or miniature house or room made in Japan, in traditional or modern style, I would love to hear from you! Or perhaps you know of a museum which holds a Japanese dolls house or miniature model house, kitchen, etc.

Great minds think alike!   For a short while I dithered about continuing with this post but since I was lucky enough to have a long article in the last edition of the magazine, linking my passion for dolls houses and girls' school stories - and also had no idea what else to write about today - I decided to go ahead with it.   Maybe when the time comes Rebecca will be kind enough to signpost people to this glimpse of the Orient.

I hope to see you all again soon - once spring is here I shall probably be more inspired to write!

Door Quiz answers (from left to right): wooden forks used for pommes frites
Toothpicks
Spacers for tiling 

Garden: The bushes are teasels
The central stone ornament is made of a Christmas tree light and some sort of brass curtain pole fixing