by Taswegian1957 & Human59
Usually, when I’m taking doll photos I’m working very hard to eliminate shadows so this challenge is a bit different for me.
The weather has been so dull that finding shadows outside or even in the kitchen has been almost impossible. So I decided to create some artificially.
I have often wanted to visit this even and see the Wicker Man burning but not this year, way too cold and wet for me.
Since the first Huon Valley Midwinter Festival inspired us to celebrate rather than hibernate in the middle of July back in 2013, the event has grown in reputation and scale, outgrowing the Willie Smiths Apple Shed site. This year it relocated to the Huon Valley Showgrounds at Ranelagh, a couple of kilometers down the road.
Organisers put a lot of effort into logistics and into creating an environment that aimed to match the rustic charm of the old apple orchards from which it sprang, so it was perhaps unfortunate that the weather really decided to test the celebratory mood by turning on rain, sleet and snow (on the surrounding ranges) for the weekend. But if you are serious about celebrating the coldest, darkest, wettest time of year, then you need to take the weather in your stride, whatever it brings. And put your gumboots on!
Here be…
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I have a lot of pink things in my photo archive. Pink flowers of course, roses, tulips and this favourite one of massed daisies.
How could I do a pink post and not have Barbie?
This is an old but favourite photo that I took at Salamanca market. The stall holder had colour coordinated the stands of sun hats.
Some pink knitting cotton. This is a nice weight yarn to use for fashion doll clothing as it doesn’t look too bulky on them.
I’d love to have got some pictures of outdoor toilets, “dunnies” as Aussies call them. Don’t ask me why. I wasn’t born here.
Instead, here are some of my own bathroom when I was painting it a year or two ago and earlier after we had the new shower put in. We were so pleased with it.
A modern bathroom in a Hobart apartment I visited as part of Open House Hobart a few years ago. I could not avoid getting myself in the picture.
A public bathroom aboard Explorer of the Seas.
My featured image is an edit of one I took for the doll blog some years ago. It was for Halloween and I was trying to recreate the old tale that if a girl brushed her hair in front of a mirror at midnight on Halloween she’d see the reflection of her future husband. The doll is a Fashion Fever Teresa (Barbie) and the sink and mirror are vintage Sindy ones which belong to Naomi.
As we have the option of answering these questions in a seasonally appropriate way I thought that I’d comment on both summer and winter in my answers this week.
I’m definitely not a summer person. I didn’t mind the hot days so much when I was younger but now I hate extreme heat and humidity. Summer in Tasmania is usually cooler than the other states but we seem to get more hot days than we used to and of course, there is always the spectre of bushfires. I don’t mind winter so much although the rain and the grey days can get a little depressing sometimes. I really prefer spring and autumn, spring for the flowers and blossoming trees and autumn for the foliage. It’s probably the nicest weather we have as spring can be windy.
I don’t really wear dresses and skirts much and certainly would not be seen in shorts, nor do I like cropped 3/4 length pants on me. Mostly I wear jeans or if it’s really hot lightweight summer pants and a v-neck or scoop neck, short-sleeved T-shirt. I have some 3/4 sleeve T-shirts that I like a lot and I wear these for three seasons out of four with a cardigan over if required. Now it’s winter so I’m wearing a long sleeved “spencer” under a sweatshirt or knitted jumper (sweater to my American friends) and sometimes a fleece vest over that. Australian homes tend not to be centrally heated so layers are good. I do have what Tasmanians call a heat pump and the rest of Australia calls a reverse cycle air conditioner which keeps my living room, dining room and kitchen warm but the rest of the house is pretty cold at this time of year.
No, I eat out about the same amount all year round, hardly at all. I do have salads more in summer, coleslaw, potato salad, pasta salad are what I have at home although I might get a Caesar salad if I eat out. I’m not a huge fan of lettuce. If it’s really hot things like quiche and cold meats are good. At this time of year though it’s pasta, Shepherd’s Pie, stews and casseroles.
I do like watermelon. I didn’t when I was younger but now I do. I also like rockmelons. A favourite summertime treat would be cream or ice cream with strawberries, raspberries or blueberries. A favourite winter dessert would be a steamed pudding with custard.
Are you thankful it’s finally (sorta) dry and warm?
Well, it’s neither here but that’s OK. It’s dry and warm inside.
I don’t have an animal story or even one about the astrological sign Leo. The day before this prompt came out I’d been doing a little bit of online searching to see if I could find the places my mother lived in India as a child.
What does that have to do with lions? Well, not much except that the 2016 film “Lion” featured a lot of footage of little Saroo’s journey across India by train. Saroo traveled east from his home in Khandwa to Kolkata in 1986. My mother traveled east too, from Mumbai, or Bombay as it was in 1930 to Jabalpur then known as Jubblepore.
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Khandwa and Jabalpur I discovered are both in the state of Madhya Pradesh in central India so a little of Saroo’s journey would have been on the same route that mum saw as a child. I wish she could have seen the film, she would have loved it.
Mum was in India because her father was in the British Army. They had previously spent time in Jersey, Malta, and Egypt before arriving in Mumbai on a troopship. Mum sometimes talked about the journey and I remember her telling us that they had been on a train for three days. Currently, the journey to Jabalpur takes about 20 hours so I’m sure that this was the journey she was talking about. She was around ten years old when they arrived in India and the family lived there for two years sadly losing mum’s eldest sister Marjorie to malaria while they were there.
I wish I could remember more detail of the stories she told me. Mum had wonderful recall of things she did as a child and used to tell us about the houses they lived in at the barracks, the other children, games they played, the Indian staff who helped around the house and many other things. I was pleased to be able to confirm that Jabalpur was the same as Jubblepore because although she remembered so much I doubt that mum could have shown me where she went on a map.
