Eliska's Shelves

There is a big alcove in Eliska's room, where a wondow once was. We put some shelves up in it, a home for Eliska's ever growing collection of bits and pieces.

The shelves are wooden. I would normally paint them, but in real life, the wood adds a bit of warmth to the all white room.

Roman burst out lauging at them when he saw how uch stuff was on them. Do you think they are cluttered? I thought I had been quite restrained!

Life is a Theatre

A modern troubadour strolled into town with a band of vagabonds.

'Life is a theatre', they said.

I like to think that they wander from place to place, working their sorcerey on every crowd.

Sometimes music is a happy incantation to raise your spirits. The enchantment may last only moments, the town glittering and gleaming with a lustre you didn't see before.

I came across this group of French musicians, with the peculiar moniker, Gribben Orchestra, quite by accident in the main square, but they really made my day.

Folk Tales

Sometimes the past seems so close, we could almost touch it or smell it. Songs made of starlight are sung into the air. Time holds its breath as moonlight weaves its magic. Let's stay young forever...

Rabbit Rabbit

Eliska and I are in love with this little rabbit lamp. What are you loving this Friday? xxx

Young at Heart

A lovely little friend has come to live with us. She is a lovely Licca doll, sent by my gorgeous pal, Karen.

How exciting! I have been admiring them for a while now on flickr. I think their faces are very sweet.

Eliska recieved the floral purse above. She loves it and has been carrying it around with her everywhere. She has a thing for purses, usually mine!

When the parcels arrived, Eliska's first words were, 'For me?' Haha, a girl after my own heart!

The dolly was extremely cute in her packaging too. I think she's great. There is a Mum Licca, little Liccas, a Licca whose hair changes colour, Licca bathrooms, Licca sweetshops and countless cute little outfits ... I sense an addiction coming on...

We went on a trip recently to  a spa town, quite close to Slovakia. It is famous for its reputedly healthy water. Roman and I tasted it and it is very salty!

                                      We walked by the river and saw the cute ducks.

Roman was once sent to this spa town by his doctor, when he was 17. I could see from the people drawing hungrily on fags that this was indeed the place to be to recharge those sluggish heallth batteries.

We rejected the campsite that we found. It seemed too busy. We wanted to be alone. We bumped along country dirt tracks. For some reason, I couldn't stop laughing.

We came across a place that looked ok. The area seemed a little deserted, a dilapidated farmhouse and an Alsation outside exhibited challenging behaviour. My troublesome and unquiet imagination led me to thoughts of 'Deliverance' and 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre.' 'Not here please', I addressed Roman, in a quiet but firm voice.

We found another place after about ten more minutes. It was close to some holiday cottages. The owners kindly gave us permission to camp there.

Inside the tent, Eliska obeyed her British roots and supped tea, pretend of course.

So, if you haven't run away yet, this was the part of the trip that got better. It was very pleasant and reminded me of the Yorkshire Dales, the Scottish Highlands or Heidi, which I watched with longing as a child..

Roasting sausages outdoors, I contemplated a nomadic life. It was great being in the mountains.

A taste for life on the road was cut cruelly short when I woke the next morning to the sound of wind and rain. There was something refreshing about it all though.

I was unable to refrain from frequent cries of 'sausages', a la 'Spit the dog.' Anyone remember him? I recollect that he looked distinctly undoglike, perhaps not unlike a very tired bathmat. Roman was terriby amused, obviously....

Eliska's rise to celeb status continues. The whisperers tell me that she has instructed people not to look at her directly IN THE EYES. I¨m hoping it's a phase.

Sun set over the hills. Some young lads sauntered past, rucksacks on their backs. I remembered how camping was once an adventure. It could be again. Why does life sometimes dull the senses, our spirit and our optimism?

We must refuse to let it be so.

When darkness fell, Eliska peeked out of the tent and wondered at the slow, dark creatures that live in the night. I remember my dreams of witches when I was three, the splendid and terrible anarchy of dreamland. She is scared of crocodiles at the moment. I think that despite my assurances, she believes they are out there somewhere. I tell her that there is nothing out there, but still there exists between us the unspoken knowledge that childhood does not always feel safe,  that sometimes  it is a barren wilderness where villains mght  wander unchecked

Eliska was accompanied to bed by Sindy who looked frankly pissed off to be going to bed before all the action kicked off. Poor love.

Eliska went to sleep happy, recovered from fears of the night. She happily flung her arm in my face during the night. Like her Mummy, she is a a sleep wriggler.

Close to the earth, my sleep was stilted. My dreams were strange, yet I wanted to give myself up to them. In the early hoursof the morning. I dreamt of a loud explosion. It was fireworks. Music played in the distance,  carried to me by the wind, a festival feeling. Then the rain came.

The next day, we drove to another town. We were close to the Slovakian border and there were lots of little houses dotted around, which Roman explained were probably holiday cottages.

We passed tall trees and Eliska asked if they were the, 'deep, dark woods.'

I don't normally enjoy travelling in the car too much, but this time I enjoyed the journey. I listened to lots of my favourite music and it was sort of cathartic. Travelling in the car gives you time to think about stuff and it's like your journey has a soundtrack.

We saw delightful goats and Roman approached a little closer to take a pic. Mummy Goat was not a happy, erm goat. Her look clearly said, 'Step any further mate and I'll wall you up.' Fair enough. As a Mummy myself, I understood.

For quite a time, we traversed these country roads and Roman was to dream of them days later. It was, we realised afterwards, the best part of out trip.

We went to a little village made from wood. Nobody lives there now, it is purely an outdoor museum type thingummy. Some of the houses are reconstructions of how the houses would have looked long ago. Others are original. We went inside one and Roman commented, 'It's so homey. I want to live here.' Not totally the sort of words you may expect from a bloke. The wooden beams were very appealing and the rooms, full of old furniture definitely had a cosy feel.

Below is a range that they would have cooked on, back in ye olden days.

Back home, Sindy still hadn't cheered up. Her look said, 'wistful, pensive', bordering on suicidal.

She didn't look any happier when her new mate joined her. Mind you, her new pal seemed to have a bit of a cob on too. Eliska had wasted no time after her arrival in planting some lovely teeth marks on her tiny foot. I¨d have been a bit put out too.

Seriously though, don't you just love Sindy? Aside from the fact that she looks like she's going to burst into tears, she is so much sweeter than many of the dolls available today. There is somethin so winsome and cute about her. They need some sprucing up, so I'm thinking some new clobber may be in order, perhaps an Alice in Wonderland and Red Riding Hood theme.

I was a little sad to see the Olympics go. I was hugely surprised that I enjoyed it, as I felt quite cynical beforehand. I am not a big fan of sports, being a picked last for the team kind of girl. I think a lot of us were put off sports in this way, which is a shame really. Yusain Bolt had me jumping up and down, yelling, 'Come ONNN!!!'

Ah but, the closing ceremony. Oh, the shame. The poor attempts at air guitar. Liam's weird high pitched screech. The opening ceremony was so original, quirky and touching. The close was eccentric in a bad way. It felt uncomfortably awful, a bit like Richard Madely doing Ali G. The only consolation was copious amounts of sugar based confectionary.

Although, speaking of Richard Madeley, he is my first and only sleb replier on twitter! I like Richard. I know he is percieved as a bit of a knobber, but I think of him of a lovable buffoon.

The other day, I found myself saying to Eliska, 'I know I am quite old, but I feel young inside.' I think that is why dolls and camping and childish things are enjoying such a prominent place  in my life. What fun! To be young, even if it only in your heart.... x

Of crowns, mice and lost kings

Do you like my new shoes? I love brand spanking new shoesies.

I love the little flower.

Speaking of little flowers...

We didn't get to Prague.We will probably go later in the year. We went to a beautiful place called Olomouc.

During the car journey Eliska looked at a little book that had pics of mice wearing crowns. It transpires that mice really suit crowns.

We walked down a beautiful street full of elegant buildings.

I only noticed the funny little dangling shoe later when I was uploading the pics.

I found a lovely shop. I really liked the brick walls.

There were cute peg bags, aprons, necklaces and all sorts. The girl behind the counter looked very relaxed, pottering on her laptop and spoke to me in English. It was a nice surprise, but I always feel a little guilty in shops when I am not speaking Czech.

I was quite taken with this spire that looks almost studded and somehow Gaudiesque.

There is an interesting astronomical clock in the city centre, quite similar to the one in Prague Old Town.

We went into this rather ostentatious looking church. I was at once stunned by its beauty, whilst repulsed by the vulgarity of it. It is strange, the amount of money that was spent on places of worship when people had so little.

The curch was enormous, with various other rooms and corridors. We walked past the library and I felt a little cold there. I wondered what had happened there, what mysteries and whispers were contained in the walls.

I didn't expect to care about the Olympics, but it made me think a bit and I loved the opening ceremony.

I thought about our history, of Princes in towers, a French queen that headed an army when her husband was said to be mad.

The Maypole reminded me of my time at primary school. I had a lovely teacher who talked a lot about her husband, who was a sailor. Even then,  it seemed terrily romantic. On his visits home, he would come to school to visit us, a beardy cosy jumpery sort of a man.

 I listened to our teacher telling us stories, with a half a mind on the silver fish behind the curtains that seemed to have a shabby elegance.

The history we learnt was carefully selected and told its own story of a still cherished empire. There was so much that we were never told, that the English once spoke French, that Scotland once had its own kings. We never learnt of the Scottish monarchs that fled into exile, like travelling vagabonds, never to return to claim their crown.

I'm glad the empire is gone.

I thought about the people that I grew up amongst, the names that they called black people. I remembered the first day of the boy at my first school with the oh so deep voice and his beautiful skin. I was intrigued by his Dad when he picked him up from school. He wore a leather jacket and his hair curled around his collar.

I wrote at more length about my thoughts and memories and my experience of being British. I didn't want to depress you all, so cut it short. It is probably enough to say that I was aware of a lot of racism and prejudice whilst growing up. At times I felt sad and ashamed at how adults in my family thought and behaved. In later life, outwardly nice people shared the same opinions.

Basically, I found Danny Boyle's ceremony to be a brilliant two fingered salute to all those that think we don't all belong together. We are a mix of groups, of different, yet shared pasts.

Charlie Brooker wrote from the US after seeing the ceremony, that he felt homesick. Strangely, for someone living overseas, I didn't feel that way. It just reminded me who I was, that oddness and eccentricity are to be treasured and that growing up with such a multiplicity of cultures has allowed me to be this way.

xxx