View allAll Photos Tagged Enfolding
“The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.”
Kate Chopin
Let your arms enfold us
Through the dark of night
Will your angels hold us
Till we see the light
Hush, lay down your troubled mind
The day has vanished and left us behind
And the wind, whispering soft lullabies
Will soothe, so close your weary eyes
Let your arms enfold us
Through the dark of night
Will your angels hold us
Till we see the light
Sleep, angels will watch over you
And soon beautiful dreams will come true
Can you feel spirits embracing your soul
So dream while secrets of darkness unfold
Normally, for some reason, I avoid including any elements of the man-made world in my photographic musings, but this is an exception. Around 3 AM on the 29th of December, I was driving the Alaska Highway, approaching the small village of Burwash Landing, on the shores of Kluane Lake, Yukon.. The temperature was about 45 below and an encroaching warm front was pumping trillions of tiny ice cystals into the dry, cold air, creating patches of thick ice fog.
The moon, just past full, seemed enfolded in a haze of icy mist. The lights below are immediately recognizable to anyone who has lived in very cold regions ... they are the distant street lights along the highway where the road passes through the village. In conditions of extreme cold, beams of light, even ones horizontally aimed, are deflected straight upwards by the floating ice crystals. The headlamps of approaching cars can be seen miles away as as narrow pillars of light stretching directly up into the heavens.
Praktica VLC3 camera, Pentacon 29mm lens, 10 seconds on Fuji NPZ 800 film.
“The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.”
Kate Chopin, The Awakening
When the first sunlight kisses the surface of the earth, the flowers awake and enfold their colorful costumes. The birds sing their first songs of freedom, and the world is ready for another day.
Waking up before everybody while sleeping in the sand dunes around Siwa, little oasis lost in the egyptian part of the Sahara Desert.
The air was quite chilly which was surprising.
So I took my blanket to the highest dune with me to enjoy the enfolding marvels of Mother Nature.
Then I stood up and took that picture where the silhouette you see is me doing exactly that.
Embrasse the serenity.
A dream is a wish your heart makes
and my heart makes a wish for you
That you may find a rainbow
where all your dreams will come true.
May there be sunlight ever streaming
into your heart each day,
May you find the hand of friendship
along each new highway.
And may loving arms enfold you
when you need someone to care.
And may your heart know that my heart
is with you everywhere....
I wish you all the best of the world for the comming year <333333
Landscapes at Hacienda Zuleta, high in the Andes Mountains of Ecuador.
Hacienda Zuleta is a wondrous place to explore. You are gently enfolded by the mountains and grassland all about. Rain was constant, but it added to the lushness and fertility of the surroundings, with a spectrum of vibrant greens exuberantly bursting out of every landscape. Here you felt as if you were in a garden of Eden, where new life and rebirth miraculously took place as you looked on in awe.
summer song
Summer song
summer long
summer sounds
of summer throng
summer light
summer night
summer feels
alive and bright
Floating breezes
fresh and free
gentle sunkissed
bumble bee
curling creatures
sleeping so
marching ants
they come and go
tall grass bends
in sun lit beams
medows shimmer
golden gleams
birds call out
their summer song
dawn to dusk
singing long
bubbling brooks
with silver waters
bluebells dance
like woodlands daughters
velvet moss
enfolds the boulder
tree stumps covered
shadied; colder
for-get-me-nots
smile in their place
mischievious little dainty face
Summer song
summer long
summer sounds
of summer throng
summer light
summer night
summer feels
alive and bright
Alice Anne Gordon
"I haunt your fears
Though you don't know of my duty
To lead your path
Because I'll take you home to rest
In my black wings enfolding you."
+2 in comments
Model: Maria Alice Haun
Debutantes Getting Ready For The Ball.
(Linoleum Cut).
Réveillez-toi des agneaux célestes Beauteous bras puissant de croissant esprits élevés flottante,
triumphant reginae leporibus pasceretur desiderabilis hora versuram gaudii aculeatum,
figlie paradiso eco voci glorioso petto cari cori cantano melodiosi,
wollüstigen Begierden angreifen unbeschadet donner begierig Damen tanzen,
бормоча красивые души улыбаются вечную розу,
zilveren cirkels bloemen versierd wijste seizoenen geuren,
ndlísheomraí azure tease retouching mhór órga thrones enfolds milis,
εκπνοές γοητεύει αθώα καρδιά αηδόνια ευδαιμονία,
מכונף בהיר תענוגות זכרונות ממתקי לימון טעים מאוד מבורכים להיפגש,
murmurind ochi de strălucire ambroziac măreție fâlfâind cuvinte minunate apărut,
内側に結晶の夢無料の熱烈なキスアウェイク!
Steve.D.Hammond.
The image is a lighting fixture in a guest area of a hotel. It's actually over a pool table. I loved the pattern with the light.
Candles
They are the last romantics, these candles:
Upside-down hearts of light tipping wax fingers,
And the fingers, taken in by their own haloes,
Grown milky, almost clear, like the bodies of saints.
It is touching, the way they’ll ignore
A whole family of prominent objects
Simply to plumb the deeps of an eye
In its hollow of shadows, its fringe of reeds,
And the owner past thirty, no beauty at all.
Daylight would be more judicious,
Giving everybody a fair hearing.
They should have gone out with the balloon flights and the stereopticon.
This is no time for the private point of view.
When I light them, my nostrils prickle.
Their pale, tentative yellows
Drag up false, Edwardian sentiments,
And I remember my maternal grandmother from Vienna.
As a schoolgirl she gave roses to Franz Josef.
The burghers sweated and wept. The children wore white.
And my grandfather moped in the Tyrol,
Imagining himself a headwaiter in America,
Floating in a high-church hush
Among ice buckets, frosty napkins.
These little globes of light are sweet as pears.
Kindly with invalids and mawkish women,
They mollify the bald moon.
Nun-souled, they burn heavenward and never marry.
The eyes of the child I nurse are scarcely open.
In twenty years I shall be retrograde
As these drafty ephemerids.
I watch their spilt tears cloud and dull to pearls.
How shall I tell anything at all
To this infant still in a birth-drowse?
Tonight, like a shawl, the mild light enfolds her,
The shadows stoop over the guests at a christening.
Candles Poem by Sylvia Plath
"Come to me like the mists of Erin.
Guard me with her ancient dreams.
Enfold me like the veil of Banba.
Cover me with kisses
like her soft, warm rain.
Let me ascend like the haze o'er Conor pass.
"Among the sheer cliffs of Antrim
I'll discover you, hear your heart beat.
And in the meadows of Kerry I'll fall asleep
with my head resting in your lap.
Like a lover's kiss she seals my lips.
Like a mountain she hides her secrets"
words by Mats O Arvendal
So beautiful the views hovering beneath the conscious not believing the sights enfolding as the dawn breaks. I love the dirt road winding down the valley floor, would like to suss it out and drive the meandering ribbon.
"May a rainbow gladden your eyes
May soft winds freshen your spirit;
May sunshine brighten your heart;
May the burdens of the day rest
lightly upon you;
And may God enfold you
in the mantle of his love."
~ Irish Blessing
When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
Kahlil Gibran
Here are some pictures of peace cranes and how they were used at the wedding.
Above: in the topiaries
below: a curtain of peace cranes behind the bridal party
below that: peace cranes in all the flower arrangements on the tables
“May the raindrops fall lightly on your brow. May the soft winds freshen your spirit. May the sunshine brighten your heart. May the burdens of the day rest lightly upon you, and may God enfold you in the mantle of His love.”-- Irish blessing
Nikon D5100 (kit lens)
© tanvir90
The light of God surrounds me.
The love of God enfolds me.
The power of God protects me.
The Presence of God watches over me.
Wherever I am. God is.
The Nobles' Tombs in the northern cliffs of Amarna are some of the best preserved and most rewarding features surviving at the site of Akhetaten. The decoration is better preserved on the whole and reveals much about life during the Amarnan revolution.
Tell el Amarna is the site of something unique in Egypt's history, the brand new capital city by the 'heretic' pharaoh Amenophis IV, better known by the name Akhenaten. Today little remains of the ancient city beyond its foundations (largely hidden amidst the sand dunes), but its significance makes it one of the country's most important archaeological sites.
Akhenaten's reign is marked by a radical break with Egypt's ancient religion, the pharaoh abandoned the multitude of traditional gods in favour of a single deity, the Aten, the life giving sun-disc. A new city was built on a desert site, chosen for its proximity to a geographical feature that appeared to enfold the rising sun, and established to cement Egypt's revolution away from the priests and cult centre of Thebes. The city was named 'Akhetaten' and served as the cult centre of the pharoah's new religion with himself as the chief intermediary of the new god. Akhenaten is often celebrated as one of history's earliest monotheistic rulers.
The city had a short life, as did Akhenaten's new religion, with the traditional order and power base restored following his death under the reign of his son Tutankhaten (better known as Tutankhamun, the name he adopted after abandoning the Atenist religion). The site was plundered for materials over the following decades and little remains visible beyond the tombs carved into the nearby cliffs.
The palaces and the once great temple of Aten have all but disappeared, though two columns of the nearby small temple have been reconstructed in recent years. The desolate nature of the site has however preserved much of the city's layout, since unlike most ancient Egyptian settlements it remained uninhabited over the millennia.
For more on this intriguing site see below:-
Remembering 911
"In the sky my soul is found,
And my body in the ground.
By and by my body'll rise
To my spirit in the skies,
Soaring up to Heaven's gate.
~Ambrose Bierce ~
"Yellow Daisy"
Oh, pretty yellow daisy
thy petals drive me crazy,
Oh, I love thee more each day as you catch the breeze and gently sway,
Oh, so posh and upright standing, attracted bees are busy landing,
Oh, how my heart does swell as you cast me in your floral spell.
Fun poetry
by Sean.
I love yellow flowers,
especially yellow daisies.
This is an image of emerging springtime beginning to enfold, ready to show us its natural floral charms.
And I, for one, can't wait!!!
Love & Peace ✌️
Everyone. ❤️
On the floating, shipless, oceans
I did all my best to smile
'Til your singing eyes and fingers
Drew me loving to your isle
And you sang, "Sail to me, sail to me,
Let me enfold you,
Here I am, here I am
Waiting to hold you"
Did I dream you dreamed about me?
Were you hare when I was fox?
Now my foolish boat is leaning
Broken lovelorn on your rocks
For you sing, "Touch me not, touch me not,
come back tomorrow: O my heart,
O my heart shies from the sorrow"
I am puzzled as the newborn child
I am troubled at the tide:
Should I stand amid the breakers?
Should I lie with death my bride?
Hear me sing, "Swim to me, swim to me,
Let me enfold you,
Here I am, Here I am,
Waiting to hold you"
by This Mortal Coil - Song Of The Siren
www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1LeXdP9lcM
On the floating, shapeless oceans
I did all my best to smile
til your singing eyes and fingers
drew me loving into your eyes.
And you sang "Sail to me, sail to me;
Let me enfold you."
Here I am, here I am waiting to hold you.
Did I dream you dreamed about me?
Were you here when I was full sail?
Now my foolish boat is leaning, broken love lost on your rocks.
For you sang, "Touch me not, touch me not, come back tomorrow."
Oh my heart, oh my heart shies from the sorrow.
I'm as puzzled as a newborn child.
I'm as riddled as the tide.
Should I stand amid the breakers?
Or shall I lie with death my bride?
Hear me sing: "Swim to me, swim to me, let me enfold you."
"Here I am. Here I am, waiting to hold you."
(style credits on my previous pic)
Long afloat on shipless oceans
I did all my best to smile
'Til your singing eyes and fingers
Drew me loving to your isle
And you sang
Sail to me
Sail to me, let me enfold you
Here I am
Here I am
Waiting to hold you
Did I dream you dreamed about me?
Were you hare when I was fox?
But now my foolish boat is leaning
Broken lovelorn on your rocks
For you sing, touch me not
Touch me not, come back tomorrow
Oh my heart, oh my heart
Shies from the sorrow
I'm as puzzled as the oyster
I'm as troubled at the tide
Should I stand amid the breakers?
Or should I lie with death my bride?
Hear me sing
Swim to me
Swim to me, let me enfold you
Oh my heart, oh my heart
Is waiting to hold you
Tim Buckley
I am amazed, stunned and delighted to say that following my submission of this book in the Royal Photographic Society's Photobook category, a book which I made for family and friends, I have been awarded a Fellowship.
When you make a submission to the RPS for a distinction you need to supply a Statement of Intent this was mine:
The subject of this book is time, the time we have, geological time and how as photographers we play with time. It is a collection of photographs made during my recovery following an illness. The images were made in the Yorkshire Dales.
As I came to appreciate the time it took to make each photograph I began to consider time. As my life is now measured in 6 monthly scans, time was already a huge issue.
The making of each photograph from the initial noticing to the final scan brought home time’s importance. Waiting for each exposure was a moment to consider the 300 million plus years old landscape.
The words of Paul Bowles, Susan Sontag and Shakespeare speak to me of time and our place in it. This book seeks to convey thoughts around time in a format which requires that we slow down and take time.
Text from the book:
On Friday 2 June 2021, I was diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer. On Monday 20 June 2022, I was told there was “no sign of cancer.”
Following my treatment, my partner and I walked most weeks in the Yorkshire Dales. I took along a pinhole camera. I felt a need to create photographs. My wooden pinhole camera and lightest of tripods.
These walks were a journey of recovery and creation. They have also been a time to think, reflect, observe inwardly and outwardly, to notice, absorb, be enfolded and meld with the landscape.
Time is never-ceasing, with no beginning or end, ever-changing. We are swept along in the flow of it. Walking takes time, but also gifts time.
Using a pinhole camera was a deliberate, though futile, attempt to halt time.
The acts of making images of the limestone and grit landscape of the Yorkshire Dales were small pauses, both slowing and recording the movement of time as the skies of the Dales floated or scudded overhead. Each stop to create an image was as a small shrine, a witnessing point in time and place to the eons embedded in the Dales.
Many of our walks in the Dales traversed a landscape of Carboniferous Limestone - rocks between 360 and 300 million years old, made of long-dead life which once lived in a warm sea south of the equator.
The photographs in this book consist of insignificant seconds of time, of human time, taken on walks of a few brief hours. They are also of geological time, of a landscape over 300 million years old.
Thoughts of time formed as I contemplated my original prognosis of between 1 and 3 years, and my new life now measured by 6-monthly scans. We walked on ephemeral trods. Short journeys, perhaps. But all journeys change us, whether they be physical or emotional. And time goes on, both on scales we can grasp and those it is almost impossible to comprehend.
Ten minutes and five seconds. That is the total time take to expose these photographs.
A tiny, unremarkable fraction of time in the life of a person and an infinitesimally minute unit of time in the duration of this landscape and “time’s relentless melt”.
Yet each walk, every image – a “sliced out moment: - is a timeless memory.
“The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.” - Kate Chopin
Scripps Pier is my favorite place to photograph in San Diego. The light is always fantastic and there are many subjects to photograph from surfers, wildlife, an amazing pier and of course the Pacific Ocean.
I love San Diego and so should you!
Thanks guys for all your views, comments and favs!
Happy Travels!
One more photo in the comment section.
All Rights Reserved. Photos and Text ©Sam Antonio Photography 2015
The wings of Glory enfold the soul!
Silence prays with joy true and pure!
The flood of Light that reflects the Whole,
Lets the blind see all that was never seen before,
Makes audible the rhythm beyond the shores!
The mystic music mesmerizes the cores,
Eternity welcomes the Divine at the threshold,
Ecstasy frees open all the locked doors!
O! Why shall the spirit not dance and dance?
The circles of fire burn the golden trance!
Love spreads fast like flames dancing
Out beyond all limits, all corners, all walls,
Embracing the night, the rhythm, the spirit, the flow.
The wings of Glory embrace the soul;
The journey that ends begins for evermore.
Rannunculus...I planted them in the front porch urns. Hopefully the deer won't bother with them there.
The Light of God surrounds me.
The Love of God enfolds me.
The Power of God protects me.
The Presence of God watches over me.
Wherever I am, God is.
Across the pond I do recall
stepping out onto octagonal apron
gazing out past buttressed nave
as Ely’s lantern-capped cathedral
stretches beyond my eye
“Rise up, my love, my fair one” we sing
into a gothic infiniteness
Have you ever sung in an astounding acoustic?
Come with me, let’s try it together
it’s like being wrapped in your warmest, coziest blanket
and yet underneath you find a consoling emptiness
spaciousness and depth
No sense that you can and will be enveloped
and then you sing something, anything
the sound goes out
(you can go and get a cup of coffee)
comes back eventually and surrounds you
enfolds and bathes you with its
ambient richness and added lustre
almost intoxicating
I recommend the Chapel of King’s College in Cambridge
visually stunning and two-dimensional in effect
four-dimensional in sound
I returned to all of them
alone
so contented
just to be in that space
Ely and King’s and Durham
Durham so palpably ancient with its
thick Norman pillars, all etched differently
unbutressed walls
and I was alone
with my companions Bede and Cuthbert
and sat in the quire
for evensong
alone but the choir
perfectly contented
[From "That Makes Us Dream" in I am Keats as you are by Glenn Peirson]
taken at Riverside Park, Guelph
my textures
The light of God surrounds me.
The love of God enfolds me.
The Power of God protects me.
The Presence of God watches over me. Wherever I am God is.
He is a faithful God!!
“The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clamoring, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.” Kate Chopin
The Light of God surrounds me. The Love of God enfolds me. The Power of God protects me. The Presence of God watches over me. Wherever I am, God is.
Cavendish Mews is a smart set of flats in Mayfair where flapper and modern woman, the Honourable Lettice Chetwynd has set up home after coming of age and gaining her allowance. To supplement her already generous allowance, and to break away from dependence upon her family, Lettice has established herself as a society interior designer, so her flat is decorated with a mixture of elegant antique Georgian pieces and modern Art Deco furnishings, using it as a showroom for what she can offer to her well heeled clients.
Today however we are northwest of Lettice’s flat, in the working-class London suburb of Harlesden where Edith, Lettice’s maid, is paying an unexpected call on her beloved parents whilst her mistress is away visiting her own parents in Wiltshire. Edith’s father, George, works at the McVitie and Price biscuit factory in Harlesden as a Line Manager, and her mother, Ada, takes in laundry at home. They live in a small, two storey brick terrace house which opens out directly onto the street, and is far removed from the grandeur of Lettice’s Mayfair flat, but has always been a cosy and welcoming home for Edith. Usually even before she walks through the glossy black painted front door, Edith can smell the familiar scent of a mixture of Lifebuoy Soap, Borax and Robin’s Starch, which means her mother is washing the laundry of others wealthier than she in the terrace’s kitchen at the rear of the house. Yet with her father’s promotion, Edith’s mother is only laundering a few days a week now, and today, rather than soap and starch greeting her on the street, she can hear familiar laughter.
“Mum!” Edith calls out cheerily as she opens the unlocked front door and walks in. “Mum, it’s me! Is that Bert with you?”
She takes a deep breath and holds it with anticipation as she runs down the narrow corridor with excited footsteps past the front room and down into the kitchen, which serves as the heart of Edith’s parent’s home. Bursting through the kitchen door she beams and gasps with delight, for there at Ada’s old and worn round kitchen table sits her mother and her brother Bert. Edith’s little brother works aboard the SS Demosthenes as a dining saloon steward, sailing between England and Australia. Australia was where Bert spent Christmas 1922, so he wasn’t with his family for Christmas. Yet now, just like in the postcard he sent from Queensland showing a bird called a kookaburra inside the shape of the great southern continent surrounded by yellow wattle flowers, he is home on shore leave.
“Bert!” Edith gasps in delight. “You’re home!”
“Hullo Edith!” Bert says with an equally happy smile as he leaps out of the comfortable Windsor chair usually inhabited by their father and enfolds his sister in an embracing hug.
“Oh Bert.” Edith presses herself against her brother, the comforting smell of their mother’s lux soap flakes filling her nostrils. Pressing her hands against his hips, she breaks their embrace and pushes herself back. “Let me look at you then!”
Although a year younger than his sister, Bert is taller than Edith now, after a final growth spurt when he was in his late teens. Dressed in one of their mother’s home knitted jumpers and a pair of grey flannel trousers his skin looks sun kissed after spending a few days ashore in Melbourne during the height of summer in the southern hemisphere before sailing back, and the sun has given his sandy blonde hair some natural highlights.
“The sea air agrees with you, Bert.”
“More likely the Australian sun!” Ada remarks as she picks herself up out of her own chair with a slight groan. “Just look at those colourful cheeks and those freckles.” She waves her hand at her son lovingly. “We don’t usually see them until high summer.”
“Hullo Mum!” Edith walks up and embraces her mother. ‘How are you?”
“Oh, I’m grand now our Bert is home, and you are too, Edith love.” Ada says in reply, a broad smile gracing her lips and a happy brilliance in her brown eyes. “Now, put that basket down and have a seat. I’ll pop the kettle on and brew us a fresh pot.” She begins to bustle around the great blacklead range and moves the heavy kettle onto the hob. Turning back to the table she picks up the beautiful, glazed teapot in the shape of a cottage with a thatched roof with the chimney as the lid, which Edith bought for her from the Caledonian Market**, and makes a grand sweeping gesture to show Edith it’s presence. “See Edith, a special occasion calls for the use of my special teapot.”
“Any day should be a special enough day for you to use that pretty teapot that Edith gave you, Mum.” Bert says, sitting back down at the table.
“That’s what I tell her!” Edith agrees.
“But then it wouldn’t be a special teapot any more, would it?” Ada says, stepping behind Bert and going to the small tough sink the corner of the kitchen where she turns the squeaky taps and rinses out the pot. “No. It’s a special teapot for special occasions.” She takes up the yellow tea towel with red stitching that hangs over a metal rail above the range and dries the pot. “I used it on Christmas Day didn’t I, Edith love?”
“Yes,” Edith agrees. “But you haven’t used it a day since then.”
“That’s because there hasn’t been a special occasion worthy of using it,” Ada defends. “Until Bert came home, that is.” She gently squeezes her son’s left shoulder.
“I give up!” Edith throws her hands in the air. She shucks off her black three quarter length coat and hangs it on a hook by the back door. She then places her hat on one of the carved knobs of the ladderback chair drawn up to the table next to her mother’s usual seat.
“Oh I told you, Edith!” Ada chides. “Don’t put your pretty hat there, love.” She walks over to the Welsh dresser that dominates one wall of the crowded kitchen and pulls out the battered tea cannister. “It might get damaged. Such a pretty hat should sit on the table where it’s safe. You know Edith made that, don’t you Bert?”
“Yes, I do, Mum.” Bert acknowledges cheerfully. “Our Edith is the cleverest girl I know.”
“I keep saying Mum, the hat’s nothing special. And besides, I didn’t make it. It came from Petticoat Lane***, just like my coat, and it’s not new. I simply decorated the hat with bits and bobs I picked up from a Whitechapel haberdasher Miss Lettice’s char****, Mrs. Boothby, told me about.”
“Well, homemade or not, it’s still too pretty to hang there.”
“It’s my hat, Mum. I always hang it there and it’s always fine, and I promise you, it’ll be fine there today.”
“Well, suit yourself, love. You’re an adult now, just the same as Bert.” Ada remarks dismissively but looks at her daughter doubtfully as she scoops out some black dried tea leaves and puts the heaped spoonfuls into the pot. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“So,” Bert sinks back into his seat and toys with his teacup decorated with pink roses, slowly turning it in its saucer. “What’s the gossip with you then, Edith? How’s your Frank then? Mum says that she and Dad haven’t met him yet.”
“It’s become quite the mute point.” Ada remarks as she turns back from the dresser and folds her arms akimbo, frowning at her daughter.
“And I hope,” Edith defends herself, challenging her mother’s steely stare. “That she told you why.”
“I did!” Ada says crisply.
“Word is you’re meeting his mum soon, Edith.” Bert says excitedly.
“Well, not his mum. His parents died of the Spanish Flu, but I’m meeting his Granny, who is a bit like his surrogate mum.”
“That’s nerve wracking.” Bert replies.
“I know! I’m so nervous.” Edith confides, lowing her voice as she leans across the table conspiratorially and reaches for the battered McVitie and Price biscuit tin.
“That’s why I can’t get a girl to come home here.” Frank says with a wink and slight indicating nod to their mother. “Imagine meeting Mum.” He lifts the lid off the tin for his sister and lets her make her selection. “They’re all too scared of her.”
“Cheeky!” Ada says, laughing good naturedly and swatting her son with the tea towel. “Any girl would be lucky to have me as a prospective mother-in-law.” She shuffles her shoulders and tilts her head upwards as her face forms into a dignified expression. “Or boy.” she adds with undisguised meaning and importance.
“So, me and Frank are just fine, thanks Bert. We’re just tickety-boo.*****!” Edith tells her brother before popping a biscuit into her mouth.
“Tickety-boo!” Bert enthuses. “You are up on all the latest small talk and phrases, living with your Miss Chetwynd up in Mayfair.”
“She comes home with new phrases all the time.” Ada places the freshly refilled cottage ware teapot down on the table between them all. “Goodness knows I can’t keep up with her. It’s the influence of all those fine ladies and gentlemen and moving picture stars that frequent Mis Chetwynd’s flat.”
“Moving picture stars? Really” Bert asks excitedly.
“Oh Bert!” Edith scoffs, flapping her hand playfully at him. “I only answer the door to them, or serve them tea. And Miss Lettice has only had one moving picture star to tea since I’ve been there: Wanetta Ward.” She sighs. “She’s so beautiful! She works for Gainsborough Pictures******. You’re more likely to have a longer conversation with a moving picture star on board your ship as a dining saloon steward, Bert, than ever I will at Miss Lettice’s.”
“I doubt that. There aren’t that many moving picture stars sailing between Australia and home, well none that I know of. Although they are mad for moving pictures over there. There are picture houses everywhere, and they even make their own films there, just like here.”
“Anyway, I’m not the interesting one, Bert.” Edith says, seeing a way to turn the conversation to her brother and his news. “You are. Tell me about life on the ship this voyage.”
A short while later over tea and biscuits, Edith is brought up to date with Bert’s latest adventures on board his ship, and the interesting people he has served as a first-class saloon steward.
“Oh!” Ada suddenly gasps. “Bert! Aren’t you going to give Edith her present?”
“Present?” Edith asks with a querying look to her brother.
“Yes, Edith love. Don’t you remember Bert wrote it in his last postcard to us?”
Edith casts her mind back a few weeks to when her mother showed her the postcard Bert had sent from Australia.
“Right you are Mum!” Bert agrees. “So Edith, on Christmas Day, the Second Officer, Mr. Collins, organised a trip for we lads and some of the girls on the ship’s staff who were away from home for Christmas and that were at a loose end. A lot found their own amusements in Melbourne. It’s such a big and vibrant city, full of fun things to do. But about twenty of us didn’t have anywhere to go, so we said yes.”
“What did you do, Bert? What had Mr. Collins organised?” Edith asks in suspense.
“Well, Mr. Collins was born in Melbourne. Well no, actually he was born a few hours outside of Melbourne in the country at a place called Yarra Glen. It’s quite famous and lots of toffs go there to holiday, not that was where Mr. Collins took us.” Bert quickly adds, seeing the excitement in his sister’s face. “No, Mr. Collins was born on a farm out there – something they call a cattle station – and he took us all out there for a picnic on his parent’s station.”
“But a station is a railway station.” Edith mutters, shaking her head, her face crumpling in disbelief.
“Well in Australia there are railway stations and cattle station, which are big farms. So, Mr. Collins packed us all into a railway carriage at Flinders Street Railway Station and off we went. We left at ten in the morning and we didn’t get to the railway station at the Yarra Glen until nearly midday.”
“Was it hot?” Edith asks. “You always say Australia is hot around this time of year.”
“Well it was, but it was alright because we opened up our window in our carriage and poked our heads out so we could look at the passing countryside, so we had a nice breeze. The countryside is so different to here. It’s all yellow grasses and funny trees with washed out leaves: no real greenery at all so to speak, but it’s still really beautiful in its own way.”
“Hmph!” Ada snorts from her chair. “Nothing beats the Kentish countryside for beauty.”
“Well I guess beauty is a subjective thing, Mum.” Bert goes on, “Mr. Collins was telling us on the train trip down that sometimes travelling artists set up camp on his parent’s property just so that they can paint the landscape.”
“Fancy that, Frank!” Edith enthuses. “Did you like it?”
“Oh yes! It’s very pretty, in a foreign kind of way. Not many flowers. But we saw jumping kangaroos from the train on the trip down. They sat in the grass and watched us pass, and then some of them just up and jumped away. They can move very quickly when they jump. Anyway, we finally pulled into Yarra Glen. We had to wait whilst a big party of toffs and all their mountains of luggage were taken care of and packed up into cars. Mr. Collins says that there is a famous opera singer who lives out there, named Nellie Melba*******.”
“I’ve heard nellie Melba sing before!” Ada exclaims, dropping her pink and yellow floral teacup into her saucer and clapping her hands.
“You have, Mum?” Edith asks, the look of lack of comprehension on her face matching her brother’s as they both look to her.
“Well, not live of course!” Ada says, taking up her cup of tea before continuing. “But once when I was at Mrs. Hounslow’s, I heard her sing. She was playing records on her gramophone, and I asked who it was, and she invited me to stand in her parlour and listen to her recording of Nellie Melba sing ‘Ave Maria’.” Her children pull a face at the mention of their landlady, the rich and odious old widow whom they both grew up hearing about regularly, and seeing on the rare occasions she would deign to stop by to collect their rent in person, rather than her rent collector. “Now don’t be like that, children! Mrs. Hounslow’s husband died a hero in the siege of Mafeking in the Boer War.”
“And neither you, nor she will ever let us forget it.” Bert drones, rolling his eyes.
“Now I won’t have a bad word said about her, Bert.” Ada wags her finger admonishingly at her son. “She’s helped pay for many a meal in this house with her sixpences and shillings over the years, especially during the war when things were hard. You should be grateful to her. We all should be.”
“Pshaw!” Edith raises her eyes to the ceiling above. “Enough about old Widow Hounslow! Go on with your story, Bert.”
“Well,” Bert continues. “Miss Melba must have been home and hosting a big house party, but once they were all packed off, we were ushered to a charabanc******** which took us out to Mr. Collins’ family farm. Once we got to the house – which they call a homestead – Mrs. Collins, Mr, Collins’ mum, had picnic baskets for us, full of delicious sandwiches and pies and cakes. There was even beer and stout for us to drink. When Mr. Collins lead us away from the house to where we were to take our picnic, he took us to a place where there was a stream, so we could dunk the bottles of beer and stout into it to keep them warm. We tethered them to the bank with string he gave us. And so, we sat under these big trees with white bark and ate and drank and had a jolly time of it, all at Mr. Collin’s expense.”
“That was nice of him, Bert.” Edith remarks.
“It was! We were ever so grateful. He had brought a cricket bat and stumps from the house with him, so we played some cricket after luncheon until it got too warm, and then we sang Christmas carols.”
“It must have felt odd, singing Christmas carols in the summer sunshine.”
“Not really Edith.” Bert replies. “Christmas is Christmas all over the world, no matter what the weather, if you are in high spirits.”
“And the gift?” Ada says, patting her son’s arm as a reminder.
“So, when we were walking back from out picnic by the stream, I was carrying one of the picnic baskets, and I noticed what a pretty painted lid it had. When we arrived back at the homestead, I asked Mr. Collins’ mother about it. It turns out that Mr. Collin’s brother and his wife live on the property as well. She cooks for the farmhands and helps keep house for old Mrs. Collins, and she also makes picnic baskets from the reeds growing around the stream we used to keep our beer and stout warm. Her husband carves the lids and she paints them, and she sells them in Yarra Glen.” Bert reaches under the table and pushing his seat backwards, he stands up and places a picnic basket on the table. “So this is for you. It’s the picnic basket I brought back to the house, and then brought all the way from Australia for you. A belated Merry Christmas, big sister.”
Edith gasps and raises her hands to her mouth as a smile fills her face. The beautiful picnic hamper sitting proudly on the table has woven pale reed sides and two hinged lids on the top, both painted with stylised leaves and creamy yellow daisies.
“Oh Bert!” Edith gasps, as tears well in her eyes. “Oh it’s lovely!” She gets up and hurries over to her brother and embraces him. “Thank you so much!”
“I’m so glad you like it, Edith.” Bert replies. “I got more than a bit of ribbing from the other chaps on the sailing home. They took up calling me ‘Basket Bert’.”
“Oh they didn’t, Bert?” Edith cries. “I’m sorry.”
“Nothing for you be sorry for, Edith, but I afraid that I think it will stick,” Frank adds. “However it’s worth it, if you like the basket. I thought if things were still going well with Frank, you two might use it to go on a picnic in summer.”
“Oh, I will Bert!” Edith replies as she runs her hand along the thin and elegant handle. “It’s wonderful! Thank you so much!”
*The SS Demosthenes was a British steam ocean liner and refrigerated cargo ship which ran scheduled services between London and Australia via Cape Town. It stopped at ports including those in Sydney and Melbourne. She was launched in 1911 in Ireland for the Aberdeen Line and scrapped in 1931 in England. In the First World War she was an Allied troop ship.
**The original Caledonian Market, renown for antiques, buried treasure and junk, was situated in in a wide cobblestoned area just off the Caledonian Road in Islington in 1921 when this story is set. Opened in 1855 by Prince Albert, and originally called the Metropolitan Meat Markets, it was supplementary to the Smithfield Meat Market. Arranged in a rectangle, the market was dominated by a forty six metre central clock tower. By the early Twentieth Century, with the diminishing trade in live animals, a bric-a-brac market developed and flourished there until after the Second World War when it moved to Bermondsey, south of the Thames, where it flourishes today. The Islington site was developed in 1967 into the Market Estate and an open green space called Caledonian Park. All that remains of the original Caledonian Markets is the wonderful Victorian clock tower.
***Petticoat Lane Market is a fashion and clothing market in Spitalfields, London. It consists of two adjacent street markets. Wentworth Street Market and Middlesex Street Market. Originally populated by Huguenots fleeing persecution in France, Spitalfields became a center for weaving, embroidery and dying. From 1882, a wave of Jewish immigrants fleeing persecution in eastern Europe settled in the area and Spitalfields then became the true heart of the clothing manufacturing district of London. 'The Lane' was always renowned for the 'patter' and showmanship of the market traders. It was also known for being a haven for the unsavoury characters of London’s underworld and was rife with prostitutes during the late Victorian era. Unpopular with the authorities, as it was largely unregulated and in some sense illegal, as recently as the 1930s, police cars and fire engines were driven down ‘The Lane’, with alarm bells ringing, to disrupt the market.
****A charwoman, chargirl, or char, jokingly charlady, is an old-fashioned occupational term, referring to a paid part-time worker who comes into a house or other building to clean it for a few hours of a day or week, as opposed to a maid, who usually lives as part of the household within the structure of domestic service. In the 1920s, chars usually did all the hard graft work that paid live-in domestics would no longer do as they looked for excuses to leave domestic service for better paying work in offices and factories.
*****Believed to date from British colonial rule in India, and related to the Hindi expression “tickee babu”, meaning something like “everything's alright, sir”, “tickety-boo” means “everything is fine”. It was a common slang phrase that was popular in the 1920s.
******Islington Studios, often known as Gainsborough Studios, were a British film studio located on the south bank of the Regent's Canal, in Poole Street, Hoxton in Shoreditch, London which began operation in 1919. By 1920 they had a two stage studio. It is here that Alfred Hitchcock made his entrée into films.
*******Dame Nellie Melba was an Australian operatic lyric coloratura soprano. She became one of the most famous singers of the late Victorian era and the early Twentieth Century, and was the first Australian to achieve international recognition as a classical musician. She took the pseudonym "Melba" from Melbourne, her home town. Melba studied singing in Melbourne and made a modest success in performances there. After a brief and unsuccessful marriage, she moved to Europe in search of a singing career. She succeeded in London and Paris. Her repertoire was small; in her whole career she sang no more than 25 roles and was closely identified with only ten. She was known for her performances in French and Italian opera, but sang little German opera. She returned to Australia frequently during the Twentieth Century, singing in opera and concerts, and had a house, “Coombe Cottage” built for her in the Yarra Valley outside of Melbourne.
********A charabanc or "char-à-banc" is a type of horse-drawn vehicle or early motor coach, usually open-topped, more common in Britain, but also found in places like Australia during the early part of the Twentieth Century. It has benched seats arranged in rows, looking forward, commonly used for large parties, whether as public conveyances or for excursions.
This cluttered, yet cheerful domestic scene is not all it seems to be at first glance, for it is made up of part of my 1:12 size dollhouse miniatures collection. Some pieces come from my own childhood. Other items I acquired as an adult through specialist online dealers and artists who specialise in 1:12 miniatures.
Fun things to look for in this tableau include:
The central focus of our story, sitting on Ada’s table, is the wicker picnic basket that Bert brought home for Edith. In truth it is not Australian made, but was made by an unknown miniature artisan in America. The floral patterns on the top have been hand painted. The hinged lids lift, just like a real hamper, so things can be put inside.
In front of the basket stands Ada’s cottage ware teapot. Made by French ceramicist and miniature artisan Valerie Casson, it has been decorated authentically and matches in perfect detail its life-size Price Washington ‘Ye Olde Cottage Teapot’ counterparts. The top part of the thatched rood and central chimney form the lid, just like the real thing. Valerie Casson is renown for her meticulously crafted and painted miniature ceramics.
Surrounding the cottage ware teapot are non-matching teacups, saucers, a milk jug and sugar bowl, all of which have come from different miniature stockists both in Australia and the United Kingdom.
Sitting on the table in the foreground is a McVitie and Price’s Small Petite Beurre Biscuits tin, containing a selection of different biscuits. The biscuits were made by hand of polymer clay by former chef turned miniature artisan, Frances Knight. Her work is incredibly detailed and realistic, and she says that she draws her inspiration from her years as a chef and her imagination. McVitie's (Originally McVitie and Price) is a British snack food brand owned by United Biscuits. The name derives from the original Scottish biscuit maker, McVitie and Price, Ltd., established in 1830 on Rose Street in Edinburgh, Scotland. The company moved to various sites in the city before completing the St. Andrews Biscuit Works factory on Robertson Avenue in the Gorgie district in 1888. The company also established one in Glasgow and two large manufacturing plants south of the border, in Heaton Chapel, Stockport, and Harlesden, London (where Edith’s father works). McVitie and Price's first major biscuit was the McVitie's Digestive, created in 1892 by a new young employee at the company named Alexander Grant, who later became the managing director of the company. The biscuit was given its name because it was thought that its high baking soda content served as an aid to food digestion. The McVitie's Chocolate Homewheat Digestive was created in 1925. Although not their core operation, McVitie's were commissioned in 1893 to create a wedding cake for the royal wedding between the Duke of York and Princess Mary, who subsequently became King George V and Queen Mary. This cake was over two metres high and cost one hundred and forty guineas. It was viewed by 14,000 and was a wonderful publicity for the company. They received many commissions for royal wedding cakes and christening cakes, including the wedding cake for Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip and Prince William and Catherine Middleton. Under United Biscuits McVitie's holds a Royal Warrant from Queen Elizabeth II.
Edith’s black dyed straw hat with purple roses and black feathers was made by an unknown artisan. 1:12 size miniature hats made to such exacting standards of quality and realism are often far more expensive than real hats are. When you think that it would sit comfortably on the tip of your index finger, yet it could cost in excess of $150.00 or £100.00, it is an extravagance. American artists seem to have the monopoly on this skill and some of the hats that I have seen or acquired over the years are remarkable. This hat is part of a larger collection I bought from an American miniature collector Marilyn Bickel.
In the background you can see Ada’s dark Welsh dresser cluttered with household items. Like Ada’s table, the Windsor chair and the ladderback chair to the left of the photo, I have had the dresser since I was a child. The shelves of the dresser have different patterned crockery and silver pots on them which have come from different miniature stockists both in Australia and the United Kingdom. There are also some rather worn and beaten looking enamelled cannisters and a bread tin in the typical domestic Art Deco design and kitchen colours of the 1920s, cream and green. Aged on purpose, these artisan pieces I recently acquired from The Dolls’ House Shop in the United Kingdom. There are also tins of various foods which would have been household staples in the 1920s when canning and preservation revolutinised domestic cookery. Amongst other foods on the dresser are a tin of Macfie’s Finest Black Treacle, two jars of P.C. Flett and Company jam, a tin of Heinz marinated apricots, a jar of Marmite, some Bisto gravy powder, some Ty-Phoo tea and some Oxo stock cubes. All these items are 1:12 size artisan miniatures made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire, with great attention to detail paid to their labels and the shapes of their jars and cans.
Robert Andrew Macfie sugar refiner was the first person to use the term term Golden Syrup in 1840, a product made by his factory, the Macfie sugar refinery, in Liverpool. He also produced black treacle.
P.C. Flett and Company was established in Kirkwall in the Orkney Islands by Peter Copeland Flett. He had inherited a small family owned ironmongers in Albert Street Kirkwall, which he inherited from his maternal family. He had a shed in the back of the shop where he made ginger ale, lemonade, jams and preserves from local produce. By the 1920s they had an office in Liverpool, and travelling representatives selling jams and preserves around Great Britain. I am not sure when the business ceased trading.
The American based Heinz food processing company, famous for its Baked Beans, 57 varieties of soups and tinend spaghetti opened a factory in Harlesden in 1919, providing a great deal of employment for the locals who were not already employed at McVitie and Price.
Marmite is a food spread made from yeast extract which although considered remarkably English, was in fact invented by German scientist Justus von Liebig although it was originally made in the United Kingdom. It is a by-product of beer brewing and is currently produced by British company Unilever. The product is notable as a vegan source of B vitamins, including supplemental vitamin B. Marmite is a sticky, dark brown paste with a distinctive, salty, powerful flavour. This distinctive taste is represented in the marketing slogan: "Love it or hate it." Such is its prominence in British popular culture that the product's name is often used as a metaphor for something that is an acquired taste or tends to polarise opinion.
In 1863, William Sumner published A Popular Treatise on Tea as a by-product of the first trade missions to China from London. In 1870, William and his son John Sumner founded a pharmacy/grocery business in Birmingham. William's grandson, John Sumner Jr. (born in 1856), took over the running of the business in the 1900s. Following comments from his sister on the calming effects of tea fannings, in 1903, John Jr. decided to create a new tea that he could sell in his shop. He set his own criteria for the new brand. The name had to be distinctive and unlike others, it had to be a name that would trip off the tongue and it had to be one that would be protected by registration. The name Typhoo comes from the Mandarin Chinese word for “doctor”. Typhoo began making tea bags in 1967. In 1978, production was moved from Birmingham to Moreton on the Wirral Peninsula, in Merseyside. The Moreton site is also the location of Burton's Foods and Manor Bakeries factories. Typhoo has been owned since July 2021 by British private-equity firm Zetland Capital. It was previously owned by Apeejay Surrendra Group of India.
The first Bisto product, in 1908, was a meat-flavoured gravy powder, which rapidly became a bestseller in Britain. It was added to gravies to give a richer taste and aroma. Invented by Messrs Roberts and Patterson, it was named "Bisto" because it "Browns, Seasons and Thickens in One". Bisto Gravy is still a household name in Britain and Ireland today, and the brand is currently owned by Premier Foods.
Oxo is a brand of food products, including stock cubes, herbs and spices, dried gravy, and yeast extract. The original product was the beef stock cube, and the company now also markets chicken and other flavour cubes, including versions with Chinese and Indian spices. The cubes are broken up and used as flavouring in meals or gravy or dissolved into boiling water to produce a bouillon. Oxo produced their first cubes in 1910 and further increased Oxo's popularity.
The large kitchen range in the background is a 1:12 miniature replica of the coal fed Phoenix Kitchen Range. A mid-Victorian model, it has hinged opening doors, hanging bars above the stove and a little bass hot water tap (used in the days before plumbed hot water).
The light that rises from your feet to your hair,
the strength enfolding your delicate form,
are not mother of pearl, not chilly silver:
you are made of bread, a bread the fire adores.
The grain grew high in its harvest of you,
in good time the flour swelled;
as the dough rose, doubling your breasts,
my love was the coal waiting ready in the earth.
Oh, bread your forehead, your legs, your mouth,
bread I devour, born with the morning light,
my love, beacon-flag of the bakeries:
fire taught you a lesson of the blood;
you learned your holiness from flour,
from bread your language and aroma.
Pablo Neruda
texture by lenabemanna