Sometimes it is easier to find old Edo at night, when the spirits from days long ago gather to enjoy sake and laughter together....

 

Perhaps ghosts do walk the gardens and the rooms of Happō-en. Who knows? Located in the Shirokane area of Minato-ku, Tokyo, Happō-en is a beautiful place known more for hosting an endless stream of weddings and formal banquets.

 

Happō-en has a history dating to the early 1600s, when it was the villa for Okubo Hikozaemon, a trusted confidant and retainer of Shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu as well as his two successors. Afterwards, the villa served as a residence for the Shimazu clan from the domain of Satsuma in Kyushu and then served as a villa for Saigō Takamori for a period of time. Happō-en means “eight gardens” in Japanese and its main garden is truly a delight, especially in late March to early April, when the cherry trees are in bloom or in late November-early December, when its maples turn a fiery red.

Another projected with modified details is this Walthers Evens coil car with the new and long awaited fiberglass hoods. Walthers did make some much need changes to these cars featuring new grabs, new etched walkway and diecast body although some typical Walthers clunky details were still used which I replaced. The handbrake assembly and brake wheel were replaced, air reservoir replaced with new brackets, bleeder rod with brackets added, retainer valve and brake beams. Trucks were replaced with ExactRail 100ton with 0.088 36" wheels. Typical items, trainline and cut levers also added. I'll be doing some hood swapping later whenever this one makes to the weathering phase.

Tōshō-gū is dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate. It was initially built in 1617, during the Edo period, while Ieyasu's son Hidetada was shōgun. It was enlarged during the time of the third shōgun, Iemitsu. Ieyasu is enshrined there, where his remains are also entombed. This shrine was built by Tokugawa retainer Tōdō Takatora.

 

The shrine is an UNESCO world heritage site.

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikkō_Tōshō-gū

 

This mighty old Beech tree 'collects' all the weather around these parts. Shireoaks park, Nottinghamshire. This is in full colour.

Tōshō-gū is dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate. It was initially built in 1617, during the Edo period, while Ieyasu's son Hidetada was shōgun. It was enlarged during the time of the third shōgun, Iemitsu. Ieyasu is enshrined there, where his remains are also entombed. This shrine was built by Tokugawa retainer Tōdō Takatora.

 

The shrine is an UNESCO world heritage site.

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikkō_Tōshō-gū

 

Its that time of year when my yard wrens like to kick up the fallen leaves with their feet & beaks to look for bugs.

Carolina Wren (Thryothorus ludovicianus)

My photos can also be found at kapturedbykala.com

I can't think of a cute name for her so that's what she goes by. This is my little Tater Tot that I made on Jenova, based on one of Lily's retainer looks that I'd saved. She's so cute ♥

1st of May and time to photograph this 300 year old Beech tree It has finally turned green after a very cold spring.

Credits ♥︎

 

Sponsored:

Palette: Foodie Tee NEW @ ACCESS

Glam Affair: Nina Skin - Fair NEW @ UBER

NX-Nardcotix: Gale Sandal NEW @ UBER

 

Rest of Credits:

LeLUTKA: Ceylon Head 3.0 NEW @ Skin Fair

DOUX: Bloodline Hairstyle @ Mainstore

M.BIRDIE: Lozo Look - CARDIGAN - RARE + Skirt 7 + Eye Retainers 2 NEW @ Kustom9

 

For taxi links to stores & events, visit my blog ♥︎

Retaining bolt on one of several mine train trestles of the Ballard & Thompson Railroad, a spur from the Denver and Rio Grande Western built by the founders of the town to transport the coal. Sego Ghost Town, Sego Canyon, Grand County, Utah. More photos of Sego Ghost Town to come soon...

Outfit:

 

✿ CARDIGAN AND SKIRT: CHEEZU - Bianca Outfit

 

✿ GLASSES: M.BIRDIE - Eyewear Retainers Lozo Look

  

Body:

 

✿ Hair: DOUX - Silent Hairstyle

 

✿ Head: CATWA - Catya

 

✿ Skyn: PUMEC

The Orinoco Retainer System, otherwise known as "Straight Air" is a separate air brake system installed and used on the DM&IR's ore trains in conjunction with the Automatic and Dynamic Brakes. It's incredibly useful as it can be regulated like the independent, wherein you can put a little on and take a little off as necessary.

 

The descent down to the docks in Duluth from Proctor can usually be accomplished with a combination of straight air and dynamics, and by the time the train gets to us here at 40th Avenue in the Denfield neighborhood of Duluth the cars are squealing pretty good with only about a half mile of hill to go.

 

The 8am Proctor switch has a clean 40W leading, a CN engine equipped with straight air. A rumor is that the Missabe shop guys held back their knowledge of installing the straight air system from CN management after the takeover but instructions were eventually traded for a case of beer.

BLU T59 arrives at Enterprise just east of Sylva NC on the former Southern Railway Murphy Branch. This train has just descended Balsam Mountain Grade, which according to track charts peaks at 4.3%. Before going down the mountain they have to set retainers at Balsam, similar to what SOU & NS Crews had to do before going down the nearby Saluda Grade.

Knight and retainer by an Unknown artist/ craftsperson/ maker, dated to the1480s-1490s, Augsburg, Bavaria (in the South Australian Art Gallery).

 

I need to add some details but can't find my notes right now. I'll be back...

 

Later: Found my notes! These figures are paint and gesso on wood; and they were purchased by the Morgan Thomas Bequest Fund in 1950. An excellent investment!

 

[Unk_Knight+retainer_1480s-90s Augsburg_SAAG_IMG_3209]

A trio of C40-8s eases a train of Minntac chips and fines down Proctor Hill. I'm not sure if they set the retainers without straight air (older operating instructions would require retainers).

location : Kyoto Myoshin-ji Taizo-in temple ,Kyoto city,Kyoto prefecture Japan

 

京都　妙心寺塔頭　退蔵院にて

  

A kasa (笠) is any of several sorts of traditional hats of Japan.Some of the kasa hats are Amigasa, Jingasa, Sugegasa, Takuhatsugasa and Sandogasa. Amigasa is a traditional straw hat used in some Japanese folk dances. When preceded by a word specifying the type of hat, the word becomes gasa as in the jingasa (war hat).

 

One kind of kasa (Takuhatsugasa) for Buddhist monks is made overlarge, in a bowl or mushroom shape and is made from woven rice straw. It does not come to a point like a rice farmer's hat, nor ride high on the head like a samurai's traveling hat. It is just a big hat covering the upper half to two thirds of the face. Thus, it helps mask the identity of the monk and allows him to travel undistracted by sights around him on his journey.

 

The samurai class of feudal Japan as well as their retainers and footsoldiers (ashigaru) used several types of jingasa made from iron, copper, wood, paper, bamboo or leather.

 

Kasa shares its etymology with the Japanese word for "umbrella" (which is also pronounced "kasa", but written 傘).　-wikipedia

 

Takuhatsu

Takuhatsu (托鉢) is a traditional form of dāna or alms given to Buddhist monks in Japan.[1] In the practice of takuhatsu, monks travel to various businesses and residences in order to exchange chanting of sutras in Sino-Japanese (generating merit) for donations of food and money.

 

Monks generally wear traditional takuhatsu clothes reminiscent of medieval Japanese garb and wear the names of their monasteries on their satchels to confirm their identities. This system is used by Zen monks who are in training, to beg for their food. This is generally done in groups of ten to fifteen. The group goes through the street single-file, chanting Hō (法, dharma), and sympathizers come down and fill their alms bowls. This is the monks offering of the Dharma and their lives of guardians of the Dharma to the people. According to Zen tradition, the givers should be grateful.

　-wikipedia

   

Kishiwada Castle, located in Osaka, was built by Koide Hidemasa, a retainer of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, in 1582, near the site of where Kusunoki Masashige built a fort in the 1300s. In 1640, ownership of the castle was transferred to Okabe Norikatsu and the Okabe family maintained possession of the castle and the Kishiwada fief until the Meiji Restoration in 1868.

 

In 1827 lightning destroyed the castle’s main keep and much of the remaining part of the castle was destroyed during the fighting between the Tokugawa and Imperial forces during the civil strife associated with the Meiji Restoration. The current three-story ferroconcrete keep was built in 1954, but it has been confirmed that the original donjon was 5 stories. The moat and the outer stone walls are all that remain of the original castle. All other structures, including the gate, are reconstructions.

 

The renowned garden designer, Mirei Shigemori, constructed the Hachi Jin no Niwa rock garden in 1953 using chlorite schist from Okinoshima Island in Wakayama Prefecture and white sand from the Shirakawa River in Kyoto. He personally chose all the larger stones and arranged the garden based on the Chinese concept of the battle formation of the eight elements of heaven: earth, wind, clouds, dragons, tigers, birds and snakes.

location : Rakuhoku Renge-ji temple Kyoto city,Kyoto prefecture,Japan

 

京都　洛北 蓮華寺

  

Rakuhoku Renge-ji temple :

 

This temple belongs to the Tendai sect of Buddhism cowned with the mountain name of Kinyozan.

Shigenao imaeda( 今枝重直),a retainer of the Maeda Clan in Kaga,present Ishikawa pref.,entered the priesthood around period from 1661 to 1673. He built a residence here and spent his later years associating with such people as Jozan Ishikawa 石川丈山and Tanyu Kano狩野探幽.His groundson Chikayoshi今枝民部近義,who admire the virtuous Shigenao, transfered a temple from Hachijo-Shiokoji(元西八条塩小路附近)to this place in order to pray for the repose of his grandfather.　He made it as a sub-temple of the Enryakuji Jitsuzobo Temple延暦寺実蔵坊.

The principal statue enshrined in main hall is of Shakamuni Tothagata.Unique Rengeji temple-style tone lanterns with hexagonal shades and a monument commemorating Shigenao inscribed Tehsho-style calligraphy written by Jozan Ishikawa on top and passage composed by Jun-an Kinoshita are found on the grounds beautifully covered with moss.

The garden woth crane stone and turtle islands in the lake,an excellent example from Edo period(1603-1867)　　-Kyoto city

 

Canon EOS M5/ EF-M18-150mm f/3.5-6.3 IS STM/ f6.3 26.0 mm 1/15sec ISO800 manual exposure/manual focus /auto white balance /no crop

 

This temple has an explicit no-tripod policy, so tripods, including monopods, are usually prohibited.

   

Tōshō-gū is dedicated to Tokugawa Ieyasu, the founder of the Tokugawa shogunate. It was initially built in 1617, during the Edo period, while Ieyasu's son Hidetada was shōgun. It was enlarged during the time of the third shōgun, Iemitsu. Ieyasu is enshrined there, where his remains are also entombed. This shrine was built by Tokugawa retainer Tōdō Takatora.

 

The shrine is an UNESCO world heritage site.

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikkō_Tōshō-gū

 

This little cutie was in my yard under a bird feeder. Raking up the birdseed droppings to find bugs in the soft ground underneath. Good place for a robin to look for food. Juvenile robins have spots on their breast. This one is just starting to get its color but still has the yellow gape at the edge of its mouth.

Juvenile American Robin (Turdus migratorius)

My photos can also be found at kapturedbykala.com

Even in cold weather, sunshine tends to bring out critters. After a strong cold front, the winds calmed down & the sun came out. That's when I found this snail on my retainer wall.

Asian Tramp Snail (Bradybaena similaris)

My photos can also be found at kapturedbykala.com

Aboriginal History of Wilcannia:

 

Wilcannia is located on the Darling River, about halfway between Bourke and Wentworth. The river is known as Barka by the local Aboriginal people or Barkandji, literally people belonging to the Barka, and it is surrounded on all sides by Barkandji speaking people. The people from along the Barka and varying distances either side from near Bourke down to Wentworth all recognised the Barkandji language as their primary language, but they were divided into subgroups with different dialects of this one language. The Barkandji language is very different from all the neighbouring languages including the adjoining Ngiyampaa/Ngemba to the east, the Kulin, and Murray River languages to the south, and the Yardli and Thura-Yura language groups to the west and north.

 

Barkandji have a unique culture and depended heavily on the grinding or pounding of seeds on large grinding dishes or mortars and pestles, such as grass, portulaca, and acacia seeds. In the riverine areas, there is a strong emphasis on aquatic plant food tubers and corms, and fish, yabbies, turtles, mussels, and shrimps as well as water birds and their eggs. Insect foods were also important, such as parti or witchetty grubs along the rivers and creeks, and termite larvae in the Mallee country. Large and small canoes were cut out, necessitating ground edge axes, and string manufacture for fish nets, hunting nets, bags, and belts was an important part of the culture. The Wilcannia area still shows tangible evidence of traditional life in the form of canoe trees, coolamon trees, middens, heat retainer ovens, ashy deposits, stone tool quarries and artefacts.

 

Thomas Mitchell led the first exploring party to reach Wilcannia and gave the Barkandji their first unpleasant taste of what was to come. Mitchell travelled via the Bogan to the Darling River near Bourke and then down the river to Wilcannia then Menindee, reaching it in July 1835. Mitchell was harassed by Barkandji as he did not understand that he had to properly negotiate permission for use of water, grass, land to camp on etc., and in addition his men were abusing women behind his back and breaking all the rules. He gave them names such as the Fire Eaters and the Spitting Tribe as they tried to warn him off. His comments show that the Barkandji groups he met occupied "different portions of the river", and that they owned the resources in their territories including the water in the river. The exclusive possession enjoyed by the Barkandji and the need to obtain permission before using any of their resources is demonstrated by the following comment about the "Spitting Tribe" from the river near Wilcannia:

 

"The Spitting Tribe desired our men to pour out the water from their buckets, as if it had belonged to them; digging, at the same time a hole in the ground to receive it when poured out; and I have more than once seen a river chief, on receiving a tomahawk, point to the stream and signify that we were then at liberty to take water from it, so strongly were they possessed with the notion that the water was their own"

 

A hill 15 kilometres north of Wilcannia was named Mount Murchison by Mitchell and this became the name of the very large original station that included the location that was to become Wilcannia township.

 

In 1862 the area northwest of Mount Murchison Station was still frontier country with continual conflict. Frederic Bonney was based at Mount Murchison homestead and then nearby Momba homestead from 1865 to 1881 and he bluntly states in his notebooks that in this period "natives killed by settlers - shot like dogs"

 

Bonney recorded extensive detail about the lives, language, culture, and personalities of the Aboriginal people at Mount Murchison/Momba and left us with extremely significant series of photos of Aboriginal people taken in this period. He does not elaborate about the way the station was set up except for his comment above. Frederic Bonney not only respected and looked after the local people but he sympathised with them, worked with them, and respected them. The Bonney papers and photographs are a treasure of information about the Aboriginal people living there between 1865 and 1881. Bonney published a paper in 1884 but long after he had returned to England to live he campaigned for the better treatment of the Aboriginal people, and he tried to educate the public about the complexity of Aboriginal culture.

 

Bonney names about 44 individual Aboriginal people living at Momba in this period, and one group photo from the same period shows a total of 38 people. Descendants of some of the people Bonney describes still live in Wilcannia and surrounding areas today.

 

Aboriginal people worked on Moomba and Mount Murchison Station, and from very early times fringe camps grew up around Wilcannia. The land straight across the River from the Wilcannia post office was gazetted as an Aboriginal Reserve, and this became the nucleus of a very large fringe camp that grew into a substantial settlement spaced out along the river bank in the 1930s to the 1970s. By 1953 the Aboriginal Welfare Board had built a series of 14 barrack-like and inappropriately designed houses in an enlarged reserve, now an attractive tree lined settlement known as the Mission (although never a mission it was beside a Catholic School and clinic, thus the name). Today Aboriginal people are the majority of the population of the vibrant, creative, and culturally active town of Wilcannia, and the main users of the post office facilities.

 

Wilcannia History:

 

The first secure pastoralists at Mount Murchison were the brothers Hugh and Bushby Jamieson of Mildura Station on the Murray, who in 1856 took up Tallandra and Moorabin blocks, later extended with other blocks and named Mount Murchison Station. Captain Cadell's paddlesteamer Albury was the first to travel up the Darling, landing flour and other stores for the Jamiesons at Mount Murchison in February 1859. The Albury then loaded 100 bales of wool from their woolshed and brought it down to Adelaide. At this time there were no other stations on the Darling between Mt Murchison and Fort Bourke. A little later:

 

"An enterprising attempt has just been made by Mr. Hugh Jamieson, of Mount Murchison, to bring fat sheep speedily to Adelaide. Mr. Jamieson having chartered Captain Cadell's steamer, Albury, that vessel was prepared, and received on board at Mildura 550 fine fat sheep. These were landed at Moorundee last Tuesday, after a rapid passage of two days, all the sheep being in splendid condition when put ashore"

 

Jamiesons sold in 1864 to Robert Barr Smith and Ross Reid from Adelaide. The brothers Edward and Frederic Bonney were leasing some adjacent blocks and possibly worked at Mount Murchison for these owners. In 1875 they bought the Mount Murchison/Momba complex, one of the largest stations in New South Wale. In 1865 it was known as Mount Murchison, in 1881 it was all known as Momba, later splitting into smaller stations. The original Mount Murchison Station homestead block was also known as Head Station or Karannia, the Barkandji name for the area just north of the town near where the Paroo River comes into the Barka. The original Mount Murchison woolshed was located on what is now Baker Park, Wilcannia, which is adjacent to the current Post Office.

 

The site of Wilcannia was selected on Mount Murchison Station in 1864 by John Chadwick Woore, who was appointed Commissioner of Crown Lands of the Albert District in 1863 and was based at Wilcannia. The town was proclaimed in 1866 and in the 1870s it became a coaching centre for prospectors exploiting the region's gold, copper, silver, and opal resources, and the administrative, service, and shipping centre for the pastoral industry. Wilcannia was incorporated as a municipality in 1881, and around this time it became New South Wales biggest inland port and Australia's third largest inland port (after Echuca Victoria and Morgan South Australia). 'The Queen of the River' or 'Queen City of the West'. At the height of its prosperity around 1880, the town boasted a population of 3,000. According to the Register of the National Estate, during 1887 alone, 222 steamers took on 26,550 tonnes of wool and other goods at Wilcannia wharves. The value of goods coming down the Darling River in 1884 was 1,359,786 pounds, and included over 30,000 bales of wool. The customs house, another Wilcannia stone building now demolished, located immediately between the Post office and the river bank and wharfs, took 17,544 pounds in customs duties in 1889. Paddlesteamers gradually declined, particularly after the 1920s, although a few continued to trade up and down the river into the 1940's, still remembered by elderly Wilcannia residents.

 

Wilcannia in the 1870s and into the 1900s was the centre of the pastoral and mining boom of the far west of New South Wales, and it was the centre of the paddlesteamer river trade from the Upper Darling to the Murray River and outlets such as Adelaide and Melbourne. The frequent dry seasons and lack of water in the river led to other methods of transporting goods being used, such as camel trains, but when the water came down the river trade always returned. The river trade built Wilcannia's fine buildings, but it was also its undoing, as the New South Wales government intervened to reduce the river trade because goods were moving to and from Adelaide and Melbourne, not Sydney.

 

Plans to improve navigation on the river were suggested in 1859 after Captain Cadell's first successful voyage up the Darling that was followed by other paddlesteamers. Cadell gave evidence at a New South Wales Select Committee that the Darling would be become reliable for boats if a system of locks were built at very reasonable cost that would hold back water during the drier seasons. The plans to build locks along the Darling River to make navigation more consistent were investigated again and again, but were not realised because the New South Wales government believed trade would benefit Victoria and South Australia.

 

After the opening of the Sydney to Bourke railway line in 1885, Wilcannia lost its status as the major commercial centre of the Darling River. The trade from the far North West New South Wales then tended to go to the railhead at Bourke and straight to Sydney. There were plans in the 1880s for the railway to be run from Cobar to Wilcannia, however this plan was continuously put off. Plans for a railway to Wilcannia continued to be made throughout the 1890's and early 1900's, and including a proposal from Cobar to Broken Hill then linking to South Australia as the Great Western Railway. In 1907 "a large petition was forwarded to Sydney from Wilcannia for presentation to the Premier urging immediate construction of the Cobar-Wilcannia Railway, and subsequent extension to Broken Hill".

 

The New South Wales government attempt to stop trade leaking out of the state resulted in their refusal to build a railway to Wilcannia (as goods tended to go to Wilcannia and down the river), or to extend the railway to South Australia for the same reasons. The bend in the river on the north side of town celebrates this government intransigence by its name "Iron Pole Bend", the iron pole said to have been placed at the surveyed location of the proposed railway bridge. New South Wales eventually built a railway through the low population Ivanhoe route to the south of Wilcannia reaching Broken Hill in 1927, and even then it stopped at Broken Hill and did not join the South Australian line until 1970. The link between Broken Hill and the South Australian railway was provided from 1884 to 1970 by the narrow gauge private railway 'the Silverton Tramway', which also took trade from Wilcannia.

 

The combination of missing out on the railway and locking of the river, the severe drought on 1900 - 1901, and the damage to the pastoral economy by drought, rabbits, and over grazing, led to a down turn in Wilcannia's prospects, leaving the fine stone buildings such as the post office languishing as tangible reminders of a time when Wilcannia was known as the "Queen City of the West" and was the largest inland port in New South Wales and the third largest inland port in Australia.

 

Source: New South Wales Heritage Register

best to see it on even more black. thanks.

 

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this is my face. i was born with it.

 

at the age of about 13 i had to get glasses...

 

my mum thought i was making it up because glasses were supposedly 'cool' ahahaha. but i couldn't see the blackboard in school and got moved to the front of the class so i was in desperate need of a pair and fast.

 

i got an ugly gold pair (??? don't know why, i hate gold ahahaha) for like £7 :P ...then i got just plain thin black metal ones for about £30, they were ok.

 

but then i got cool kinda see threw black/grey ones for about £100 and had them for about 5 years until the point they were just so broken and scratched i couldn't see properly.

 

so then i got these bad boys in january and they cost me like £250 - the dearest pair yet. but they're scratch proof and sun glare reflectant so the original £65ish frame went up a fair bit :P but i love them soooo much.

 

i got my first (bottom) lip piercing when i was, hmmmm about 17 i think?! and my second (top) piercing when i was, gosh em, about 19? (man my memories bad these days ahahaha?).

 

i love my piercings. it's as if i was born with something missing and didn't feel like me until i got them done :D

 

and my teeth. oh man my teeth. what i had to go through to get those teeth. not that they're perfect, but come on. you guys shoulda seen them when i was younger.

 

at age about 9-10 years old i got 11 baby teeth taken out (in one go?!?!!!) to make room (i'm sure i've told you guys this before, but anyways). and i got blue spacers put in to push my teeth about a little.

 

then i got a top retainer and after a while got a bottom one too!!! i could hardly talk ahahaha.

 

then when i was older and my big teeth had grown in i got 4 big ones taken out in one go (argh! now that was painful) to make even more room in my mouth...

 

also at one point in my life, when i was on the dodgems/bumper cars in spain i bashed my face off the steering wheel. my mouth was gushing and i hit my new big tooth that was coming in. i bashed it that badly that it went wonky (making my teeth even worse than they already were) and didn't grow in fully for over a year!!!

 

man school was great growing up :P

 

so anyways...then in high school i got train tacks up top, and yup you guessed it, then down below too *ouch*

 

and after having them all through high school, in my final year, i got my train tracks taken out, yipeeee. but no wait then i got a fitted brace behind my front 4 teeth, that has to stay there for life. but it's broken a few times and my teeth have moved slightly (that's why i had to get a fitted one because no matter what i've had done in my life my teeth just wana move. constantly).

 

my fitted brace is actually broken just now, but it's been that way for ages without me realising. one of my front teeth has moved forward slightly, but you can only see it if you look at my from an angle. and even then i don't really care because man oh man you guys shoulda seen them before anything was ever done...

 

this is my face. i was born with it.

  

Not much to say today. :/

 

Another tag!

Five thoughts:

1. I wish I didn't have to wear a retainer. It makes my jaw ache so much..

2. I'm not your toy. You can't play with me. It may be fun to make me squirm a little but it's not so funny when it's you now is it?

3. I'm going to freak out next Wednesday when I go to take my drving test.

4. My sister gets away with way more than I ever did when I was her age..

5. Those girls from Toddlers and Tiaras are witchy and they wear more make up in one pageant than I have my whole life!

 

I apologize if you're annoyed with me tagging you. Just let me know if you don't like it.

With brake retainers set, the Cumbres & Toltec Scenic Railroad's Train 215, the daily westbound out of Antonito, drifts down the 4% grade just west of Cumbres Pass, approaching Coxo Crossing at Mile Post 332.75. With all of the heavy lifting done, the locomotive is set in what's known as a "drifting throttle", releasing just enough steam to keep the cylinders cooled and lubricated, but not enough to make any significant power. The crew focuses on maintaining a constant speed with periodic brake applications. During the hour-long, 2,000 vertical foot descent to Chama, NM, it is not unusual to see the safeties pop periodically as the engine is not using the steam it is making. The crews have also been known to execute firebox blow-downs to clear sediment build-up from the boiler's mud-ring. From a passenger's perspective, my most vivid memories of these descents can be summed up in two words: "brake dust." There is a lot of it!

Stokesay Castle, Craven Arms, Shropshire, UK

Stokesay Castle was constructed at the end of the 13th century by Laurence of Ludlow, who at the time was one of the richest men in England. It remains a treasure by-passed by time, one of the best places to visit in England to experience what medieval life was like. Stokesay Castle is a remarkable survival, a fortified manor house which has hardly altered since the late 13th century. The house was built by Lawrence Ludlow, a leading wool merchant of his day, who created a comfortable residence combining an aesthetically pleasing design with some defensive capabilities. In doing so, he took advantage of the newly established peace on the Welsh border following Edward I's defeat of the Welsh prince Llywelyn the Last. This enabled him to build a large hall, comfortable solar, or private apartment, with windows on the outside world, without fear of attack.

 

By good fortune Stokesay escaped destruction during the Civil War despite being involved in a skirmish. In the 19th century the castle was sympathetically restored and preserved, thanks to the enlightened efforts of several early conservationists. In the 1980s English Heritage carried out an extensive programme of repair.

Despite its name, Stokesay was not called a castle before the 16th century and is really a fortified manor house, more domestic in character than military. As with many early manor houses, the church and castle are now isolated, the village of which they were once the focal point having either moved or disappeared. The first records of Stokesay date from the period immediately following the Norman Conquest. William the Conqueror installed Roger Montgomery as earl of Shrewsbury, and he in turn granted Stokesay to one of his retainers, Roger de Lacy.

 

Taken in the New Otani Hotel's Garden in Tokyo.

The garden of the New Otani Hotel in Tokyo stands on the property that was once the primary yashiki (estate) of the great Sengoku period feudal lord, Katō Kiyomasa (1562-1611). Kiyomasa was a trusted retainer and general of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the warlord who unified Japan in the wake of Oda Nobunaga’s assassination in 1582. Kiyomasa rose to fame during the battle of Shizugatake and soon found himself at the vanguard of many of Hideyoshi’s campaigns, including the invasion of Korea in 1592, in which Kiyomasa’s reputation as a master tactician, fierce fighter, castle builder and as a cruel man grew. To this day, the mere mention of Kiyomasa’s name in Korea is sure to bring a frown. Although loyal to the Toyotomi, if there was one thing that Kiyomasa hated more than Christianity and poor martial spirit among the samurai, it was Ishida Mitsunari, leader of the Western coalition of daimyo that opposed the rise of Tokugawa Ieyasu. It was this hatred of Mitsunari that drove Kiyomasa into the Tokugawa camp where he played a pivotal role in the Kyushu theater of the Sekigahara campaign in 1600. As a result of his service, Kiyomasa was rewarded by becoming one of the elite daimyo who were allowed to build his Edo estate near the shogun’s castle in the upscale area that became known as Kioi-cho, named after the elite Kii Tokugawa, Owari Tokugawa and Ii daimyo families that kept their residences in this area.

 

As Kiyomasa was loyal to the house of Toyotomi and as a final showdown between the Tokugawa and Toyotomi grew, the Tokugawa began to have their doubts about where Kiyomasa’s ultimate loyalty rested. Fearful of having to face this fierce and influential warlord on the opposing side of the battlefield when the fighting would inevitably erupt in 1615, it has been suggested that the Tokugawa had him poisoned. Shortly after the fall of the Toyotomi, Kiyomasa’s son was accused of disloyalty (most likely a trumped up charge) and the family’s fief in Kumamoto, Kyushu was seized by the shogunate and the clan was abolished. Soon after this, the grounds of the Katō estate in Tokyo were given to the Ii family.

 

When the New Otani Hotel was constructed, it was decided to keep the traditional Japanese garden intact. Today the garden covers more than 10 acres and has over 800 trees, 10,000 flowering plants, ponds, a waterfall, and 42 stone lanterns, many of which date back from the Edo (1603-1868) and the Kamakura (1192-1333) periods.

A pair of GE's ginerly lead manifest train 401 out of Stephen as it begins it's decent down the big hill. However between Cathedral and Field the train went into emergency resulting in the crew having to set retainers on 75% of the loaded cars.

Stone retainer

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 at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie. Lettice is visiting her family home for Christmas and has stayed on to celebrate New Year’s Eve with them as well. She motored down to Wiltshire with her old childhood chum, Gerald, also a member of the aristocracy who has tried to gain some independence from his family by designing gowns from a shop in Grosvenor Street. His family, the Brutons, are neighbours to the Cheywynds with their properties sharing boundaries. That is how Gerald and Lettice came to be such good friends. However, whilst both families are landed gentry with lineage going back centuries, unlike Lettice’s family, Gerald’s live in a much smaller baronial manor house and are in much more straitened circumstances.

 

Christmas has been and gone, and with it, Lettice’s elder sister Lalage (known to everyone in the family by the diminutive Lally), her husband Charles and their children and Lettice’s Aunt Eglantine, leaving the house emptier and significantly quieter, especially in the absence of the children. It is New Year’s Eve 1921, and nearly midnight as we find ourselves in the very grand and elegant drawing room of Glynes with its gilt Louis and Palladian style furnishings where Lettice has gathered with her father, mother, Leslie, Gerald and his parents Lord and Lady Bruton. Bramley, the Chetwynd’s butler has just delivered two bottles of champagne from the Glynes’ well stocked cellar which now chill in silver coolers and champagne glasses for everyone on a silver tray.

 

“Thank you Bramley,” the Viscount acknowledges his faithful retainer. “Will you stay and have a glass of champagne with us?”

 

“Thank you, My Lord.” he replies. “That’s most generous of you. However, we are having a small celebration of our own below stairs.”

 

“Well, I hope you’ve chosen a good vintage for everyone to enjoy, Bramley.”

 

“Very good of you, My Lord. There seemed to be a surplus of Deutz and Geldermann 1902 according to my records.”

 

“Very good Bramley.” the Viscount beams. “Well, happy New Year to you and all the staff.”

 

“Thank you My Lord.” replies the butler. Turning to the wider room where Lady Sadie and Lady Gwyneth are settled on the Louis style settee, Lord Bruton on the embroidered salon chair by the fire and Lettice and Gerald standing by the fireplace he announced in his deep burbling voice, “Happy New Year my lords, ladies and gentlemen.”

 

“Oh, happy new year, Bramley,” Lady Sadie replies, giving him one of her crisp, yet not ungenuine smiles. “Please pass our very best new year wishes to all the staff, won’t you?”

 

“I will My Lady,” Bramley replies as he retreats through the double doors of the salon, leaving the family and their select few guests to enjoy their celebrations in private.

 

“Not long to go now, everyone!” Lord Wrexham announces excitedly, spying the face of the Rococo clock on the mantelpiece between Lettice and Gerald’s conspiring figures as they lean against the mantle languidly. “Just another few minutes until it is nineteen twenty-two!”

 

“Shall we gather then, Chetwynd?” mutters Lord Bruton as he struggles to raise himself from the elegantly petit-point covered gilt salon chair, groaning as his wiry frame returns to an upright position. “Come on old gal!” he calls good naturedly to his wife as he reaches out a hand to help her rise.

 

“A little less of the old if you don’t mind!” Lady Gwyneth chides her husband, yet with a playful smile, as she takes his hand firmly. She releases a rather wheezing cough as she struggles to get to her feet.

 

Lettice looks over at her friend’s mother as she wobbles a little as she tries to regain her balance. Lady Gwenyth’s health has been in gradual decline over the last year, but the winter of 1921 in particular has taken the glow from her apple half cheeks, and as she wraps her elegant, if somewhat old fashioned Edwardian beaded evening gown around her, Lettice observes for the first time how much weight she has lost. With a full bosom and curvaceous hips, Lady Gwyneth was the height of femininity before the war, yet now that soft, doughy roundness that Lettice found so comforting as a child when enveloped in one of her all embracing cuddles, has been replaced by a somewhat sharper, more angular figure, that even the flowing lines of a Lucile* gown cannot completely smother in romantic swathes of satin and tulle.

 

“Are you alright, Lady Gwyneth?” Lettice asks in concern.

 

“Just the remnants of that chest cold I had last month, my dear. And what is this ‘Lady Gwyneth’ business, Lettice?” the older matron asks, giving Lettice a rather surprised look. “Since when have you become so grown up that I am no longer Aunt Gwen?”

 

Lettice feels a flush of embarrassment rise up her neck and fill her cheeks as she chuckles awkwardly.

 

“Mamma,” Leslie reaches down and offers his mother his hand to help her rise from the settee.

 

“Children are always so anxious to grow up,” Lady Sadie replies and looking over to her daughter and friend’s son. “And make their own decisions.”

 

“Well, a bit of independence living up in London hasn’t done Gerald any harm.” Lord Bruton blusters, turning and giving his son a slap on the back that makes the slender young man buckle forward and elicit a cough of his own.

 

“Yes, well,” Lady Sadie replies noncommittally, giving her daughter an appraising stare through narrowed, scrutinising eyes, which suggests that she does not feel the same about Lettice’s own levels of independence. She turns back to her eldest son and pats his hand kindly. “Thank you my dear. You are a good boy.” Then returning her gaze to her daughter, she continues, “The ability to self-govern and make decisions is far more attractive in a gentleman than a lady.” She emphasises the last word, her eyes growing almost imperceptibly wider, before turning to her husband.

 

“Oh I don’t know, Sadie,” her husband counters. “I rather like a bit of pluck in a girl.” He looks at his youngest daughter and gives her a beatific smile. “Why just look at Eglantine.”

 

“Yes let’s,” mutters Sadie disapprovingly as she fusses with the long rope of pearls about her neck. “She’s an unmarried artist in her fifties who lives in Maida Vale.”

 

“Little Venice**, Sadie,” the Viscount protests. He gives his wife a wounded glance. “Be kind.”

 

“And Aunt Eggy is an exhibited artist.” Leslie adds proudly. “At the Royal Academy*** no less.”

 

“Yes, well,” mutters Lady Sadie again.

 

Not wishing to engage in her mother’s conversation, Lettice turns to Gerald purposefully and asks, “So where is Rowland tonight, since he deigned to turn down Pater’s invitation this evening? It must be something special for him not to eat someone else’s good food and drink their quality champagne.”

 

Gerald glances anxiously across at his parents as they gather with Lettice’s parents and Leslie as they mill around the gilded tea table where the Viscount pops a bottle of champagne to a smattering of laughter and applause. Lowering his voice and sinking it closer to his friend Gerald says, “You have my big brother pegged well, darling. However, it’s not so much something, as someone.”

 

Lettice’s eyes grow wide. “Who Gerald? I didn’t think he liked any of the Huntington girls.”

 

“I think you need to lower your expectations, Lettuce Leaf.” Gerald replies.

 

"Don't call me that Gerald. You know I hate it." She slaps him playfully on the forearm for using her much hated childhood nickname.

 

"I know darling, but you are so easily baited."

 

“Whatever do you mean, ‘lower my expectations’, Gerald?”

 

“Well, let’s just say that he is down at The George tonight.” Gerald elucidates.

 

“Not Mr. Partridge’s daughter, Becky?” Lettice’s eyes grow round in shock. “But she’s the…”

 

“The barmaid,” Gerald finishes her sentence for her. “Yes, I know. But Mater and Pater don’t, so please don’t say anything.”

 

“As if I would, Gerald!” Lettice replies, raising a hand to her throat as she feels the warmth of a fresh flush again. “Mind you, Glynes is only a small village. News is bound to reach your parents if he is being so indiscreet.”

 

“I know. I know.” Gerald flaps his hands distractedly. “I’ve told him that he’s playing with fire. Mater and Pater think he’s at a New Year’s Eve party at the Fenton’s.”

 

“Well at least he is smart enough there. The Fentons are far enough away that Aunt Gwen is unlikely to make enquiries. But Becky works in her father’s pub, and The George is the heart of the village, and he’ll be the subject of gossip in no time.”

 

Gerald raises his hands in defence. “I can’t do any more than I already have. You know how Roland’s head is turned by a pretty face.”

 

“Yes,” Lettice muses. “Like Lionel. Let’s hope that Rowland doesn’t get Becky in the family way like Lionel did our first parlour maid. I don’t think your parents can afford to pack Rowland off to Kenya, like my parents did Lionel, nor bribe the mother-to-be with hush money.”

 

“Good heavens no. They can’t afford to patch the roof of Bruton Hall, never mind buy Rowland a farm outside of Nairobi.” Gerald agrees. “Besides, unlike Lionel, Rowland is the heir. What would have your parents done if it had been Leslie?”

 

Lettice looks over at her eldest brother, who catches her eye with an imploring look as he is accosted by their mother and Lady Gwyneth. “Luckily, we don’t need to find out. Leslie is taking his duties as the heir to Glynes very seriously, and his character is beyond reproach.”

 

“What are you two whispering about over there?” the Viscount calls over to Gerald and Lettice.

 

“Plotting the downfall of the establishment, piece by piece,” Leslie suggests playfully, gratefully breaking away from the two matrons to join his father’s conversation.

 

“We are doing no such thing, Leslie!” Lettice laughs.

 

“Well, whatever it is, stop being rude and come over here and whisper your intrigues to all of us,” Viscount Wrexham replies. “It’s nearly midnight.”

 

Lettice and Gerald walk across the old carpet and join the others, accepting a flute of sparking champagne from Viscount Wrexham as they gather about the gilded tea table with the others.

 

“Now,” Lord Wrexham begins in a commanding tone. “What are your New Year wishes, everyone?” He looks about the faces of the company gathered together. “Bruton? What’s yours?”

 

Lord Bruton looks up at his neighbour. “Well, it’s frightfully dull and practical, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say I wanted the roof of Brunton Hall mended.”

 

“Capital idea!” the Viscount replies, raising his glass cheerfully. “Nothing wrong with a practical wish. Gwyneth?”

 

“Oh I think I want what most mothers want for their children, Cosmo,” She looks firstly at Leslie, then Lettice and finally her younger son Gerald with a warm, if slightly tired smile. “Their happiness.”

 

“Well, I will concur with that,” adds Lady Sadie animatedly. “I wish for a successful Hunt Ball this year.” She glares at Lettice, who quickly disengages from her mother’s gaze and glances at the rich patterning of the carpet.

 

“Well, we are all looking forward to that Sadie,” Gwyneth enthuses. “It will be the event of the county calendar I’m sure.”

 

“Leslie?” the Viscount asks.

 

“A successful cattle sale with record prices, Father.” Leslie replies, raising his own glass.

 

“Well, I’ll second that, my boy!” Viscount Wrexham replies, raising his glass once again.

 

“I’m hoping for further success as a result of Margot’s wedding dress,” Gerald pipes up, glancing quickly at his father, who gives him somewhat of a hostile look which causes him to turn promptly to his mother, who smiles proudly at him. “I’ve already got three new clients as a result of the photos in Vogue.”

 

“See?” Lady Gwyneth says, opening her arms expansively as she looks around at the others. “What did I tell you? Happiness, that’s what we wish for.”

 

“Happiness and success,” Lettice adds. Looking across at her mother she expands with a steely determination in her voice. “Success in whatever form it comes.”

 

“Very good, my girl!” the Viscount raises his glass again. “Now, it’s midnight. Raise your glasses!”

 

The clock on the mantle chimes midnight prettily, in the distance somewhere, a church bell rings out across the quiet night and the muffled sound of cheers drift up from the servant’s quarters.

 

“Happy New Year!” Viscount Wrexham cheers. “Happy nineteen twenty-two!”

 

“Happy nineteen twenty-two!” everyone echoes as they raise their glasses and clink them together happily.

 

*Lucile – Lucy, Lady Duff Gordon was a leading British fashion designer in the late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Centuries who use the professional name Lucile. She was the originator of the “mannequin parade”, a pre-cursor to the modern fashion parade, and is reported to have been the person to first use the word “chic” which she then popularised. Lucile is also infamous for escaping the Titanic in a lifeboat designed for forty occupants with her husband and secretary and only nine other people aboard, seven being crew members.

 

**Little Venice is a district in West London, England, around the junction of the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal, the Regent's Canal, and the entrance to Paddington Basin. The junction forms a triangular shape basin. Many of the buildings in the vicinity are Regency white painted stucco terraced town houses and taller blocks (mansions) in the same style.

 

***The Royal Academy of Arts (RA) is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly in London. Founded in 1768, it has a unique position as an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects. Its purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and appreciation of the visual arts through exhibitions, education and debate.

 

This festive upper-class scene is not all that it may appear to be, for it is made up entirely of pieces from my 1:12 miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The champagne glasses are 1:12 artisan miniatures. Made of glass, they have been blown individually by hand by Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering and are so fragile and delicate that even I with my dainty fingers have broken the stem of one. They stand on an ornate Eighteenth Century style silver tray made by Warwick Miniatures in Ireland, who are well known for the quality and detail applied to their pieces. The two wine coolers are also made by Warwick Miniatures. The Deutz and Geldermann champagne bottles are also an artisan miniature and made of glass with a miniature copy of a real Deutz and Geldermann label and some real foil wrapped around their necks. It was made by Little Things Dollhouse Miniatures in Lancashire. Even the ice blocks in the coolers are made to scale and also came from Beautifully Handmade Miniatures in Kettering. The gilt tea table in the foreground of the photo on which they all stand is made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.

 

The Chetwynd Christmas tree, beautifully decorated by Lettice, Harold and Arabella with garlands, tinsel, bows golden baubles and topped by a sparking gold star is a 1:12 artisan piece. It was hand made by husband and wife artistic team Margie and Mike Balough who own Serendipity Miniatures in Newcomerstown, Ohio.

 

The Palladian console table behind the Christmas tree, with its two golden caryatids and marble top, is one of a pair that were commissioned by me from American miniature artisan Peter Cluff. Peter specialises in making authentic and very realistic high quality 1:12 miniatures that reflect his interest in Georgian interior design. His work is highly sought after by miniature collectors worldwide. This pair of tables are one-of-a-kind and very special to me.

 

The gilt chair to the right of the photo is made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq, but what is particularly special about it is that it has been covered in antique Austrian floral micro petite point by V.H. Miniatures in the United Kingdom, which also makes this a one-of-a-kind piece. The artisan who made this says that as one of her hobbies, she enjoys visiting old National Trust Houses in the hope of getting some inspiration to help her create new and exciting miniatures. She saw some beautiful petit point chairs a few years ago in one of the big houses in Derbyshire and then found exquisitely detailed petit point that was fine enough for 1:12 scale projects.

 

The elegant ornaments that decorate the surfaces of the Chetwynd’s palatial drawing room very much reflect the Eighteenth Century spirit of the room.

 

On the console table made by Peter Cluff stands a porcelain pot of yellow and lilac petunias which has been hand made and painted by 1:12 miniature ceramicist Ann Dalton. It is flanked by two mid Victorian (circa 1850) hand painted child’s tea set pieces. The sugar bowl and milk jug have been painted to imitate Sèvres porcelain.

 

On the bombe chest behind the Louis settee stand a selection of 1950s Limoges miniature tea set pieces which I have had since I was a teenager. Each piece is individually stamped on its base with a green Limoges stamp. In the centre of these pieces stands a sterling silver three prong candelabra made by an unknown artisan. They have actually fashioned a putti (cherub) holding the stem of the candelabra. The candles that came with it are also 1:12 artisan pieces and are actually made of wax.

 

The sette, which is part of a three piece Louis XV suite of the settee and two armchairs was made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, JBM.

 

The Hepplewhite chair with the lemon satin upholstery you can just see behind the Christmas tree was made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq.

 

All the paintings around the Glynes drawing room in their gilded frames are 1:12 artisan pieces made by Amber’s Miniatures in the United States and V.H. Miniatures in the United Kingdom, and the wallpaper is an authentic copy of hand-painted Georgian wallpaper of Chinese lanterns from the 1770s.

 

The Persian rug on the floor has been woven by Pike, Pike and Company in the United Kingdom.

.. now gone.

 

Explore #44! HBW friends! Be back to comment on your BW shots later. Going to the dentist to get my retainers. My braces got taken out last saturday!

 

Model - Abby

Photography, Direction and Post-production - Me

Styling - Me

Make-up - Me

Location - An old tennis court

 

Processed with my vintage action. (#3)

  

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 at Glynes, the grand Georgian family seat of the Chetwynds in Wiltshire, and the home of Lettice’s parents, the presiding Viscount and Countess of Wrexham and the heir, their eldest son Leslie and his wife Arabella. Lettice is visiting her family home for Christmas. She motored down to Wiltshire with her old childhood chum, Gerald, also a member of the aristocracy who has tried to gain some independence from his family by designing gowns from a shop in Grosvenor Street. His family, the Brutons, are neighbours to the Cheywynds with their properties sharing boundaries. That is how Gerald and Lettice came to be such good friends. However, whilst both families are landed gentry with lineage going back centuries, unlike Lettice’s family, Gerald’s live in a much smaller baronial manor house and are in much more straitened circumstances.

 

It is Christmas Day 1922, and we find ourselves in the very grand and elegant drawing room of Glynes with its gilt Louis and Palladian style furnishings where the Viscount is indulging in his favourite activity as lord of the manor on Christmas Day, handing out the gifts that have been stacked beneath the splendidly decked out Christmas tree to his family. At his feet, Lettice’s elder sister Lalage’s (known to everyone in the family by the diminutive Lally) children Harrold and Annabelle, squeal with delight as noisily, beautiful wrapping and carefully tied fat satin bows are torn asunder hurriedly to reveal wonderful toys. Lady Sadie sits in her usual armchair next to the fire, dressed splendidly in a pastel coloured crêpe de chine day gown with ropes of pearls about her neck and cascading down her front, not unlike Queen Mary, sipping champagne from a fine crystal flute, enjoying playing hostess to her family. Charles, Lally’s husband sits in a matching armchair diagonally across from Sadie, watching his children with delight as they open their presents, nursing a brandy in his right hand. Lettice’s eldest brother Leslie is snuggled up with his new wife Arabella on one of the two facing Louis Quinze sofas, whilst Lettice and Lally sit on the sofa opposite them, closest to the Christmas tree. The Viscount’s younger bohemian artist sister, Eglantine (known lovingly by Lettice and her siblings as Aunt Egg), always a restless spirit, wanders the room, smoking her favourite Black Russian cigarettes through a holder, never quite settling as she thinks her own thoughts whilst also engaging sporadically with her family when it suits her. None of the family’s faithful retainers are present, as the tradition is that servants are given Christmas Day off after breakfast until the late afternoon, when they return and prepare to serve the family’s Christmas dinner in the Glynes dining room.

 

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” booms the Viscount jovially as he withdraws a long parcel wrapped in holly patterned paper tied up with a gold ribbon. “What have we here?” He shakes it slightly, making the contents rattle metallically. He squints as he reads the tag attached to the bow. “A present for Master Harrold from Auntie Tice!” He smiles magnanimously at his grandson and rubs his hair lovingly as he hands the parcel over to Harrold.

 

“Ripping!” cries Harrold as he opens Lettice’s gift and finds two beautifully painted jousting lead knights on horseback. “Thanks ever so, Aunt Tice!”

 

“You’re welcome, darling!” Lettice says from the gilded sofa next to the Christmas tree, accepting the big hug and kiss he bestows on her, carefully holding her glass of champagne aloft.

 

“Careful Harrold dear!” Lally chides her son softly as sitting beside her sister, she indicates to Lettice’s glass. “Auntie Tice doesn’t want her champagne to go all over Grandmamma’s sofa.”

 

“No indeed, she does not!” quips Lady Sadie crisply, champagne flute poised to her lips.

 

“Oh don’t be crabby Sadie,” scolds the Viscount with a crumpled brow as he settles back into the high backed gilded salon chair embroidered in petit point tapestry by his mother. “It’s Christmas!”

 

“Christmas or not Cosmo, my father gave us this set as part of my dowery.” Sadie retorts, sipping the champagne in a superior fashion in her glass.

 

“And don’t we all know it!” Cosmo rolls his eyes as he replies.

 

“I didn’t Pappa,” Lettice admits. “Until last Christmas, when we were decorating the tree in here and Lally told me so. And now I know why you like the Christmas tree in here to be decorated to match the furnishings.”

 

“Oh you girls! What nonsense!” Lady Sadie scoffs, but the awkward way she goes noticeably silent and turns to gaze into the roaring fire in the white marble fireplace tells everyone present that that that is the exact reason why she has the tree dressed in gold and cream every year.

 

“Here, hold this.” Lettice hands her glass to her sister before proceeding to envelop her eight year old nephew. “You’re welcome darling boy! Merry Christmas!”

 

“Merry Christmas!” he replies joyfully. “How did you know that I wanted some knights, Auntie Tice?” Harrold asks, his voice full of enthusiasm as Lettice releases him and he sinks back down to the floor where he sets the jousting knights up.

 

“Oh, I keep an ear out.” she replies knowingly, giving him a mockingly serious look that makes him laugh.

 

“You can’t say anything around your Aunt Tice without her paying attention to it.” laughs Lally as she hands Lettice back her champagne flute. “She’s always been the most observant of us, hasn’t she Leslie?”

 

“Always.” Leslie agrees with a smile.

 

Turning to her sister Lally adds, making her own adroit observation, “Harrold’s getting a very nice collection of lead soldiers and the like between gifts from you, Pappa and Father Christmas.” She looks with an indulgent smile at the other cavalry lead soldiers her son has been given as he sets them up amongst the detritus of discarded brightly coloured paper and ribbons.

 

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” booms the Viscount with gusto as he delves beneath the branches of the tree. “Who’s next then?”

 

“It was good of Pappa to put up a Christmas tree in the entrance hall for Harrold and Belle this year.” Lally remarks to Lettice as she smiles watching her father fossick through the beautifully wrapped gifts.

 

“Well, he could hardly refuse, could he?” Lettice replies. “With you joining the chorus from the children after we let it slip last Christmas.” She giggles as she puts her glass to her lips. “I don’t think Pappa could stand the din.”

 

“When the carol singers came up from the village last night and Pappa invited them in for brandy and to warm themselves by the fire in the entrance hall and enjoy the big Christmas tree all covered in tinsel, baubles and lighted candles, it was just like the Christmases before the war.”

 

“Yes, it was rather.”

 

“Oh! This is for Belle from Auntie Tice!” the Viscount announces.

 

“For me, Pappa?” Arabella pipes up, popping her head up queryingly from her husband’s shoulder where she has been contentedly snuggled next to him.

 

“No, not you, Bella,” Leslie says with an indulgent smile and a calming pat to her hands, encouraging her to lower her head back to where her had been snuggling lovingly against it. “Belle.” He nods in the general direction of his niece.

 

“No! It’s me, Auntie Bella!” exclaims Annabelle, spinning around excitedly in her pretty pale yellow Jean Lanvin* lace trimmed frock. “It’s for me! For me!”

 

“It really is too awful of you, Leslie, marrying a girl with a name so similar to Annabelle.” laughs Lally good heartedly.

 

“Oh, sorry Lally darling. I’ll pick a more appropriately named wife next time.” Leslie replies, the apology rewarded with a kittenish slap to his forearm from his giggling new wife who accuses him playfully of wanting a second wife when they have been married barely a month.

 

“They do look happy.” Lally remarks to Lettice as she leans in conspiratorially towards her. “I’m glad that Leslie finally decided to marry Bella.”

 

“Yes, as Gerald said at the wedding,” Lettice replies looking over at her brother and his new bride so deeply in love on the sofa opposite. “They are both country folk. She loves riding and is interested in, and I quote, ‘animal husbandry and all that awfully dirty estate business’.”

 

A peal of laughter erupts from Lally’s lips. “Oh Gerald does have a way with words. Is he up at the Hall?”

 

“Yes, with his parents and Roland.”

 

“Oh, that will be a rather dour Christmas I suspect. That wastrel Roland is almost as bad as Lionel.”

 

“And thank god Lionel isn’t here for Christmas, in spite of Aunt Egg’s protestations.” Lettice observes quietly. She looks to her beloved aunt drifting distractedly about the room, leaving a trail of cigarette smoke curlicues in her wake, her aqua satin gown cascading round her elegantly as she moves.

 

“And he didn’t create any more potential scandal whilst he was here, mercifully.” adds Lally, taking a gulp of champagne from her glass at the mere thought of their horrible sibling, detested by the whole family except for Aunt Egg.

 

“At least Leslie and Bella’s wedding seems to have taken the pressure off me, for the time being at least.” Lettice whispers quietly to Lally. “With so much attention on the wedding, Mater has hardly had time to focus on little old me.”

 

“Oh poor you!” mocks Lally sarcastically, her eyes glittering with mirth. “How are things going with the dashing young Selwyn?”

 

“Oh, you know,” Lettice answers, shrugging her shoulders. “Fits and starts.”

 

“You know,” Lally says kindly. “If the love isn’t there, you shouldn’t try and force it, no matter what Mamma says or wants. I’ve given her several grandchildren, and no doubt Leslie and Bella will add to the brood in no short amount of time.”

 

“Oh it isn’t that.” Lettice assures her sister. “Selwyn and I are very fond of one another.”

 

“There peals the chime of an unfinished thought.” Lally remarks knowledgably.

 

“A teddy!” squeals Anabelle shrilly in sheer delight, breaking the conversation between the two Chetwynd sisters.

 

Tearing aside the shiny gold paper the Harrod’s toy department Christmas wrappers had so carefully stuck around the soft caramel coloured bear, Arabella pulls out the large, floppy limbed toy and holds him up, scrutinising his smiling embroidered face and shiny amber glass eyes, before enveloping him in the embrace of her chubby arms and planting loving kisses on his cheeks and stitched mouth.

 

“Oh! What a grand choice, darling!” Lally approves. “You will be the favourite with both my angels today.”

 

“Oh what a lovely gift, Lettice,” Charles remarks from his armchair where he cradles a glass of port. Looking at his daughter cuddling the stuffed bear almost as big as herself he says, “What do you say to Auntie Tice?”

 

“Thank you Auntie Tice!” Annabelle says.

 

“You’re welcome darling! Merry Christmas!”

 

“I‘m sure Auntie Tice deserves a cuddle for such a splendid gift, Belle.” her mother adds.

 

“A perfect choice. I don’t know how you do it.” Charles remarks as Lettice is enveloped by her niece who gives her a big hug.

 

“It helps when you live around the corner from Harrods, Charles darling.” Lally remarks, looking to her husband. “Then you don’t have to rely on the Army and Navy Stores** catalogue.”

 

“My mother did perfectly well for Christmases for us out of the Army and Navy Stores catalogue when we lived in India!” Charles defends his choice of present sourcing.

 

“But we don’t live in India,” Lally laughs. “We live in Buckinghamshire, which is far more civilised, and within reach of London by rail. And anyway, nothing the children actually wanted was in that wretched old fashioned catalogue.” Turning back to her sister she continues. “And I’m very grateful for all your help, Tice, organising my requests for Christmas gifts for the children.”

 

“It’s my pleasure.”

 

“Ho! Ho! Ho!” says the Viscount. “Who’s next?” He delves into the slowly diminishing pile of gifts beneath the tree. “Oh! It’s for Grandmamma from Grandpappa!” he says jovially as he passes over a small square gift wrapped in red paper tied with an ornate cascade of white ribbons to his wife.

 

“Oh Cosmo!” Lady Sadie gasps, her face flushing with embarrassment at suddenly being the centre of attention as she gratefully accepts his gift from his extended hand.

 

“Merry Christmas my dear.” the Viscount replies kindly, giving her a discreet wink, which causes her to blush even more.

 

“Oh Cosmo! It’s beautiful!” Lady Sadie gasps as she removes an eye catching diamond spray brooch from a blue velvet lined box within the wrapping.

 

“Oh Mamma!” Lally exclaims admiringly.

 

“Oh, put it on Mamma!” Lettice adds enthusiastically.

 

“I… I don’t think I can. My hands are shaking too much.” her mother replies. “I’ll be all thumbs.”

 

“You put it on her then, Tice,” Lally prods her sister. “You’re always better at sort of thing than me. You have the right eye for how things look.”

 

Lettice gets up and crosses the thick old floral carpet, dropping to her knees before her mother, the russet coloured silk georgette of her day gown pooling about her. She takes the expensive bauble from her mother’s trembling hand and looks closely at it. Sparkling diamonds in platinum settings wink and glint in the drawing room chandelier’s light. She notices that the design is of pretty asters with elegant stems and leaves shaped in gold. “What a treasure Mamma!”

 

“Oh Cosmo!” Lady Sadie puts her fingers to her trembling lips as tears of delight create a sheen across her eyes.

 

“You never cease to be full of surprises, Pappa.” Lettice remarks as she unhooks the c-clasp on the back of the brooch and considers the floral pattern of her mother’s frock.

 

“So that’s why you had to go up to London that day last month.” Leslie remarks. “You old devil! Banking matters my foot! More like Asprey’s*** I’d say! What cheek! Leaving me to fend for myself, whilst you run off and get something for your lady love!”

 

“And you did admirably in my absence, my boy.” the Viscount replies proudly. “You’ll be taking over the estate sooner rather than later, and then you’ll need to always have your wits about you.”

 

“There!” Lettice says with a satisfied sigh, sitting back and admiring the sparking jewelled brooch now affixed safely to her mother’s left bosom. “Go and look in the mirror, Mamma!”

 

“Should I?” Lady Sadie gathers up her skirts after receiving an encouraging nod from her daughter, and with the soft rustle of silk she glides across the room full of joy and delight where she admires her new piece of jewellery in one of the gilt framed Palladian style pier mirrors on the wall.

 

“Come on Pappa,” Lally commands. “There are still plenty of gifts beneath the tree. Hopefully,” She looks to her husband. “There might even be one for me by the time you’re through.”

 

Charles merely smiles enigmatically in reply, but says nothing.

 

“Oh!” the Viscount announces grandly. “This is for Lettice,” He pauses for effect. “From me!” He chuckles and hands the large square parcel wrapped in pretty holly sprig patterned paper topped with an ornate red satin bow to his youngest child.

 

Lettice hands her champagne flute to her sister again. “Thanks awfully Pappa.” she replies, her voice thick with emotion as she accepts the gift from her father.

 

“Merry Christmas darling girl.”

 

She places it on her lap and runs her hands reverently around the parcel’s edges and momentarily toys with the bow.

 

“Well don’t just look at it, Lettice,” Charles cajoles from his chair. “Open it up!”

 

“That’s not Tice’s way.” his wife replies. “Not only is she the most observant of us all, she is also the one who perhaps appreciates her gifts the most.”

 

“We’d have torn all our presents free of their paper long before Tice had even opened half of hers.” Leslie adds.

 

“Rip it open! Rip it open!” squeals Annabelle excitedly, jumping up and down with exuberance.

 

“Belle!” Lally gasps. “Don’t scream and jump up and down like that. It’s most unladylike!” She shakes her head admonishingly. “Grandmamma will think we live in a zoo with you behaving like a screaming monkey.” She quickly adds before her mother can quip about the fact that she does think that or something else disparaging, “This is Auntie Tice’s gift. She can open it how she sees fit.” She eyes her young daughter. “I know you’re anxious to open your next gift, but you must be patient.”

 

“What do you think it is, Auntie Tice?” Harrold asks, peering with mild interest at the gift in her lap as he sits at her feet.

 

“Well,” Lettice lifts the present and inspects it closely as she turns it over in her hands. “It’s very heavy, so it must be that crystal chandelier that I want for my drawing room in London.” She gives her nephew a conspiratorial smile and screws up her nose in amusement as he chuckles at her absurd guess.

 

“A chandelier!” giggles Annabelle as childish peals of laughter burst forth from her upturned mouth. “It can’t be Auntie Tice! It’s too small.”

 

Lettice considers the parcel again. Looking directly at her niece, she replies, “You’re absolutely right, Annabelle darling! Of course, it’s far too small to be a chandelier. How clever you are. Silly Auntie Tice!”

 

Annabelle smiles proudly at her aunt’s admission that she is right, raising a finger coyly to her mouth.

 

“Oh, just open it, Tice!” Lally finally gasps in amused and intrigued exasperation. “Or I’ll do it for you. Don’t be a frightful tease, darling!”

 

Carefully removing the red satin bow, she runs her fingers under the lip of expertly wrapped paper, severing the tape with her well manicured nail like a letter opener. With a rustling sigh, the paper falls away, revealing a beautiful lapis lazuli blue leather book, decorated with ornate gilded tooling.

 

“Oh Pappa!” she gasps, taking the book out of its bed of paper, which Lally quickly whisks off Lettice’s lap and onto the floor where it joins the other tattered remnants of Christmas wrapping. “How lovely. Egyptomania…” she reads musingly as she run her hands over the title picked out in a striking red, made even more so by the deep blue and rich golds of the binding surrounding it. “Is this from Mahew’s****?”

 

“Where else my girl?” the Viscount settles back in his seat comfortably, a satisfied look on his face. “See Leslie. It wasn’t just a visit to Asprey’s I took in whilst I was up in London.”

 

“Which also explains why you didn’t visit me whilst you were there, Pappa.” Lettice realises.

 

Pointing at the book, the Viscount continues, “I remember your Great Grandfather Chetwynd talking about the Egyptomania***** that gripped the world after that Frenchman first deciphered hieroglyphs using the Rosetta stone. The illustrations in that book will put you in good stead for the next wave of Egyptomania coming. Everyone is going to want an Egyptian style drawing room.”

 

“Do you really think this renewed interest in Egyptian style will carry on past Christmas, Pappa?” Lally asks. “It’s just a passing phase, surely.”

 

“There hasn’t been a discovery like the boy king’s tomb****** in living memory, Lally. This ‘phase’, as you put it, will be a mania that will last. A symbol of the 1920s. You mark my words.” He taps his nose knowingly.

 

“That’s so thoughtful of you, Cosmo.” Eglantine says standing behind Sadie’s chair, taking a long drag on the Sobranie Black Russian******* through her amber and gold cigarette holder. Blowing out a plume of acrid, yet at the same time exotic, blue smoke, she adds. “A book like that will help Lettice keep ahead of the fashionable trends in design.”

 

“Don’t encourage her, Eglantine!” hisses Lady Sadie, flapping her hands as much in an effort to silence her bohemian sister-in-law as to drive away the cloying cigarette smoke enveloping her. “You’re as bad as Cosmo!” She shoots an accusing look over her shoulder at her husband, but he is too absorbed watching his youngest daughter’s rapturous enjoyment of his gift to notice her annoyance. “All this interior design nonsense.”

 

“Why shouldn’t I, Sadie?” Eglantine replies, folding her arms defiantly across the metallic thread embroidery of the bodice of her elegant reformist Paul Poiret******** gown. Staring the seated matron down with a steely and haughty look, she adds, ‘Someone must support the talent of your daughter, since you are obviously too blinkered to nurture it. Cosmo and I can champion her cause since you refuse to.” She smiles over to her older brother in his seat, still looking at his daughter. Turning her gaze to her niece she adds, “She is my favourite nice, after all.”

 

“I’m sure you say that about all our female cousins, Aunt Egg.” Lally laughs.

 

“And I keep telling you and your sister that you are all my favourites, Lally. However,” She lifts the long opera length strand of creamy white pearls between the fingers of her elegant left hand and toys with them thoughtfully. “You will never know until after I’m gone.” She laughs raspily. “For then the truth will be exposed through the disbursement of my jewels. To my favourite, or favourites, go the spoils!”

 

Lost in the beautifully engraved and hand coloured illustrations from the old Victorian volume, Lettice allows the conversation to wash over her, unaware that it centres around her.

 

“I wouldn’t wonder that Lettice is your favourite, since you are both such awful teases!” Lally laughs good naturedly. “Here Tice. Take your glass back darling. Pappa has more presents to dispense.”

 

“Before I do,” the Viscount clears his throat as he stands and starts walking across to the gilded table in the centre of the carpet upon which stand two bottles of champagne in wine coolers. “I should like to make a toast.”

 

He takes up the open bottle of champagne and proceeds to top up all the adults’ glasses, except for Charles who continues to nurse his brandy.

 

“What is your toast, Pappa?” asks Leslie as he and Arabella join the others in standing.

 

“To a very merry Christmas, one and all!” he replies, raising his glass.

 

“Merry Christmas!” everyone else replies enthusiastically, charging their glasses.

 

*Jeanne Lanvin (1867 – 1946) was a French haute couture fashion designer. She founded the Lanvin fashion house and the beauty and perfume company Lanvin Parfums. She became an apprentice milliner at Madame Félix in Paris at the age of 16 and trained with Suzanne Talbot and Caroline Montagne Roux before becoming a milliner on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in 1889. In 1909, Jeanne joined the Syndicat de la Couture, which marked her formal status as a couturière. The clothing she made for her daughter began to attract the attention of a number of wealthy people who requested copies for their own children. Soon, Jeanne was making dresses for their mothers, and some of the most famous names in Europe were included in the clientele of her new boutique on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. By 1922 when this story is set, she had just opened her first shop devoted to home décor, menswear, furs and lingerie. Her gowns were always very feminine and romantic.

 

**Army and Navy Stores was a department store group in the United Kingdom, which originated as a co-operative society for military officers and their families during the nineteenth century. The society became a limited liability company in the 1930s and purchased a number of independent department stores during the 1950s and 1960s. In 1973 the Army and Navy Stores group was acquired by House of Fraser. In 2005 the remaining Army & Navy stores (the flagship store located on Victoria Street in London and stores in Camberley, and Chichester) were refurbished and re-branded under the House of Fraser nameplate. House of Fraser itself was acquired by Icelandic investment company, Baugur Group, in late 2006, and then by Sports Direct on the 10 August 2018.

 

***Founded in 1781 as a silk printing business by William Asprey, Asprey soon became a luxury emporium. In 1847 the business moved to their present premises at 167 Bond Street, where they advertised 'articles of exclusive design and high quality, whether for personal adornment or personal accompaniment and to endow with richness and beauty the table and homes of people of refinement and discernment’. In 1862 Asprey received a Royal Warrant from Queen Victoria. They received a second Royal Warrant from the Future Edward VII in 1889. Asprey has a tradition of producing jewellery inspired by the blooms found in English gardens and Woodland Flora. Over the decades jewelled interpretations of flowers have evolved to include Daisy, Woodland and sunflower collections. They have their own special cut of diamond and produce leather goods, silver and gold pieces, trophies and leatherbound books, both old and new. They also produce accessories for playing polo. In 1997, Asprey produced the Heart of the Ocean necklace worn in the motion picture blockbuster, ‘Titanic’

 

****A. H. Mayhew was once one of many bookshops located in London’s Charring Cross Road, an area still famous today for its bookshops, perhaps most famously written about by American authoress Helene Hanff who wrote ’84, Charing Cross Road’, which later became a play and then a 1987 film starring Anne Bancroft and Anthony Hopkins. Number 56. Charing Cross Road was the home of Mayhew’s second-hand and rare bookshop. Closed after the war, their premises is now the home of Any Amount of Books bookshop.

 

*****Egyptomania refers to a period of renewed interest in the culture of ancient Egypt sparked by Napoleon's Egyptian Campaign in the 19th century. Napoleon was accompanied by many scientists and scholars during this Campaign, which led to a large interest after the documentation of ancient monuments in Egypt. The ancient remains had never been so thoroughly documented before and so the interest in ancient Egypt increased significantly. Jean-François Champollion deciphered the ancient hieroglyphs in 1822 by using the Rosetta Stone that was recovered by French troops in 1799 which began the study of scientific Egyptology.

 

******On the 4th of November 1922, English archaeologist Howard Carter and his men discovered the entrance to the boy king, Pharaoh Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings, sparking a worldwide interest in all things Egyptian. The craze he started became known as Tutmania, and it inspired everything from the architecture of public building and private houses alike to interior design and fashion. Famously at the time, socialite Dolores Denis Denison applied one of the earliest examples of getting the media of the day to pay attention to her because of her dress by arriving at the prestigious private view of the King Tut Exhibition in London, dressed as an Egyptian mummy complete in a golden sarcophagus and had to be carried inside by her driver and a hired man. Although it started before the discovery of the tomb, the Art Deco movement was greatly influenced by Egyptian style. Many of the iconic decorative symbols we associate with the movement today came about because of Howard Carter’s discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

 

*******The Balkan Sobranie tobacco business was established in London in 1879 by Albert Weinberg (born in Romania in 1849), whose naturalisation papers dated 1886 confirm his nationality and show that he had emigrated to England in the 1870s at a time when hand-made cigarettes in the eastern European and Russian tradition were becoming fashionable in Europe. Sobranie is one of the oldest cigarette brands in the world. Throughout its existence, Sobranie was marketed as the definition of luxury in the tobacco industry, being adopted as the official provider of many European royal houses and elites around the world including the Imperial Court of Russia and the royal courts of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Spain, Romania, and Greece. Premium brands include the multi-coloured Sobranie Cocktail and the black and gold Sobranie Black Russian.

 

********Paul Poiret was a French fashion designer and a master couturier during the first two decades of the Twentieth century. He was the founder of his namesake haute couture house. In 1911, he introduced "Parfums de Rosine," named after his daughter, becoming the first French couturier to launch a signature fragrance. Poiret's designs were groundbreaking and reformist for the time, and were sought after by fashionable avant garde women of society. He was the first designer to introduce trousers for women, producing harem pants in 1910. However, he was also responsible for the ‘hobble skirt’ which restricted women’s movements to a mere hobble (as the name suggests) by restricting movement of the ankles with the use of an exceedingly narrow hem. Despite his incredible vision, Poiret did not see the change of fashion that came after the Great War, being on the brink of bankruptcy by 1919 thanks to simple sleek designs of new Couturiers like Coco Chanel which he refused to adopt. In 1922, he was invited to New York to design costumes and dresses for Broadway stars, yet he hated America and returned to Paris within the year. In 1929, his fashion house was closed, its leftover stock sold by the kilogram as rags.

 

This fun Christmas tableau full of festive presents and wrapping may not appear to be all you think it is as first, for it is made up of pieces out of my miniatures collection.

 

Fun things to look for in this tableau include:

 

The Chetwynd Christmas tree, beautifully decorated with garlands, tinsel, bows and golden baubles is a 1:12 artisan piece. It was hand made by husband and wife artistic team Margie and Mike Balough who own Serendipity Miniatures in Newcomerstown, Ohio. Margie and Mike Balough also made all the beautifully wrapped Christmas gifts gathered around its base.

 

The beautiful teddy bear with his sweet, if slightly melancholic, face, the box of lead soldiers and knights jousting all come from Kathleen Knight’s Doll House Shop in the United Kingdom. The lead cavalry and knights have been painstakingly painted by hand with incredible detail and attention paid to their livery.

 

The discarded blue and gold Christmas wrapping on the carpet of the drawing room are in reality foil wrappers from miniature Haigh’s Chocolate Easter Eggs.

 

The gilt salon chair is made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, Bespaq, but what is particularly special about it is that it has been covered in antique Austrian floral micro petite point by V.H. Miniatures in the United Kingdom, which makes this a one-of-a-kind piece. The artisan who made this says that as one of her hobbies, she enjoys visiting old National Trust Houses in the hope of getting some inspiration to help her create new and exciting miniatures. She saw some beautiful petit point chairs a few years ago in one of the big houses in Derbyshire and then found exquisitely detailed petit point that was fine enough for 1:12 scale projects.

 

The three piece Louis XV suite of settee and two armchairs was made by the high-end miniature furniture maker, JBM.

 

The Persian rug on the floor has been woven by Pike, Pike and Company in the United Kingdom.

Lily's Cutest Retainer has to go quite the distance sometimes for her job, but at least she likes her boss enough to tolerate it. Plus she actually gets gear which is helpful. lol.

Sir Houston and his retainers were assigned to a lookout tower that was adjacent to the Black Falcon's territory. If Sir Houston and his men had kept a better watch, they would have seen the Black Falcon army in time to burn the bridge and send word of the impending attack.

 

For the MocAthalon, in the Houston We Have A Problem category. (Don't worry I posted it before the deadline.) :-)

 

Wolseley Six Eighty

 

Everything you want to know:

www.680mo.org.uk/scripts/cars.php?parent=Wolseley&ban...

 

Note: This might be later than 1948, because the first cars did not have chrome headlight retainer rings.

 

This photo was published in the Southern Midlands News, September 2016.

 

A gentle reminder about copyright and intellectual property-

Ⓒ Cassidy Photography (All images in this Flickr portfolio)

 

cassidyphotography.net

 

Aboriginal History of Wilcannia:

 

Wilcannia is located on the Darling River, about halfway between Bourke and Wentworth. The river is known as Barka by the local Aboriginal people or Barkandji, literally people belonging to the Barka, and it is surrounded on all sides by Barkandji speaking people. The people from along the Barka and varying distances either side from near Bourke down to Wentworth all recognised the Barkandji language as their primary language, but they were divided into subgroups with different dialects of this one language. The Barkandji language is very different from all the neighbouring languages including the adjoining Ngiyampaa/Ngemba to the east, the Kulin, and Murray River languages to the south, and the Yardli and Thura-Yura language groups to the west and north.

 

Barkandji have a unique culture and depended heavily on the grinding or pounding of seeds on large grinding dishes or mortars and pestles, such as grass, portulaca, and acacia seeds. In the riverine areas, there is a strong emphasis on aquatic plant food tubers and corms, and fish, yabbies, turtles, mussels, and shrimps as well as water birds and their eggs. Insect foods were also important, such as parti or witchetty grubs along the rivers and creeks, and termite larvae in the Mallee country. Large and small canoes were cut out, necessitating ground edge axes, and string manufacture for fish nets, hunting nets, bags, and belts was an important part of the culture. The Wilcannia area still shows tangible evidence of traditional life in the form of canoe trees, coolamon trees, middens, heat retainer ovens, ashy deposits, stone tool quarries and artefacts.

 

Thomas Mitchell led the first exploring party to reach Wilcannia and gave the Barkandji their first unpleasant taste of what was to come. Mitchell travelled via the Bogan to the Darling River near Bourke and then down the river to Wilcannia then Menindee, reaching it in July 1835. Mitchell was harassed by Barkandji as he did not understand that he had to properly negotiate permission for use of water, grass, land to camp on etc., and in addition his men were abusing women behind his back and breaking all the rules. He gave them names such as the Fire Eaters and the Spitting Tribe as they tried to warn him off. His comments show that the Barkandji groups he met occupied "different portions of the river", and that they owned the resources in their territories including the water in the river. The exclusive possession enjoyed by the Barkandji and the need to obtain permission before using any of their resources is demonstrated by the following comment about the "Spitting Tribe" from the river near Wilcannia:

 

"The Spitting Tribe desired our men to pour out the water from their buckets, as if it had belonged to them; digging, at the same time a hole in the ground to receive it when poured out; and I have more than once seen a river chief, on receiving a tomahawk, point to the stream and signify that we were then at liberty to take water from it, so strongly were they possessed with the notion that the water was their own"

 

A hill 15 kilometres north of Wilcannia was named Mount Murchison by Mitchell and this became the name of the very large original station that included the location that was to become Wilcannia township.

 

In 1862 the area northwest of Mount Murchison Station was still frontier country with continual conflict. Frederic Bonney was based at Mount Murchison homestead and then nearby Momba homestead from 1865 to 1881 and he bluntly states in his notebooks that in this period "natives killed by settlers - shot like dogs"

 

Bonney recorded extensive detail about the lives, language, culture, and personalities of the Aboriginal people at Mount Murchison/Momba and left us with extremely significant series of photos of Aboriginal people taken in this period. He does not elaborate about the way the station was set up except for his comment above. Frederic Bonney not only respected and looked after the local people but he sympathised with them, worked with them, and respected them. The Bonney papers and photographs are a treasure of information about the Aboriginal people living there between 1865 and 1881. Bonney published a paper in 1884 but long after he had returned to England to live he campaigned for the better treatment of the Aboriginal people, and he tried to educate the public about the complexity of Aboriginal culture.

 

Bonney names about 44 individual Aboriginal people living at Momba in this period, and one group photo from the same period shows a total of 38 people. Descendants of some of the people Bonney describes still live in Wilcannia and surrounding areas today.

 

Aboriginal people worked on Moomba and Mount Murchison Station, and from very early times fringe camps grew up around Wilcannia. The land straight across the River from the Wilcannia post office was gazetted as an Aboriginal Reserve, and this became the nucleus of a very large fringe camp that grew into a substantial settlement spaced out along the river bank in the 1930s to the 1970s. By 1953 the Aboriginal Welfare Board had built a series of 14 barrack-like and inappropriately designed houses in an enlarged reserve, now an attractive tree lined settlement known as the Mission (although never a mission it was beside a Catholic School and clinic, thus the name). Today Aboriginal people are the majority of the population of the vibrant, creative, and culturally active town of Wilcannia, and the main users of the post office facilities.

 

Wilcannia History:

 

The first secure pastoralists at Mount Murchison were the brothers Hugh and Bushby Jamieson of Mildura Station on the Murray, who in 1856 took up Tallandra and Moorabin blocks, later extended with other blocks and named Mount Murchison Station. Captain Cadell's paddlesteamer Albury was the first to travel up the Darling, landing flour and other stores for the Jamiesons at Mount Murchison in February 1859. The Albury then loaded 100 bales of wool from their woolshed and brought it down to Adelaide. At this time there were no other stations on the Darling between Mt Murchison and Fort Bourke. A little later:

 

"An enterprising attempt has just been made by Mr. Hugh Jamieson, of Mount Murchison, to bring fat sheep speedily to Adelaide. Mr. Jamieson having chartered Captain Cadell's steamer, Albury, that vessel was prepared, and received on board at Mildura 550 fine fat sheep. These were landed at Moorundee last Tuesday, after a rapid passage of two days, all the sheep being in splendid condition when put ashore"

 

Jamiesons sold in 1864 to Robert Barr Smith and Ross Reid from Adelaide. The brothers Edward and Frederic Bonney were leasing some adjacent blocks and possibly worked at Mount Murchison for these owners. In 1875 they bought the Mount Murchison/Momba complex, one of the largest stations in New South Wale. In 1865 it was known as Mount Murchison, in 1881 it was all known as Momba, later splitting into smaller stations. The original Mount Murchison Station homestead block was also known as Head Station or Karannia, the Barkandji name for the area just north of the town near where the Paroo River comes into the Barka. The original Mount Murchison woolshed was located on what is now Baker Park, Wilcannia, which is adjacent to the current Post Office.

 

The site of Wilcannia was selected on Mount Murchison Station in 1864 by John Chadwick Woore, who was appointed Commissioner of Crown Lands of the Albert District in 1863 and was based at Wilcannia. The town was proclaimed in 1866 and in the 1870s it became a coaching centre for prospectors exploiting the region's gold, copper, silver, and opal resources, and the administrative, service, and shipping centre for the pastoral industry. Wilcannia was incorporated as a municipality in 1881, and around this time it became New South Wales biggest inland port and Australia's third largest inland port (after Echuca Victoria and Morgan South Australia). 'The Queen of the River' or 'Queen City of the West'. At the height of its prosperity around 1880, the town boasted a population of 3,000. According to the Register of the National Estate, during 1887 alone, 222 steamers took on 26,550 tonnes of wool and other goods at Wilcannia wharves. The value of goods coming down the Darling River in 1884 was 1,359,786 pounds, and included over 30,000 bales of wool. The customs house, another Wilcannia stone building now demolished, located immediately between the Post office and the river bank and wharfs, took 17,544 pounds in customs duties in 1889. Paddlesteamers gradually declined, particularly after the 1920s, although a few continued to trade up and down the river into the 1940's, still remembered by elderly Wilcannia residents.

 

Wilcannia in the 1870s and into the 1900s was the centre of the pastoral and mining boom of the far west of New South Wales, and it was the centre of the paddlesteamer river trade from the Upper Darling to the Murray River and outlets such as Adelaide and Melbourne. The frequent dry seasons and lack of water in the river led to other methods of transporting goods being used, such as camel trains, but when the water came down the river trade always returned. The river trade built Wilcannia's fine buildings, but it was also its undoing, as the New South Wales government intervened to reduce the river trade because goods were moving to and from Adelaide and Melbourne, not Sydney.

 

Plans to improve navigation on the river were suggested in 1859 after Captain Cadell's first successful voyage up the Darling that was followed by other paddlesteamers. Cadell gave evidence at a New South Wales Select Committee that the Darling would be become reliable for boats if a system of locks were built at very reasonable cost that would hold back water during the drier seasons. The plans to build locks along the Darling River to make navigation more consistent were investigated again and again, but were not realised because the New South Wales government believed trade would benefit Victoria and South Australia.

 

After the opening of the Sydney to Bourke railway line in 1885, Wilcannia lost its status as the major commercial centre of the Darling River. The trade from the far North West New South Wales then tended to go to the railhead at Bourke and straight to Sydney. There were plans in the 1880s for the railway to be run from Cobar to Wilcannia, however this plan was continuously put off. Plans for a railway to Wilcannia continued to be made throughout the 1890's and early 1900's, and including a proposal from Cobar to Broken Hill then linking to South Australia as the Great Western Railway. In 1907 "a large petition was forwarded to Sydney from Wilcannia for presentation to the Premier urging immediate construction of the Cobar-Wilcannia Railway, and subsequent extension to Broken Hill".

 

The New South Wales government attempt to stop trade leaking out of the state resulted in their refusal to build a railway to Wilcannia (as goods tended to go to Wilcannia and down the river), or to extend the railway to South Australia for the same reasons. The bend in the river on the north side of town celebrates this government intransigence by its name "Iron Pole Bend", the iron pole said to have been placed at the surveyed location of the proposed railway bridge. New South Wales eventually built a railway through the low population Ivanhoe route to the south of Wilcannia reaching Broken Hill in 1927, and even then it stopped at Broken Hill and did not join the South Australian line until 1970. The link between Broken Hill and the South Australian railway was provided from 1884 to 1970 by the narrow gauge private railway 'the Silverton Tramway', which also took trade from Wilcannia.

 

The combination of missing out on the railway and locking of the river, the severe drought on 1900 - 1901, and the damage to the pastoral economy by drought, rabbits, and over grazing, led to a down turn in Wilcannia's prospects, leaving the fine stone buildings such as the post office languishing as tangible reminders of a time when Wilcannia was known as the "Queen City of the West" and was the largest inland port in New South Wales and the third largest inland port in Australia.

 

Post Office History:

 

During the 1850s, postal services became more regular, and the great colonial investment in postal infrastructure was underway. From the 1850s, each major rural centre had a postmaster of its own as the post office became a symbol of the presence of civilisation in many outback towns. Government architects built substantial post offices in provincial towns as statements of the authority and presence of the government. The original Wilcannia Post Office was established in 1860 under the name of Mount Murchison, the name was later officially changed to Wilcannia in 1868.

 

The Wilcannia Post Office and Post Master's Residence were designed by the Colonial Architect James Barnet, the signed plan being forwarded to Wilcannia in 1878. The Post Office and Residence were part of an official precinct in Wilcannia, with the courthouse (1880), gaol (1880), and police residence (1880) built across the road and one block south. In 1876 £1,500 was allocated to the post office project. Tenders were called in August 1878 and the builder D. Baillie accepted to erect the post office, and at the same time as the builder for the Court House, Lock-Up Gaol, and Police buildings.

 

A further £3,100 of consolidated revenue was allocated to the post office and £8,200 to the courthouse and watch house in 1879. By March 1979 the post office was "in course of erection". The complex was completed by 1880, succeeding the post office set up on Mount Murchison Station in 1860 and a second weatherboard building that was used from 1866.

 

James Johnstone Barnet (1827 - 1904) was made acting Colonial Architect in 1862 and appointed Colonial Architect from 1865 - 1890. He was born in Scotland and studied in London under Charles Richardson, RIBA and William Dyce, Professor of Fine Arts at King's College, London. He was strongly influenced by Charles Robert Cockerell, leading classical theorist at the time and by the fine arts, particularly works of painters Claude Lorrain and JRM Turner. He arrived in Sydney in 1854 and worked as a self-employed builder. He served as Edmund Blacket's clerk of works on the foundations of the Randwick (Destitute Childrens') Asylum. Blacket then appointed Barnet as clerk-of-works on the Great Hall at Sydney University. By 1859 he was appointed second clerk of works at the Colonial Architect's Office and in 1861 was Acting Colonial Architect. Thus began a long career. He dominated public architecture in New South Wales, as the longest-serving Colonial Architect in Australian history. Until he resigned in 1890 his office undertook some 12,000 works, Barnet himself designing almost 1000. They included those edifices so vital to promoting communication, the law and safe sea arrivals in colonial Australia. Altogether there were 169 post and telegraph offices, 130 courthouses, 155 police buildings, 110 lockups and 20 lighthouses, including the present Macquarie Lighthouse on South Head, which replaced the earlier one designed by Francis Greenway. Barnet's vision for Sydney is most clearly seen in the Customs House at Circular Quay, the General Post Office in Martin Place, and the Lands Department and Colonial Secretary's Office in Bridge Street. There he applied the classicism he had absorbed in London, with a theatricality which came from his knowledge of art.

 

The substantial two storey attached post office residence faces the main street and more than doubles the size of the complex. This is unusual as Barnet tended to have residences on the first floor of the main building or at the rear. It relates to the remoteness and government determination to make the job attractive to the right post master, a government representative who had to be an honest employee and trusted by this remote community. It consists of four rooms on the ground floor; parlour, sitting room, kitchen, and servant's bedroom, and three bedrooms upstairs, plus various storage rooms, and a central staircase.

 

The new post office became the focal point of town, located in the main street and immediately adjacent to the wharves and customs house. In 1896 the iron bridge with lift span over the Darling River was completed and the east-west highway re-routed to go over the bridge and directly past the post office, from then on located on the busy corner of the main street and the highway. Descriptions include:

 

"the post and telegraph offices, together with the master's residence", are "both a substantial and ornamental piece of architecture"; "the post office is a very neat building indeed" with "white stone which seems to finely glisten among the dark foliage of the river timber"; "The colonnade of the post office is the Exchange of the town, and here all the business men meet daily and discuss the news of the district. Mails do not come in every day but when Her Majesty's mail coach is seen in front of the post-office there may all the people be seen gathered together. The Sydney and Melbourne papers are four days old when they reach Wilcannia, as the town is from 24 to 30 hours coaching from any railway terminus".

 

In 1890 the tender from R. B. Spiers to erect a "verandah and balcony etc" at the Post Office and Telegraph office was accepted, referring to the two storey verandah and balcony at the post office residence and possibly the small verandah on the side of the post office as well. Drawings from 1881 and 1888 show the single storey verandah of the residence, but a photo from 1894 clearly shows the two storey verandah. The two-storey verandah was added in response to the extreme climate, the wooden lined ceilings on both levels are an attempt to prevent the heat from penetrating onto the verandah, north facing wall, and windows. The two storey verandah was probably also designed by Barnet as he held the position of government architect until 1890 and its detail is similar to the 1889 Bourke post office verandah.

 

This Post Office building was in continuous use until 1997 as a post office, telegraph, then telephone exchange, and post master's residence. The post office service was then moved and the complex was used as a residence only until 2002. It became the post office again from 2013 and provides both postal and banking services for the town and surrounding stations.

 

The remoteness of Wilcannia also meant that the central post office performed a range of significant peripheral services, such as posting up government edicts and community notices, weather measurements and warnings, flood warnings and river heights, timetables and pick-up and drop-down place for coaches, mail coaches, and later mail trucks and buses. The mail coaches/mail trucks left the post office for the remote outback laden with mail, newspapers, groceries, spare parts, school lessons for outback children, and travellers (workers, family and friends and even occasionally nurses and church people). Mail coaches/mail trucks played a unique role enabling people to exist in the outback that cannot be underestimated. Mail trucks still operate out of Wilcannia delivering mail and parcels to the remote outback stations.

 

Source: New South Wales Heritage Register.

For FGR's I Love Geeks and Picture Yourself in Bed

 

The jacket is a bit tight after twenty years...If only I still had my retainer.

This is a very rare PFM Crown model in HO scale. This represents one of only twenty five models made in the first run (1958). Made under the United Models name plate, the premier Japanese maker, Toby Models, made these semi-hand made models to extreme precision and high quality. For it's time, this was one of the top of the line models. Stamped #10 on the left side of the rear frame rail, this model has many features that the subsequent runs did not have (or, where in various stages of these features). Highly detailed cab interior for one. Other details which point to the run year is the hand built train control box mounted on the boiler, the absence of window sashes (all of the following runs had window sashes), a single generator (although two later runs had a single generator, this combination of details gives it away as the 1958 model.

 

Scale: HO

Category: Steam

Subcategory:

Road: Chicago, Burlington & Quincy (CB&Q)

Whyte: 4-8-4

Description: O-5 NORTHERN

Importer: Pacific Fast Mail (PFM)

Catalog: CROWN

MANUFACTURE

Builder: Toby

Year(s): 1958

Qty Made: 25

 

NOTES: UNPAINTED - SERIAL # ON LEFT REAR OF FRAME - GREEN BOX - NO WINDOW SASHES IN CAB - SINGLE GENERATOR - BUILT-UP ATC BOX ON TOP OF BOILER - UNITED PLATE ON RETAINER PLATE

Church of St Bartholomew, Crewkerne Somerset built of dressed limestone and golden-coloured Ham Hill stone

The present church dates mainly to 15c - early 16c, rebuilt in Perpendicular Gothic style with the riches of the local wool and textile industry , but whose origins date back earlier.

The architect was William Smyth, master of Wells Cathedral from 1475 until his death in 1490 who at least was responsible for the west front & south porch , (He also worked at Sherborne Abbey as well as at St. John's, Glastonbury & while he was at Wells was given the freedom of the city, receiving a retainer of £1.6s.8d yearly and a house rent free, in addition to his fees) . He was responsible for some important fan vaults at a time when the construction of these still lay in the future.

 

It is believed to stand on the site of a church mentioned in the 1086 Domesday Survey dedicated to St. Stephen. All trace of this Saxon church has gone, but masonry from the previous 13c Norman church remains in some of the walls.

The large square font with 6 incised arches on each face, is probably Norman , possibly now standing on a more modern base www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/314Hcj

 

The cruciform building was raised on the late 12c / early 13c Norman foundations of an earlier church, for which the only surviving evidence above ground today is some of the lower stonework of the central tower, including a single blocked Early English window, visible internally to the north.

It consists of a chancel, clerestoried nave of 4 bays, aisles, transepts, south porch and embattled central tower with angle turrets. It seats 800 .

 

No major structural alterations have taken place since the Reformation in the 16c but there have been many changes to the furnishings and fittings to suit the various phases of protestant worship that followed.

The church was restored, with the exception of the chancel, in 1887-9, at a cost of £3,3157, ( Major Sparks, of Crewkerne, contributing £700): in 1893, two readers' stalls and 24 bench ends, all of carved oak, were erected:

The whole chancel was restored and decorated in 1899 by the Hussey family who are remembered in the east window.:

The central section of the west gallery was removed in the late 19c to reveal the great west window. The organ there was relocated to the south transept.

 

in 1904 the carved oak fan vaulting in the tower lantern www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/f4gmCE was presented by an anonymous donor, and in 1906 a new organ costing £2,000 was given by Miss Sparks:

The tower has a chiming clock of 1902 costing £250, and 8 bells, recast and rehung, with 2 new ones added in 1894, at a cost of £600, of which amount C. W. Haslock and Messrs. W. Sparks and G. Joliff contributed £400:

 

The main altar was moved under the tower crossing in the 1960’s and a new altar table, made in burred oak by local craftsmen, was provided in 2003.

 

Narrow and low compared with the nave, the chancel reflects the form of the earlier church. www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/f44MLB Behind the high altar there is a carved stone reredos of 1903 given by Miss Hussey depicting the Last Supper. On either side are 15c doorways, now blocked, which led to a former vestry. One door is carved with pigs, the other with angels, signifying which to choose for "clean" Christian living. www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/JA5spv

The oldest memorial in the church, on the south wall, is a brass effigy of Thomas Golde who died in 1525. www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/5sFo37

Corbels once supported a rood screen at the entrance to the chancel, one of these features a “green man”. www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/5ax1a6

 

​The north transept completed c 1530 , with its group of Tudor-style chapels, is architecturally the richest part of the interior and the last part to be completed. The Woolminstone Chapel is flooded with light from the broad flat-arched windows. The tiny former Children’s Chapel contains an imposing 17c memorial to the Merefield family. www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/fN61Hr

 

​A room above the stone fan-vaulted ceiling www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/25q12u in the south porch can be reached by a door high up on the wall of the nave. Outside there is a niche with a statue of St Bartholomew above the door and there are many gargoyles and other grotesque carvings decorating the parapet around the building, www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/98x5jP

 

​The west front is considered to be the finest in Somerset after Wells Cathedral. It is suggested that the design with its seven-light window flanked by octagonal stair turrets, was influenced by St George’s Windsor and King’s College Chapel due to royal chaplains present among the rectors at that time. The moulded doorway with adjoining niches, sculpted figures and tracery, although decayed, is of exceptional quality. www.flickr.com/gp/52219527@N00/iJ85ku

 

Picture with thanks - copyright Mike Searle CCL www.geograph.org.uk/photo/868366

木遣りとはしご乗り

The history behind Hikeshi is dated as far back as the Edo Tokugawa Shogunate era. In 1650, the Japanese government appointed two Direct Retainer of the Shogun as the first "Hikeshis", they are the founders of "Jyobikeshi" Association.

Furthermore, in 1717 the rein of Shogun Yoshimune, there were two new associations formed. Eleven hereditary feudal lords were appointed the task of organizing the "Daimyobikeshi (Hikeshi for the castles)" and the other one which had a slower start was called "Machibikeshi (Hikeshi for the town)." Till then, the "Jyobikeshi" and "Daimyobikeshi" were responsible for the Edo Castle and Old Samurai residences. The daily fire needs were accommodated by the ordinary construction workers turned Hikeshis, this was supported by the local residents' association. (HP of Japan Hikeshi Preserving Foundation)

After the siege and capture of Ilan castle, the men under the command of prince William Edwaedson and Cassandra Edwaedsdottir had set up camp around the stronghold to await the arrival of reinforcements from the three kingdoms of the northern alliance.

 

“Uuurgh!” Roger moaned. Ranger-captain Martin Godwinson looked up from his book “Anything wrong?” the gnome stood up from his bedroll inside their tent. “Nothing, It’s just, I’m bored alright. We’ve been stuck here for almost a week already. Hell, I almost wish we were raiding supply lines again.” “You could have gone with Thirn.” Martin suggested. Roger gave him a sarcastic glare. “Really, me, a three-foot-tall gnome in a drinking competition with dwarfs? I’m flattered about your faith in me mate, but I wouldn’t last a single goddamn minute.” Martin sipped from his yet hot tea “Alright, I can see your point there.” “And I somewhat doubt that Celdric would be overly enjoyed if I busted in during one of his romantic trips with Elana.” He smiled. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for the bloke that he found someone.” He scratched his short beard. “Never thought the elf would be the first of us though.”

 

“Ahum, sir?” They both turned their heads to see the helmeted head of one of Williams huscarls poking through the tent flaps “Aye?” “Captain, the prince has asked for your presence.” Martin rose from his stool “Well, Roger, you wanted something to do.” He winked “you can act as my retainer” “Sure, captain.” He gestured towards the woman “Lead the way.” She saluted and guided them towards the makeshift command post in the middle of the camp. On the way she gave them a few curious glances. Eventually she opened her mouth to ask a question. “Er, Mr…?” “Fellstorm, Magus Roger Fellstorm” “Magus Fellstorm.” She said “If you don’t mind, would like to ask you something.” “Err, sure love, go for it.” “Well, you are clearly a wizard.” The gnome nodded “Yet you serve with the rangers, most wizards tend to stay somewhat at the back.” “Well, the first reason is that I’m a good friend of the captain right here and that he asked me very nicely to join his party of merry men. This seemed like a good idea to me as I was somewhat broke at the time. Also, Martin and friends are a bit shit and would surely die somewhere in the middle of nowhere without yours truly.” But the mage wasn’t done yet “Furthermore, I’m not one of those casters who just locks himself up in tower all day to study, I like the world way too much for that. You might know that not all wizards use the same set of spells, most of us specialise in one or more of the lore’s of magic. These are basically collections of spells that follow the same style. You have the lore of light, the lore of earth, the lore of nature, (which is basically the same thing as druid’s use, except that it isn’t while it kind of is) just to name a few. Pretty much every wizard will learn a few spells from every lore, next to the universal lore. This is a set of basic spells that every wizard should know. Although I have a suspicion that those who classified the spells just couldn’t be bothered to classify them. Some prefer to just lean spells from all lore sans become a jack off all trades, but most will find a particular set of spells that interests them. One of mine is he lore of shadows, a set off spells that specialise in stealth and being all sneaky like. Stuff that is quite useful for the rangers.” Then Martin tipped him on the shoulder “Roger mate, she asked for a short explanation, not for a treatise on magic.” The magus gave a somewhat awkward smile “Sorry Miss, got a bit carried away, I’m afraid.”

 

At this point in time, the three arrived at the command post in the centre of the camp, surrounded by several guards, many of whom Martin recognised as royal huscarls, arguably the finest fighters in the realm, further there was, of course, his friend prince William Edwaedson, the eldest son of jarl Fiona Boldwinsdottir, Bohort Richardson and an unknown person. He had the ears of an elf, yet lacking the refined features of one. Martin therefore concluded he must be a half-elf. Closer inspection also revealed a small silver badge on his chest, bearing the crown of Bregonas. He walked up to his friend “Goodday William, how are things?” to say that this rather simple greeting shook the half-elf is like saying that trolls aren’t very clever: a slight understatement at the best of times. He knew the northerners weren’t massive fans of formality, but this? William noticed this (not that that was particularly difficult.) “Calm down, lord Serelan, Ranger-captain Martin here is one of my oldest friends, he has earned that right.” He turned again to the ranger “Good to see you to mate.” He gestured towards the Bregonian “By the way, meet lord Serelan Sunflare, an observer from the kingdom of Bregonas, here to, well, observery things. Now, you might be curious why I asked you here.” “You wanted someone who didn’t call you ‘your grace’ or ‘my lord’ all the bloody time and who will punch you in the face when you get too drunk?” Martin suggested. William smiled, while the observer became bleaker by the minute. “No mate, I’ve already got Bohort and my sister for that.” Bohort grinned. “You’re perfectly welcome to drink with us in a moment.” “Perhaps later. Something tells me that I have to drag a wasted dwarf back to his tent in a moment.” Bohort first looked like he wanted to make a comment on this, then just murmured a simple “I don’t want to know.” “See you in the evening then. Now, let’s get serious for a moment.” He pointed towards one of the maps on the table before them. “Lately, we are having some issues with our supply lines. Some of them that go through this area, just, disappear, annihilated by raiders.” Martin frowned “But those caravans are usually fairly well guarded.” Bohort nodded “You are right there, but these ain’t your ordinary ruffians anymore. They are led by someone who they refer to as the ‘bandit king’. He has gathered dozens of men under his banner, some even say that some orc and goblin raiders have joined his merry bunch. Long story short, enough men to ambush a few non-suspecting guards.” Martin rubbed his chin. “Grave news indeed, but can’t this be handled by local forces?” “Aye, we tried, but small forces were simply overrun and if we presented them with a superior force, they would simply melt into the forest, leaving nothing in their tracks but cold campfires by the time our forces arrived.” William explained. “In other words, you need the rangers.” “exactly.” “Well, I’m flattered for your faith in me, but gathering from your words we are facing at least a hundred men, probably more, while I have something like thirty-odd men and I have more rangers than anybody here.” “Don’t worry, we’ve thought of that.” The prince picked up a scroll from the table and handed it over to the ranger-captain “A letter off attorney, signed by yours truly. It will allow you to pick up some regular soldiers from around here, furthermore, it will also ensure the cooperation of local lords and ladies or their representatives. The first part though is more of a request and a sign of my permission than a direct order. So if I were you, I’d mainly ask friendly lords or other people who still owe you one. Besides you don’t even have to take them out immediately, as long as keep them busy.” After this, the three chatted onwards for a while, before Martin returned to Roger, who had been waiting at a respectful distance, chatting away with a minotaur. The ranger explained their new task to the gnome, who thought about it for a while “You know, I think I know some fellas who’d wile to tag along. The first candidate besides the others of the company is going to be fairly obvious, isn’t it? Unless you Celdric to be pissed for the entire bloody way.” Martin nodded and noted the name ‘Elana Goodwind on the parchment. “Alright then, anyone else?” “Sure, just follow me.” He said as he guided him through the camp “the next candidate is one of my best and oldest friends besides you lot, remember Sarah Brightspark?” “the engineer?” “Aye, that one.” Roger said as the arrived by a tent with a make-shift workbench in front of it. Next to it, sat a female gnome, bent over some project. She had put her long, red hair in a ponytail, with a pair of welding goggles pulled over, acting as a hairband, further, she wore an orange jacket, with brown trousers, held up by a large tool belt. “Oi, Sarah!” Roger yelled. “Oh hi Roger.” She said “How you doing?” “Fine, thank you very much. Say, how would you like to get out of this rather boring place.” The wizard say a slight sparkle appear in hear eyes. “Go on then.” “how would you like to go with us on a personal mission of the prince?” “Sounds interesting” she said “I had to resolve to reassembling my guns again to keep me busy. I’ll get packing. I assume you will resolve this with master engineer Copperclip?” “Wonderful, knew I could count on you, I’ll fill you in on the details later.” “sure, see you later.”

 

“Any more suggestions?” Martin asked “a few yes. I’ll go to the later. You?” “I think I’m going to see jarl James Williamson, he owes me one, so let’s see if we can relieve him of some of his gallowglasses.” Roger laughed “lead the way mate.”

High-line transfer with RFA Retainer (A329). Retainer was launched on Jan 19th 1950 as a liner and then later sold for use as an RFA. De-commissioned April 1978 and Scrapped in Spain 1979