This evening I was looking up paper dolls on Youtube (trying to get ideas for a project I’ve got forming in my head) and came across the phenomenon of BJD’s (or ball jointed dolls). These are sculptures you can dress! I found endless videos of teenagers and grown women unwrapping large packages containing their anticipated doll so out of curiosity I went in search of prices (and nearly had heart failure). The basic price is just the naked doll without eyes or wig! I’m not a doll collector (my dolls have all been rescued – they’d be offended to be labelled a collected object), but these ball jointed dolls are amazing. They come in all sorts of sizes and endless variety of styles. I watched a tutorial of someone sculpting a doll head out of paper clay and I think I’ll have to buy some clay and have go. Here’s one I’d buy if I were a rich girl… Actually I’d have to have two…He’d be lonely without a heroine to have tea with. [Read more…] about If I Were a Rich Girl…
Louis et Francoise
Health update…
I apologise for my sparse blogging. In mid March I went to the doctors with a number of symptoms. The blood tests revealed an over active thyroid (which is an auto immune disorder). That’s the one where you die if you don’t take medication to sort it out. After a month I heard back from the specialist and my GP put me on some pills. My poor brain felt like a worn tire being driven at speed down a gravel road. By the time I started taking the medication I’d developed a weird brain slur which made talking and writing a challenge (it’s now better, but my brain is still not quite right). After a couple weeks of the pills I was feeling so much better I forgot I wasn’t “healthy”. I’ll never forget the day I decided to weed the flower beds. My garden is small and the flower beds edge the back of the garden. Since I’d started, I wanted to get them all done…so I pushed myself. I think it was all the bending over and standing up (I should have been kneeling). When I finished I felt like I was going to throw up. I had an awful feeling in my chest. I sat down in the garden chair and thought I was going to have a heart attack and die. [Read more…] about Health update…
Come into my parlour said the spider…
There’s an organization in England called The National Trust which owns lots of houses…lots of land…lots and lots of stuff! They own more stuff than any one person could see in a lifetime without one’s eyes drying up, falling out and ending in one of their collections of stuff. Sensing their hoard might be missing a trick (ie missing opportunities to make money) they’ve put online a collection of photographs of some their stuff (and offer the option to purchase large detailed photos for personal perusal). If, like me, you enjoy trawling through endless photos of antiques (because you never know what might inspire a romance novel or end up on the must have wish list) this website is for you! Some of the souls choosing items to be photographed for the collection appear to be either blind or mad (is there anyone out there in the known universe who lives to trawl through numerous photos of pewter dishes that all look alike?), but that’s part of the charm. Typing “pewter” into the search box (you have to click on the search button – pushing the enter key does nothing) on the second page I discovered a pewter bedpan from 1820… [Read more…] about Come into my parlour said the spider…
Book review: Doctor of Love James Graham and His Celestial Bed
“Originality is not achieved by striving for it.” This is one of my favorite quotes. To me this means that the only way we can be original is to simply be ourselves. The moment we strive to be original our efforts end up morphing into a mess because we’re trying to be something we’re not. We lose the plot and our efforts (whatever they might be) end up…unoriginial. James Graham, an 18th century medical doctor who specialised in sexual health, was not only original but ahead of his time in many respects. Given the finite knowledge any good doctor actually had about the human body in the 1780’s a lot of medical care was either down to medical customs (sometimes more deadly than the ailment) or unfounded, untested quackery. Bascially, anyone who could afford to attend medical classes and make himself sound like a doctor…could set himself up as a doctor. [Read more…] about Book review: Doctor of Love James Graham and His Celestial Bed