Bookish Blonde

Frank Lloyd Wright - Chicago Museum

2016-05-30T01:30:00.000-07:00

A Frank Lloyd Wright prairie style home in Oak Park.

Whilst in Oak Park, and having a passion for property, I was lucky enough to visit the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio museum. Afterwards I took a walking tour around the neighbourhood of Oak Park taking these photos of Frank Lloyd Wright designed homes.

Another Frank Lloyd Wright house.

This style of architecture is easily recognised amongst the other residential houses.

The same house (see above): Frank Lloyd Wright liked to off set the entrance (commonly using arches) and front door.

The museum in Oak Park, Chicago. I bought this book at the end of my guided tour around the house and studio.

It was not until later that my interest in the architect took off in a different direction. The crime of the century! When I learned of the murders, my fascination piqued.

In 1914; his mistress, her two children and workers at the mansion in Wisconsin (called Taliesin, built specifically to house his lover), were all killed. Seven dead. They didn't mention any of this on the guided tour! Huff.

It was not till Loving Frank a novel by Nancy Horan, published in 2007, that the story of scandal, affairs, arrogance, abandoned families and the mystery behind the murders ... were highlighted. This has brought a new type of tourist to the museum.

Spring Fade

2016-05-24T03:34:00.001-07:00

Red tulip, passing its best.

Spring came early in Dundee (January), but it also ended early (May) ... Here are some of my water-colour paintings of the very last spring blooms plucked from my garden, just before wilting.

Scottish bluebells.

Yellow is my favourite colour so daffodils for me are the emblem of spring. They are bright and sunny and they make me smile.

Potted daffodils

These spring flowers have gorgeous scents; daffodils, tulips and of course, bluebells. Ahh ... sweet!

Daffodil stem and flower.

There is always something fading and something budding in nature ... Summers a-coming. What next? ... I can't keep up!

Other posts you may like:

Haunted House At Davidsons Mains: Halloween Painting

Book Recommendation - The Girl With Seven Names

2016-05-18T08:52:00.001-07:00

Those who follow my blog will possibly know that any book with 'Girl' in the title is a must read for me. So, The Girl With Seven Names by Hyeonseo Lee flew into my hands from the new books section at the library.

This is a book that will make you happy ... Good prevails over evil. It is not the first book that I have read from start to finish: (Inevitably into the wee hours of the morning and stopping only for grub and toilet breaks.) But it is the first book that I have finished reading only to start right back at the beginning the following day for its second read. Yup, it was that good.

Why did I like it so much?

Because I saw parallels with the North Korean regime and the current British government. (The Conservative government with David Cameron as leader.) Of course you will have to read it for yourself to form your own opinion. It's uncanny ...

Soon, they will be parading us in public places and hanging us from trees ... Unless we defect to Australia like every one else.

Twiggy and Broken: Winter at Drumgieth Park

2016-03-16T08:55:00.001-07:00

Things do look a lot different in winter. For instance, industry, normally hidden behind a canopy of trunks and leaves is now on full view. However, a great thing, is that wildlife such as deer can be spotted more easily. I said, in my Autumn post, that I would be back to check on this urban and wild area at winter.

Roe Deer.

I am so excited to have actually captured photographs of Roe deer. It was not easy.

Here are my efforts from a mornings shoot. Everything looks more desolate ... twiggy. Broken. But there are signs of new life. Spring is a coming.

Car Scrappies

These commercial businesses cannot be seen during the summer months. There is no escaping urban views today.

A mallard pair - Mr and Mrs. Most of my wildlife shots are a little blurred, birds especially, simply refuse to sit still and say cheese.

Of course, litter is everywhere, yet the wildlife just get on with it. Another day...

Finally, colour. Teasing and tempting and creating hope.

Looking north to Whifield housing estate.

Three Magpies playing in a tree.

Broken. A casualty of winter.

Weather beaten sign at Bell and Sime.

Weather beaten. This is how I would describe this section of Drumgieth Park. The winds and floods over the first couple of months of 2016 flattened this two mile strip. But ... the first early flowers are blooming along the banks of the Dichty Burn.

Snowdrops always make me smile.

Another tree down. I saw much of this.

Ivy covered tree, the only greenery. This is the favourite snack for deer and they usually nibble as far up the trunk as they can reach.

I will check by again over summer ...

Other posts you may enjoy:

Some Weird Hobbies!

Welcome To Drumgieth Park in Autumn.

Spring Sign Snowdrops

2016-02-29T05:36:00.000-08:00

Snowdrops, watercolour by Sharon McPherson

Credit to them, they have been thinking about their appearance for awhile; and I do have to take into account my north facing garden. Patience ... So this art project has been reliant on the weather. Nothing I can do about that!

Snowdrops in Terracotta Pot, watercolour by Sharon McPherson

Finally, even though others are showing their shower of white drops, my little pots have given enough diamonds to make these watercolour sketches. Pleased. Spring has arrived.

Other posts you may like:

Here's me Sitting In Kim Wilde's Garden

Affairs

Love Horror, to The (full) Moon and Back

2016-02-24T07:42:00.000-08:00

Thanks to Nicola, her painting my face like an Avon tear-sheet, we walked straight into The Regal. Me, not really looking over eighteen. Her, only concerned that she had an escort; later. We had come to see The Exorcist, back in 1980.

The Exorcist, X rated and dubbed the 'scariest movie ever made' has my agreement there. Absolutely. (This was the first horror movie I ever saw and the first X rated film, and I was, er ... fifteen.) I confess to this now seeing that it is February, and the 7th Annual Women In Horror Month.

I was not aware that the horror genre may have been dominated more keenly by men. Never crossed my mind. I have always read horror and watched horror movies; probably because as Lauren A. Forry says,

'... it cannot be understated how important it is for a reader to be able to identify with the protagonist - to see a character and think, 'That's me.' When that happens, it makes the story that much more powerful. Horror is a genre, like romance, where women often lead the story.'

It's true and the list is long; Carrie, Alien, The Descent, Halloween ...

Horror for me is not about sitting in the movie theatre snuggled up to my fella peering from behind his protective Parker. Horror makes me feel alive ... forget the fairy-tales ... except, of course, when romance and horror combine. Such as in the Twighlight saga. Where the protagonist is defending herself against vampires and werewolves; but she wants to be one (Vampire). Huh?

The point of escaping into horror for me is that it is my metaphor in my fight as a woman in a man's world. (Yes, it still is the last time I checked, and thank god for that!) These women show their strength. In, I Am Legend, virologist Robert Neville may have discovered the cure for the mutant plague, but it took a woman to deliver it.

Photo Inspiration

2016-02-10T07:42:00.000-08:00

Aurora, Illinois USA, photograph by Sharon McPherson

From this to this.

Every artist has a defining moment. Artists are constantly inspired, week to week, day to day, but every now and then ... perhaps just once in a life-time, there is the moment. You just know. It is like falling in love.

I fell in love with America then, in October of 2003. Halloween, pumpkins, clapper-board houses, wrap-around porches, sidewalks, mail boxes, stars and stripes, endless sky, pumpkin pie ...

Pumpkin Diner, in oil on canvas by Sharon McPherson

Other posts you may like:

Meet An Old flame. His Name?

Street Life!

Enid Blyton's A Foodie

2016-01-29T08:47:00.000-08:00

When anyone asks me who my favourite childhood author is I always reply quickly with Enid Blyton. Of course, I read books by other authors, that I enjoyed as a kid, but what did Enid have that gave her the edge? ... Food!

The following extract, from this month's Whitfield Library Book Group choice, This Boy, a memoir, by politician Alan Johnson, sums it up, as he talks about an Enid Blyton book of childhood, a

'Famous Five' story. I can't recall which; what I do remember is the wonderful escapism of immersing myself in the adventures of those children: the delicious-sounding things they ate and how happy their lives were. When the good times gave way to the dark days of the 1960s, I would lie on my bed covered in coats, cold and hungry, drooling over the sausages, pies and cakes and lemonade scoffed by the children of Blyton-land.

Illustration and extract below from More Wishing-Chair Stories, by Enid Blyton

As well as the adventures in any of her books, Blyton talks non stop about being hungry and thirsty, cooking and having dinner; I just did not realise it at the time, that Enid was tickling my taste buds with her words.

Mrs. Willy was quite pleased to let them have a tray of goodies to take down to the playroom with them. She piled it with buns and new bread and butter, and a slab of honey in the comb, biscuits, and ice-cream out of the fridge. It did look good!

Oh ... Is it tea-time yet? I'm starving!

Other posts inspired by children:

Mama We Love You

Lucy Gray Inspired Betty Dolan Story

Then and Now - Pencil Drawings

2016-01-21T04:58:00.001-08:00

Boxer Pup in pencil by Sharon McPherson, aged 15, in 1981

I wonder why I did not develop my art. I can think of a few reasons; 'artists are always poor', 'art is a luxury', 'get a proper job' - I was told. Perhaps, it was little encouragement from family and a poor art education at my comprehensive school, Kirkton High. Probably it was all of that. And, that I was interested in many things growing up, that I did not take an art occupation seriously.

Bulldog Portrait in pencil by Sharon McPherson, aged 15 in 1981

I am all grown up now and have had many jobs; desk jobs, mostly. Hardly fulfilling. Glum jobs, with glum people. Happily, I have also run businesses, received a university education and became a published author. This is more like it! Full circle. Back to creativity!

Hare in pencil by Sharon McPherson in 2015

Red Squirrel in pencil by Sharon McPherson in 2015

Since I am taking a time-out from writing, I made the decision to play catch up with my art. Time to practise and develop myself as an artist; another string to my creative bow. So I looked at work which I had completed when I was fifteen years old, the age that I stopped producing work. (That is until I picked up pencils again to illustrate A Skirt Around Dundee A Walker's Guide To The City, my illustrated book about Dundee)

Harvest Mouse in pencil by Sharon McPherson aged 15 in 1981

Harvest Mouse in pencil by Sharon McPherson in 2015

I do not see much difference, if anything I can see development. A good thing. I will keep posting. Follow my journey.

Other arty posts you may be interested in:

Edward Hopper-ish

People Keep Putting their Heads Into My Photographs

There is Something About Pumpkins

Winter Painting. And One That I Did.

2016-01-05T09:14:00.000-08:00

The Approach Of A Winter's Night, by Edward Wilkins Waite 1854 - 1924

Days are short; open curtains, close curtains. Repeat. I can image myself living in this little house depicted in the painting by Edward Wilkins Waite. Some people may dream of hot climes, Bora Bora for example, but not me. A simple cottage on a Welsh hillside is my dream. Complete with dogs and hens and a wood burning stove. A perfect place for a writer.

The trees in the painting also caught my eye, as I have been practising drawing trees. As you can see I have some way to go in my art development.

Late Pumpkin Harvest, an oil pastel painting by Sharon McPherson

Stuck on Autumn

2015-12-23T07:25:00.000-08:00

A stem of ivy

Here are some of my water colour paintings of fallen autumn foliage from in and around my garden. It has been a long time since I have painted using water colours. I love them. Quick. Effective. Illustrative. Suits my purpose as a book illustrator. So much quicker than using water colour pencils, which is the medium I used for the illustrations in, A Skirt Around Dundee, and my short story collection, Dew On The Law.

Ash leaf and acorn

This nature project ties in with my photography project of the Dichty Burn, in Dundee. Ok, so now I need to identify and name the leaves. Hmm, if I thought identifying birds was tricky ... leaves! Especially, now they have lost their colour and are shrivelled. Help!

Ivy leaf

The ivy was easy, but is this really a Maple leaf? (See below.)

Maple

Beech

Here is a cute Robin, which we associate with winter ... Winter? Where? It is Christmas Eve tomorrow, and we are stuck on Autumn! This Robin painting I sent as a Christmas card to friends.

Old Sketchbooks New Covers

2015-11-30T09:07:00.000-08:00

Mocking Consumerism

I decided to update a couple of my old sketchbooks, that still have plenty of blank pages to fill. I was initially, contemplating ditching these two books - one has work from as far back as 2000 - but no, I want to begin a new habit of finishing one sketchbook before starting a fresh. Working on the new covers really has given me a boost and helped me to take pride in the sketching and thinking stage; and has given me the bug for collage, too.

'Mocking Consumerism', may also be interpreted as celebrating consumerism: but the tea-mug stain tells you which way I am leaning.

'Hands Off,' using massive green letters, is my way of taking ownership of becoming an artist - This is my SKETCHBOOK! My life!

Hands Off

So, when I am not bashing my forehead on the computer screen - er .... writers' block! - you'll find me in the studio ...

Welcome To Drumgieth Park in Autumn

2015-11-19T12:26:00.000-08:00

Drumgieth Park (Nature Reserve)

This is my playground. Welcome!

Considering, that I live in the fourth largest city in Scotland, look at what I have at the end of my street. Wildlife. Space. And, there is the V&A under construction on the waterfront. Culture and art. Looks like Dundee is the place to be!

Listen To The Songs of Nature bench in mosaic; overlooking the burn with Douglas beyond

These are my photographs from my outing today, taken along the Dighty burn by the stretch near the Drumgieth Park. On my trips to this area, I have spotted roe deer, heron, snails, a squirrel, a vole (dead), a wood pecker, robins, mallards, oyster catchers and magpies. There are also all the other critters that are keeping out of sight; hedgehog, rabbits. And the usual suspects; pigeons and seagulls. After dusk, of course this place is riddled with foxes. (Auch, and rats.)

Sign post: Claypotts Castle east - Drumgieth Park west

As well as the wildlife, there is the issue of urban waste. Last month I volunteered with the Dundee Conservationists, who are supported by the Scottish Wildlife Trust, and we drew from the burn, three shopping trolleys, three bicycles, vacuum cleaners, kids buggies, a t.v., a wheelie bin, washing machine and the usual debris of crisp packets and bottles and cans and loads more, just on this one strip alone ....

Twiggy stems

As well as animals there is the flora and vegetation which I am not so clued up on. Which attract, of course, butterflies and bugs.

Cow Parsley

Most of the foliage is dying back with the change in season and the trees have a more defined shape. (This is the time I should be learning to identify the tree varieties.)

Cow Parsley detail

Most people who use these paths are walkers, dog walkers, joggers and cyclists (As this way forms the Green Cycle Route around the city.)

Waterfall on the Dighty burn

I came out this morning, hoping to take some reference shots with my Sony Cyber-Shot - the camera I usually curse at constantly (because it's rubbish!) - but I take it all back - I am delighted with my images. You would not know that this place is sandwiched between a housing estate to the south and an industrial estate - including the city recycle centre - to the north.

I guess I will be back in winter to see how the landscape has changed.

Tall grasses

There Is Something About Pumpkins

2015-11-17T07:33:00.001-08:00

Three Pumpkins 2015, by Sharon McPherson

Big. Bold. Bright. Ever since spending six weeks in Aurora, Illinois USA, during the month of October 2003, I have been in love with pumpkins. (I even named my small publishing company, Pumpkin Press.) This painting is one I've just completed in oil pastel on canvas board, and is part of a pumpkin project which I hope to exhibit next year.

I'm on a roll! I have written a short story for children ... about ... a pumpkin! (History of a Halloween pumpkin). This is the second short story for children I've written and I was inspired (er ... sidetracked, more like) by none other than McDonald's.

I was delighted to find Roald Dahl's, Secret Plans in a Happy Meal. (Not my Happy Meal, by the way.) These small books in these meals were the initiative of the National Literacy Trust. By partnering with McDonald's, they hope to encourage more families to read together.

The National Literacy Trust is a charity that transforms lives through literacy. They want more families reading together. (There is nothing sissy about reading a story out loud before lights out. It's actually a lot of fun.) The Trust say that children who read in their own time do better at school and later in life. I'm an advocate of this.

Inspired, I decided to try out; see if I could write stories for children that are interesting, informative and inspiring. Also, I would like to challenge myself to illustrate these too. Why not?

Reading tips for adults and children from the Trust:

- Bring the story to life by using different voices.

- Make your child the author. Stop at exciting moments in the story and ask your child to invent what happens next.

- Children of all ages love to hear stories read aloud. Don't stop reading to your children just because they can read by themselves.

- Let your child help choose the books that you'll read together. (Let your child have their own library membership card.)

Rusty: Worldwide Urban Sketchcrawl 2015

2015-10-26T05:04:00.000-07:00

Whitfield Library by Sharon McPherson 24/10/15

Worldwide Urban Sketchcrawl took place on Saturday 24 October 2015. Residing in Scotland and being autumn, the light for drawing was never going to be Vincent Van Gogh's Arles, France. Indeed, the day was nippy and damp so I decided to sketch indoors at my community library in Whitfield. Cozy and quiet.

Skills neglected; I have forgotten just how important art and drawing is to me (it has always come second to writing) and this event has given me fresh appreciation: hunger even. Thank you Eileen Farrelly, my friend and talented artist, for inviting me to take part.

Lucy participated later in the day once the sunshine glimmered fleetingly. For her venue we chose the play park in Whitfield, where she drew a climbing frame; developing this idea into something more sophisticated: She called her urban sketch Treehouse.

Treehouse by Lucy McPherson 24/10/15

If You Are Looking For A Sign THIS IS IT

2015-10-23T05:43:00.000-07:00

Mystic Mark, The Skinny, October 2015

Having attended a talk at this year's Dundee Literary Festival: Getting Started, Getting Published with writers, Elisabeth Gifford and Sandra Ireland, I got talking with a fellow writer friend afterwards and our conversation led in the usual direction of when we are famous. Or more precisely we pondered over what would happen to our still unpublished novels once they landed into the evil imagination of a screen writer.

Having just heard that Sandra had been advised by her publisher to change her novel's ending three times and Elisabeth had not been consulted over a jacket design, my talented friend and I shuddered to think of our precious fiction barely unrecognisable after the long journey to press and film. The only good thing being the chuckling all the way to the bank, did give us food for thought, however.

Saying goodbye to Martin and parting ways I happened to snatch up a copy of The Skinny (The Anniversary Issue, October 2015). Now, I'm not even a reader of stars but it just kind of popped my eyeballs ... Will cross the movie deal off the list, then?

It Takes One To Know One

2015-10-21T07:02:00.000-07:00

Here I am posing at the front left side, with fellow writers

Writers come in all shapes and sizes, figuratively speaking; meaning all writers' writing is completely unique. It has been a long lesson for me to learn; this last year I have been struggling with my identity as a writer. Who am I? What do I write? Why? I have been searching for a pigeon hole to place myself into. Looking to see who I write like? Where do I belong on a Waterstones' book shelf? Dazed and confused! (In fact, those last two questions are publishers questions not a writers.) Then, finally, I realise, having attended Monday evening's Hotchpotch, a special one off event on board the Frigate Unicorn, that there is no pigeon hole. We are all beautifully different.

CLICK TO READ ARTICLE: Courier and Advertiser, 20 October 2015

Hotchpotch is an open mic event for poetry and prose in Dundee normally running once a month, in the Burgh Coffee House, however, this evening in particular was a special bonanza. A learning curve to aid my writing nags:

Some writers are inspired by the beauty in a painting, or a landscape; others are Wordsmiths fed by rhyme and rhythm producing rumbling ceilidhs or trickery. A few are rebellious and write to vent or are political or religious or humorous. Some talk of the annoying things in life; and a few are concerned with memoir, or nostalgia of the good old days of forgotten habits and lost landmarks. Others write to make sense of who they are, 'Why did I do that?!' A few have wild imaginations and can place human existence among aliens. Some, even wilder and produce poetry in alien languages. (Clangers - check the link if curious.) Writers are an odd bunch.

Yes, I am keeping good company and a fully certified writer, by default. Yet I am none of those described above: I am not a Wordsmith nor a poet and I cannot compel myself to write by the beauty of anything. I have made readers laugh out loud with my prose, but I am not a comedian. I don't want to have a cup of tea with an alien and religion and politics are private matters. And all of this is ok. We are all unique, remember! My writing is based on my experiences; even in my fiction the seed lies somewhere in a past something that I have felt, or saw or heard. I'm attracted to verisimilitude like the celebrated author Stephen Crane. Philosophical even. Of course, I'm still learning and growing as writer. Only one thing is certain about any stage of my writing style or career; I am Sharon McPherson and only I am she.

USA Urban Choice for National Poetry Day (8 October 2015)

2015-10-08T03:45:00.000-07:00

Nuyorican Poet's Cafe, Lower East Side New York: The ultimate Open Mic venue. The Wednesday Night Slam is strictly for poetry. (Photo from 'Street Graphics New York', Barry Dawson)

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday

three days after Bastille day, yes

it is 1959 and I go get a shoe shine

because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton

at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner

and I don't know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun

and have a hamburger and a malted and buy

an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets

in Ghana are doing these days

I go to the bank

and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)

doesn't even look up my balance for once in her life

and in the GOLDEN GRIFFEN I get a little Verlaine

for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do

think of Hesiod, trans, Richard Lattimore or

Brendan Behan's new play or Le Balcon or Les Negres

of Genet, but I don't, I stick with Verlaine

after practically going to sleep with quandariness

and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE

Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and

then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue

and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeid Theatre and

casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton

of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her name on it

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of

leaning on the john door inthe 5 SPOT

while she whispered a song along the keyboard

to MAL WALDRON and everyone and I stopped breathing

Frank O'Hara, 'The Day Lady Died' from Lunch Poems.

Frank O'Hara wrote his poems during his lunch breaks! 'The Day Lady Died' is an elegy for Billie Holliday, but the poem oozes New York! New York! The poem is really about Frank O'Hara's daily grind, yet he makes the humdrum appear exotic.

Top of the World Trade Centre, New York with my son Davie in 1996. Statue of Liberty is a tiny thumb's up in the Hudson; right side in the photo

Great Artists Start Young

2015-09-10T05:44:00.000-07:00

Lucy McPherson

Vincent van Gogh began to draw as a child and Pablo Picasso showed a passion and a skill for drawing at an early age. Picasso was regarded as a boy genius. The above drawing is by my grand-daughter Lucy, aged 5. A portrait / self portrait using felt pen. Full of ideas, fun and it makes me smile everytime I look at it.

Time will tell.

The Details Make You You

2015-08-08T10:47:00.000-07:00

East Germany, 1989

Portraits! In studying photography at Dundee College, portraiture was the module I was least looking forward to. Is there anything interesting in looking at a bunch of strangers? Then I met Steve McCurry in Edinburgh at a book signing event. Now, I understand.

You see in that person what you see in yourself: suffering, loneliness, fun, happiness, beauty, crazy, pensive ... One of my favourite photographs of McCurry's, taken from his book Portraits, is of a girl about eight years old, taken in East Germany, 1989.

I see in her myself at her age. My bicycle. My dolly. My red anorak and trainers. My freedom and the hope and adventure in my future.

Stuck for a Title for Your Novel?

2015-07-22T04:54:00.000-07:00

Girl.

The Hardest Thing To Do

2015-07-14T05:41:00.000-07:00

So much working, reading, thinking, living to do! A lifetime is not long enough.

Sylvia Plath The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

I thought writing a novel would be cathartic; like finding Nirvana, or stroking a cat. That it would gush forth via the tap tapping on my keyboard, with only a few tweaks in odd places. That I would create art that was meaningful; at least to me. But it is not like that.

Writing a novel is stressful. I have to make things up, making situations seem believable, yet the reader has to enter a new world. And then, add these in at the right places because a novel may be art, but there is still the technical rules. So why don’t I stop? If it is horrible. Why don’t I quit?

Ask a mountaineer the same question. Someone who has climbed the big two, or three, or four (Everest, K2, The Eiger, Siula Grande, made famous in the book and movie, Touching The Void). Someone who has been involved in almost fatal situations, have lost friends even. Why do they do it?

It’s precisely because it is stressful, and challenging - the ultimate thrill, like Everest and exotic and complex. I can have control and express myself freely (freedom of self expression ... Priceless), be glamourous (a little) and intellectual, but mostly, I endure because it is my job. I am a writer.

Writing Memoirs? Where Do I Begin? Childhood.

2015-06-24T04:00:00.000-07:00

A COLLECTION OF TOYS SOLD IN THE 1970'S.

Before you began growing up; before you were who you are now ... you were a kid, right?

It all began for me, when I made a decision to investigate why I wanted to write satire. Why satire? Why not horror? All my favourite books as a teenager were horror. The Exorcist (William Peter Blatty); The Rats (James Herbert). So, how do I begin to discover who I am? What shaped and influenced me? I decided to look at my beginning, my childhood; however, not at my upbringing, not at my family, but at my stuff.

LIFE SIZE DISPLAY AT THE MUSEUM OF CHILDHOOD

Your belongings define who you are. It's your first point of reference in shaping yourself, your identity, your likes ... You made your first choices in life at weeks old, months old when you reached for the purple teddy over the red giraffe ... The stuff you chose as a child is about growing up.

STRING PUPPETS

Last week I enjoyed a wonderful afternoon visiting the Museum of Childhood on Edinburgh's Royal Mile. This museum is a celebration of childhood from birth through school days, and through all eras. The exhibitions are delightful, educational (well documented and displayed) over four floors in two adjacent buildings. My favourites were there; farm yard animals, toy telephones and a type writer, puppets and hundreds of dolls from around the world, dolly's prams, toy solders and cars ...

DOLLS HOUSE INTERIORS

HI HO SILVER AWAY!

Memories? What better way to rekindle your childhood adventures than surrounding yourself with all your old toys. One object, so many stories to write about. Warning: collecting your own toys from childhood is addictive.

Visit the Museum of Childhood at:
42 High Street
Royal Mile
Edinburgh
EH1 1TG

Entry is FREE

Bikini Body Bucket List

2015-06-08T07:55:00.000-07:00

Lorraine Kelly appears on the front cover of this weeks edition of Woman, wearing a bikini. Fabulous! Great to see a real woman; a woman over the age of 50 showing how beautiful, sexy, daring, and fun loving life is, regardless of age. No frumpy for Ms Kelly, nor Me!

Don't laugh, but I have Bikini Body scribbled on my bucket list, along with owning a small holding, finish writing my novel and hike the West Highland Way. Luckily, I have a book that will help. (See, there is a book for everything!) Bikini Bootcamp: Yikes! Even the name is ... er ... indicative that there might be a little work required. Some sweat, some stress, some sacrifices. Yes, but it is worth it. Exercising keeps you fit and smiling. (NB: if you need more than a book's help, Bikini Bootcamp is a place that actually exists.)

Attitude too is key. Attitude keeps you young. The French woman's attitude towards beauty and ageing is to be copied. French women still dress to buy the mornings baguette. In her book, French Women Don't Get Face Lifts, Mireille Guiliano says,

In France old starts after 80 ... a woman in her 40's and 50's is still alluring and seen as an object of desire and acts the part.

Object of desire, I can live with that. This sounds like an attitude I can master. French women don't give a fig about perfection. Great! And just as a reminder of when I had a 20's bikini body, I dug out an old photo. All I need now is the beach!

Sharon at the beach in Limassol, Cyprus

Charles Dickens Great Grandaughter: Such An Influence on Horse Daft Girls

2015-05-21T08:51:00.000-07:00

Gillian Blake who played Dora in Follyfoot with Copper. (Click on clipping to read.)

Monica Dickens, was a writer just like her great-grand pop, Charles Dickens. She was a rebel too, and despite being born into an upper middle class London family she decided to gain experience and took on a job as a cook and general servant. Monica Dickens is my kind of girl! A role model for women and writers. Her writing, in fact, influenced my childhood.

She wrote the Follyfoot series of books which were the basis of a children's TV series, also called Follyfoot, between 1971-1973. This was one of my favourite TV programmes as a child. The series was set around a rest home for horses. Full of adventure and drama of the animals and of the people surrounding the estate. The message was generally to give a second chance to both horses and people who had a rough time in society.

As a horse-mad ten year old girl, I remember thinking how much I would like to be Dora and have a life with horses. I loved the hairstyle of actress Gillian Blake (who played Dora) and soon I too had the 'Blake' feather cut of this time.

My feather cut hairstyle, perhaps not as successful as the gorgeous, Gillian Blake (Dora in Follyfoot).

There is a Follyfoot tribute site and a Facebook fan site. Oooh aahh!

PS

The film never came ... I'm still waiting.