Pursuing hobbies

For restoration of my doll house I need, among other things, lolly sticks. They are very practical for many purposes. I brought an ample supply from a hobby shop the old country, but I ran out of them when I decided to build herringbone floors for the living room. Someone on my electronic discussion group had made a wooden-strip floor (not herringbone parquet though), and I could not resist the challenge. It’s a minuscule job of course, like building a jigsaw puzzle of ten thousand pieces, but it is highly relaxing. And I am not in a hurry. I don’t have to meet a deadline for a fair; on the contrary, the point is to prolong the process as much as possible. A doll house can never be perfect and finished. A character in Tove Jansson’s Moomin books who has managed to collect all the stamps in the world is frustrated because he has become an owner rather than a collector, and it is not the same pleasure.

The yellow pages for Cambridge carry some arts and crafts shops, but nowhere did they have lolly sticks. I have tried online doll-house and craft-supplies stores too. I am positively sure that English miniature devotees use lolly sticks just as much as the Swedish; apparently I have turned to wrong shops. At long last I found a place called Hobby Stores in a nearby village. This was promising, and we went there. The window display was an immediate disappointment: plane and train model kits. They didn’t have lolly sticks, but they did have thin long strips in much softer wood, that turned out to be significantly easier to cut. I have now been to this shop three times and hope to get discounts soon.

The herringbone floor is ready. I must think of another long-term project. Decorate the house outward with handmade bricks perhaps.

The herringbone floor is not fitted in yet since it needs a coat of varnish.