Nothing happened...

“You haven't blogged for four weeks”, Staffan points out. He is right. I haven't. When I don't blog for a long time, it can be for two reasons. 1) nothing has happened. This doesn't happen often. 2) far too much has happened. This happens all the time. When it happens I don't know where to start and let still more time pass and more things happen.

With reference to my account of imminent events, the viva went well, but I was so worn out when I came back that I cancelled all travel until Christmas, except Stockholm where I had too many important commitments. The Stockholm trip went fine. Staffan took me to Stansted. I was picked up at Skavsta by my oldest son who “happened” to be in the vicinity (which he has now admitted implies that someone dear to his heart lives close by). He took me to the place where I was staying, which is the International Writers' Guesthouse, in the very centre of the city. It is a small, but comfortable flat with three rooms and shared bathroom and living room-cum kitchen. During the week I stayed there, I saw a glimpse of my neighbours twice.

In the morning, I went down to a cafe for breakfast. It felt weird. The guesthouse didn't have wi-fi, only a USB cable, while I had brought my paddy. But every cafe with self-respect has wi-fi these days. Some of them have “coffee” for password. Then I bought some stuff for future breakfasts and topped up my travelcard. I had a long, pleasurable lunch with a friend, ending in incredible luck in a thrift shop where I found some remarkable dollhouse miniatures and spent more money I would be prepared to spend “at home”. But I wasn't at home, I was travelling, and then you are allowed to spend more. In the evening I went to admire how the youngest and his girlfriend had re-recorated their flat and to taste her famous and fabulous onion soup. The next day was also full of children and grandchildren, and that night I got horrendous neck pain. I often get stiff neck and know how to deal with it, but this was unbearable, and eventually I gave up and went to Emergency. It transpired that I wasn't a resident. “It will be expensive”, said the receptionist. “How expensive?” I asked. She named the fee. “Do I have a choice?” I said. So much for having paid taxes in my own country for twenty-five years. I got painkillers, and my clever daughter made me buy a wheat pillow, which is a bag of wheat that you heat up in a micro and put on your neck. I have now become addicted to it. I sat with it on my neck throughout the conference.

It was a very strange feeling because normally you go away to a conference, and although technically I was away, I also was kind of at home, but not really, since I didn't stay at home, but in a hotel. In the middle of the conference I escaped to attend a family crayfish party which was marvelous and far too noisy. It was also weird to travel back to Cambridge with the students (back home) and with my friend Kin (going away together) who was to stay with me for a couple of days. On top of it, Staffan was going to Stockholm the day after, but I won't go into more detail.

Kin and I had fun together when I wasn't busy with examination boards and crisis team meetings. We did all the necessary sights in Cambridge and around, went to Formal Hall (where I was obliged to say grace, as I happened to be the most senior at table) and even watched a movie. Then the pre-term business hit me: meetings, business lunches, early supervisions, arriving visiting scholars, a row of formal dinners with details I wish I could write about, but I shouldn't. And the next week it finally starts for real: PhD induction on Tuesday, masters induction on Wednesday, academic assessment meetings and meetings about the new Head of Faculty, more supervisions (I have four new PhD students), more formal dinners, various committee meetings, College Council, research seminars – all this in addition to teaching which I, according to my job description, am supposed to do “every now and then”.

Twelve days of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas Julia, Pontus and I went for a wonderful walk along the river. It was warm and sunny. In the evening we watched Gremlins which is just the right sort of Christmas movie.

On the second day of Christmas we did nothing much, except that we discovered that there were no trains to Stansted that day, and the kids had to take a bus and have a good margin. When they had left, I assembled and tested the new colour printer I got for Christmas.

On the third day of Christmas I graded student papers.

On the fourth day of Christmas I graded more papers, read and ranked postdoc applications and responded to zillions of urgent emails.

On the fifth day of Christmas I read a Norwegian PhD thesis on ethical values in Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. When I got sick and tired of it, I read more postdoc applications for a change. In the evening I made some miniature knitting books for my yarn shop room box.

On the sixth day of Christmas I finished the Norwegian thesis and wrote my report; wrote a recommendation letter and a conference abstract.

On the seventh day of Christmas, which happened to be the New Year Eve, I made lobster thermidor in the morning and set the table. I read some more postdoc applications. We ate far too much for dinner and watched An American in Paris. We celebrated the New Year by Swedish time, listening to church bells from the thirteen Swedish cathedrals. I was fast asleep by the New Year GMT.

On the eighth day of Christmas I was still slightly behind my schedule. I finished the last batch of postdoc applications and spent the rest of the day making a miniature cabinet that I had got from Julia and Pontus for Christmas.

On the ninth day of Christmas I finally started writing my new book. I spent the day going through two years' files: initial, intermediate and final drafts of articles and conference papers, notes, reviews and bibliographies. It is a most ungrateful task, and I always warn my students against keeping multiple drafts because then you have to go through them all in case there is one stray clever sentence hiding somewhere (usually there isn't). My first surprise was that all in all I had more text than I had expected. My second surprise was that the text was in less completed state than I had remembered. In the middle of the day I went for a walk. A lady came toward me just as I was leaving the gate, saying: “It's very muddy in there”, meaning the park. Nice of her, but I knew it already and thefore walked toward and along the river. In the evening Staffan and I watched the first part of the three-hour documentary about Olof Palme.

On the tenth day of Christmas I continued working on my book. I merged several papers into two chapters, which felt highly satisfactory. Then I started on a very difficult theoretical chapter which I had thought was finished. In fact in was all in bits and pieces and yellow highlights with notes to myself in caps: DEVELOP! We watched the second part of the Palme documentary

On the eleventh day of Christmas I went on with the chapter and came up with an idea of exactly how to DEVELOP it. We watched the third part of the Palme documentary

On the twelfth day of Christmas I worked hard on the chapter. I went for a walk along the river.

I allowed myself to finish early and made some more miniatures. In the evening, I watched Werner Herzog's Into the Abyss. It isn't exactly a cheerful movie, but very thought-provoking.

Now the Christmas season is over. I am working on my book. I have set up a goal of walking 150 km and have already done 7% of it. I have four exciting room box projects. Stay in touch.

Parallel life

By the way, please visit my new blog.

What professors do when they are not being professors

Believe me or not, but every now and then I take a break. Usually it happens when I have a visit, and that's exactly what happened last week. My dear childhood friend Alyona came to see me. We talk on Skype often and thus keep in touch, but some time ago we stated with amazement that we hadn't met for two long years.

I had carefully prepared for the visit by attending to all urgent business and putting off everything that was even slightly less urgent. I did check my email in case anyone wanted to give me the Nobel Prize (nobody did) but short of that I was away from the academic world.

Alyona had visited me twice before, and some years ago we spent ten days in London together, making all the tourist things so there is not much we haven't seen and done in London, and we had exhausted most of the options in and around Cambridge during her previous visits. Thus the first day we went to see the Vermeer exhibition and walked around in town. I had a concert ticket and we tried to get another one, but it was sold out. We were not tremendiously upset because by the time we came home we really didn't want to go anywhere again. We sat by the fire and had tea and talked.

The next day we went first to our local garden centre and got a Christmas tree, because I thought that, since she happened to be around almost at the right time, we could put up the tree a bit earlier this year. While we were at it, we bought some pansies for the garden, only we never got round to planting them (I did it after she had left). Instead we went to Ely and the market, and we got a Botanic Garden cake stand from the same lady I had bought two cups before. She didn't remember me but pretended she did and gave me £1 discount. I had been looking for a cake stand, but hadn't seen any that I liked. Just another useless object. It is perfectly fine to put cakes on an ordinary plate. Or is it?

The Fire Engine teashop was booked up again, but we went to another place that I like and had tea; and then we spent quite a long time in the big antique shop without any particular ideas in mind, but playing our favourite game: guessing what different objects are for. Do you know what "a single rose vessel" is? I do now. We bought it. We didn't go into the Cathedral at all.

The next day, which was a Sunday, and therefore I wanted to get away from Christmas crowds, we went to Royston. Now, Royston does not feature in guidebooks as a huge tourist attraction, and I wouldn't know about its existence if London trains didn't stop there every now and then. But Royston is the home of what boasts to be the largest dollhouse shop in Europe and therefore a great temptation which I have been fighting for the past two years. The thing is, I don't really want anything from there because I have stated once and for all that things I make are better and more imaginative, and yet... Anyway, we spent about two hours driving around on motorways and small roads, and once again I thought that a smartphone with GPS might be a good thing to put on Christmas wish list. Fortunately, Alyona is just like me in this respect. But we didn't give up and eventually found the d-d shop and even managed not to buy that much, except that I discovered that a revolution has occurred in dollhouse making, but this is another story. Back home, we made a miniature Victorian wine table and almost made a cake stand, and it was definitely a memorable day.

I didn't want to go to London, but I felt that Alyona did, so on Monday we went, but we didn't even try to see the da Vinci exhibition. Instead, we went to the British Museum where you always make a discovery. Mine was this time the colour schemes of Philipp Otto Runge, which I am sure I had seen before, but you need a little impulse to really notice something. Then we wandered through the Egyptian rooms, fascinating as ever; then we took a walk to Covent Garden and browsed through the market and went into the newly opened Moomin Store, and then I suddenly remembered the Transport Museum. I had been there before, with a grandchild who is passionate about trains, but I realised that I had recently read so many 19th-century English novels where they ride horse-and-carriage, omnibus and the railroad, and indeed the display made much more sense after this reading. I can warmly recommend this museum, but stay away from the cafeteria!

We had bought off-peak train tickets, so when we were finished with taxis and buses we still had three hours to kill and went to V&A. Yes, I know, three museums in a day is way too much, but you can always find something new to see at V&A or revisit an old favourite. And we played the "what-is-it" game again. I notice that I am more interested in material culture these days than in painting.

Speaking of which, we spent Alyona's last day in Cambridge shopping. She had to get some Christmas presents to take home, and I had saved my shopping to do it with her. If you have followed my blog for a while you know how much I hated shopping for my daughter's wedding, and although I had much more prosaic goals thsi time, I surely needed support. We had great luck and found a variety of tops on sale; I tried on eight and bought four of them, so it was time and money well spent.

Somewhere along the road we decorated the tree. During all these days we kept chatting as usual, and for once I feel that we have covered most of urgent issues, such as husbands, mothers, children, career, illness, ageing and lost illusions; although we have already Skyped and emailed about all the important things we had forgotten.

When I emerged from this time-out I felt that I had been away for years.

Book of the week: The Borrowers

Last week I went to see the new Japanese animation, Arrietty, based on an old favourite, Mary Norton's The Borrowers. I work from home these days, but I happened to be in the office for a moment so I took home my battered copy and re-read it. This is the cover of my edition:

I bought it in Russia, sometime in the late '70s, for a royal sum of 5 roubles. I am not ironic: it was 5% of my salary. Would you pay 5% of your salary for a used paperback? The reason I bought the book was twofold. I had read about it in Margery Fisher's Intent Upon Reading, the major source of information about British children's literature available in the Moscow Foreign Literature Library. I had also seen it at the exhibition of children's books organised by the British Council in 1975, the catalogue of which became the source of all information about British children's literature for many years coming. But actually - who needs a reason for buying a book! I had a special interest in The Borrowers because I was writing an article about fantasy which eventually, in my next life, became my PhD. Miniature people was among many aspects I considered. There is a very interesting Russian classic about miniature people, but the charm of The Borrowers is their subtle interaction with the world of human beans which is the plot engine, the comedy and the tragedy.

As usual when you re-read a book that you think you remember well, there are many details I had forgotten, and many details are different from the film. The standard interpretation is Arrietty's coming of age, and watching the movie with a 15-year-old I couldn't help wondering how much of that she recognised. As a parent with an empty nest, I recognise the parents' separation anxiety.

I also remembered the metafictional aspect, the story within a story, and the eternal question: did it really happen. Even when I read it first, long before I knew the word metafiction, I enjoyed this playfulness and mystery. The Russian midget story was nothing as sophisticated.

As I remembered, this book was about the impossible love, because the boy can never shrink to Arrietty's size and she cannot grow to his. There is a short story by Astrid Lindgren in which there is a magical word which allows the protagonist to shrink. It makes it all much easier. And although I have read the sequels, Arrietty's and the boy's farewell is irreversible. (Books like this shouldn't have sequels, but that's another matter).

What has always fascinated me about the borrowers was all the intricate ways they used the borrowed objects. And suddenly it filled with new significance. I am a borrower! That's exactly what I do when I make my dollhouses. In the book, there are both minute descriptions and illustrations. I must now put it on the shelf together with all my other dollhouse-maker books.

Lost and found

Wait a minute, I said to myself over a cappucchino and carrot cake after I had safely delivered my granddaughter to the other set of grandparents who would take her home to Stockholm. Wait a minute. I am in London. On my own. On a Saturday. Portobello Road!

And off I went to Portobello Road. It was crowded, as it always is, and I went in zigzags from shop to shop, from stall to stall. There was one with lots of dollhouse stuff, but stuff that I don't buy anymore because I can make much better myself. And then I found this fabulous little shop on the upper floor, where I happily parted with all my cash and where I could have stayed longer just looking at things. Eventually I left, heading north toward an underground station which turned out to be permanently closed, so I had to walk all the way back to Notting Hill Gate. By this time, it suddenly started raining, and every stall was offering umbrellas and ponchos, so I dived into my bag to get two pounds - and couldn't find my purse. Now, in such situations I know that I mustn't panic. It happens to me all the time that I cannot find my purse or my keys or my card in the depths of my bag, and I know that I just have to go through it carefully. Since it was pouring rain, I couldn't get out all my purchases and my London map and my cell phone and my Kindle and my car keys and put them on the pavement, and it was anyway much too crowded. When I finally stated that my purse was simply not there, I rather optimistically concluded that I had had my bag on my stomach all the time, so it was unlikely that the purse was stolen, but I must have dropped it in the shop. The thing was, I didn't remember which shop, and there are hundreds of them along Portobello Road. Since I didn't have money to buy an umbrella or poncho, I just walked on, soaked to the bone, looking into every shop and hoping to recognise the right one, which I finally did. Before I could open my mouth, the lady in the shop cried: "Relax, I have it". I sank on the floor. They got me a cup of tea and entertained me with stories of how they had lost and found their purses and how other people had been kind to them.

I was still wet through when I left the shop, so it didn't make much sense to buy a poncho. I marched to the station and came to King's Cross just in time for a quarter-past train. As I sat there, I couldn't help thinking of the could-have-been if it hadn't rained and I hadn't discovered the loss of my purse until maybe the day after tomorrow, and I felt that I had had a tremendously lucky day.

This is what I bought. If you don't know what a Dutch doll is, there is vast literature on the subject.

roomboxes

In a comment to my recent blog post I was asked what a roombox was. I won't repeat my reply to that, but I'll show some pictures.

Antique shop

Lord Asriel's room

Bridal chamber

Nursery

Teashop

Victorian parlour

Paper pleasures

I wonder whether any girls today play with paper dolls. Why would they when they have Teletubbies or whatever they have these days. Shame because it is such fun with paper dolls. I made some for the oldest granddaughter when she was five and visited in San Diego. She was delighted and packed them carefully to take home to Sweden. She had never seen a paper doll before.

When I was young, every girl with self respect had dozens of paper dolls and boxes upon boxes of clothes. Sometimes dolls could be found inside chocolate bar wrappers, but mostly we would draw them, copy the best from each other and make all those clothes with tabs to fold over the doll. There was scope for imagination! All the clothes that we couldn't even dream of we gave to our paper dolls. We never had problems with keeping us busy on rainy days - long, long time ago, before computers and videos, almost before television (there was one channel, with children's hour at six).

The reason I indulge in these idyllic memories is that one of the dollhouse magazines I bought yesterday has cutouts of Victorian paper dolls. It surely kept me busy this evening. (But I think I deserve it, after a day of personal-statement writing - see my previous post).

The value of hobbies

Whenever I feel exhausted to the degree that I cannot even read, I escape to my new Tudor dollhouse. I've made lots of improvements: painted it both outside and inside, put in half-timbering, roofing, window shutters and latticed wondow panes (the latter I have learned to make from the net in which you buy your oranges). The joys of making a period house is learning all about the period. What colour should the outside walls be? A little folder from Lavenham is helpful.

Tudor kitchen tables were made of trestles with boards on them, not fixed so that they could be put away when not used. They had holes to hang on hooks on the wall. Masters would put notices on the board for the servants - hence, notice board. The trestles came in many shapes, such as the comb trestle, which is what I have made. I can soon sit an exam on the Tudor period. (Two weeks ago I had no idea what a trestle was, still less a comb trestle).

My most recent discovery concerns dogs. I want a dog by the fireplace in my grand hall, but how do I find out what breeds were to be found in the Tudor time?

Resisting temptations

I am quite proud of myself that I had, until this morning, resisted one of the greatest temptations of my life. Just ten miles from here lies a Very Dangerous Place, at least if you are a crazy dolls-house maker. They call themselves The largest dolls house shop in the world and after I've been there I am prepared to believe it.

The reasons I had resisted the temptation are plenty. One is like waiting to open your Christmas present, or even better, as Winnie-the-Pooh says: there is a moment even better than eating honey, it's the moment just before you are going to eat honey. For a year and a half, I had been waiting to go to the largest dolls house shop in the world. Then of course I am a recycler so buying thing for the dolls house is not half as fun as making them and then comparing your own creation to something you see in a magazine or on the web, stating that yours is no worse and much better. But I also know that I am very bad at resisting temptations. And in the largest shop in the world it is all too easy to abuse your credit card.

Still I decided to go today, and my brave husband went with me because we both thought it would be in a village with a nice bar or coffee shop nearby. In fact, it was in a barn in the middle of nowhere, and the coffee shop was closed. So Staffan had to sit in the car while I drooled over magnificent houses and zillions of small things most of which I can make myself, no worse and much better, and supplies and tools and... well, I told myself to be sensible, and I told myself that I am a big girl and can get myself a plaything every now and then.

Afterwards, I feel ambivalent. I've succumbed to some furniture kits. At least I have to glue and paint, so it's not quite like buying a ready thing. But who knows what this may lead to. The shop is dangerously near.

On the other hand, I keep telling myself, I wish this was my greatest sin.

PS The reason I finally decided to visit the shop is that last week Staffan surprised me with a splendid dolls house he found at the Tesco recycling station. I now know that it is called The Corner Shop and that there are thousands of things to fill it with.

Happy New Year!

It's always a challenge to take up something you haven't done for a while, and with each day that goes it gets more and more of a challenge, and the worst thing you can do it come with a long and complicated explanation of why you have been so lazy all this time. Yes, I do have zillions of reasons, but I won't go into any of them. Let's just start twenty-ten afresh.

That said, the most logical thing to do on the first day of the new year is to look back. (No, it should have been on the last day of the year. On the first day of the new year you look forward. Bother!)

Anyway, 2009 has been in every respect an eventful year. We bought the house and moved, we got back our wonderful cat (I just can't believe I survived without her), we made the acquaintance of many new people like carpenters, gardeners, plumbers, electricians, tilers, gasmen (yes, I do know the Flanders and Swann song), not to mention the long chain of media companies. We feel much more appreciated by our friends who come to visit. All autumn, I felt I was running a B&B. Note: this is not a complain, but a statement of fact. We enjoy friends, and since we have become increasingly patriotic, we are proud to show them King's Chapel and Ely and more Ely, and Trinity and St John, and more Ely and more King's Chapel. I haven't become bored yet.

Work becomes more and more exciting as I learn more and start expressing my opinion at meetings, and although I haven't fully mastered the vocabulary I know SMT from MML. I am also a Homerton Fellow now. I get my free meals every week, and I have to work hard for them. I have managed to create a Research Centre which we will inaugurate in the beginning of February, and I am running a conference in September, something I once swore I'd never do again. But it is a bit like childbirth: after a while you forget the anguish. I did, on the other hand, participate in quite a few conferences, too many in fact, the latest just two weeks ago in Sweden (too far away from Stockholm to see the family). I got stuck in a snow storm – just because I had been boasting of the mild, sunny weather in Cambridge. There was snow chaos in Cambridge when I finally got home.

My new scholarly book came out in late summer, but I am more excited about my memoirs, to be released any day. I received an author copy some weeks ago, so I know the book exists. It was painful to write, but I am glad I did.

I went to Moscow in October, first time in six years, and I didn't tell anyone. I went for a school reunion. I think I will write separately about it.

In terms of hobbies, I have started making room boxes and am on my third right now, but perhaps it is also a topic for a separate entry. In addition I have taken drawing classes and joined the Faculty choir. What next?

On a more melancholy tone, a very close friend in Moscow died a few weeks ago. I don't think I have understood it yet.

Just in time to finish off the year I bought a new computer. I am getting to terms with it.

Saturday excursion

Today we went to Norfolk, to the village of Blakeney. It is not in any way a famous sight (although mentioned briefly in Lonely Planet), but today there happened to be a display of a unique dollhouse, never displayed in public before. I was spellbound by it, although not as impressed as most of the viewers, since I could recognize quite a few items or say to myself: I have exactly one like this in my doll house, and I have made it myself. Very good for your self-assurance. Staffan was not as fascinated by the house as by the visitors, average age 95, and come alive from an old movie. The hog roast was excellent and the garden magnificent with a sea view and a little sad pony.

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.

De(con)struction

Yes, I know I have said that this will be the last thing I do. But yesterday I took down the doll house. There is no end to websites telling you how to move your doll house. A useful piece of advice is not to let the movers pack it but do it yourself. I will see movers who have the patience to pack hundreds upon hundreds of tiny fragile items. Another suggestion is to let the moving agent build a crate around the house. Since mine is inside a fixed bookshelf I have no use for this method. You are supposed to make a list of everything you have in our doll house. My, I don’t even have a list of everything I have in my 1:1 scale. But I can tell you that shoe boxes are very practical. I have been saving shoe boxes for the purpose ever since I knew we were moving, but they still proved too few. Good luck that I have been saving other cardboard boxes, just in case. Bubble wrap, paper towels, smaller boxes inside bigger boxes. Pack up everything like in a real house, a website recommends. In a real house, I don’t have such frail things. My delicate staircase, my exquisite door, my glass cupboard. Not to mention peeling off wallpaper, tiles and floors. And tearing off electricity.

A seven-story fully equipped doll house fits inside two moving boxes. It took me seven months to build it. It took me three hours to pull it down. I think it is called entropy.

Fixed point

In the chaos of packing and throwing away, my doll house is the only fixed point. It is a new hobby, I only started last Christmas. But I have always wanted a doll house. My best friend had one when we were children, and I was envious. I bought one for my daughter when she was little and enjoyed making furniture of matchboxes, while she was rather indifferent. I guess this passion comes from my not having had a real home for a long time; I just wanted to satisfy my needs of decorating a house, albeit in miniature.

I have taken up a few hobbies recently, to counterbalance my mad pace at work: gardening, papermaking, and pottery. Julia’s old doll house was still in the attic, and I took it out on Boxing Day last year, to see if I could do something with it. I didn’t know at that time that I could actually make real dollhouse furniture. You don’t know before you have tried. Instead, I looked at eBay, to see what could be got cheap. Then, by mere chance, that was certainly Fate, I made a discovery. Real dollhouse makers didn’t work in the Swedish Lundby scale. Professionals used 1:12 scale. I went on searching the web, and a new world opened for me. Museums, miniature societies, journals, fairs, shops. I was trapped.

I will not dwell on how I have been building the house; please visit my dollhouse page where I describe it all step by step. But right now the doll house is the only sacred place in my 1:1 world where everything is going to pieces. The doll house is static, apart from some minor additions and modifications. When I am on the verge of tears after having packed another batch of CDs, I sit in front of it and stare. It is so peaceful. The ladies are having their neverending tea. The maids are baking and dusting. The cat is trying to jump onto the table.

The doll house will be the last thing I pack before we leave.