ASIS's Winter Photo Show - 2019

Class 1. Horses

Class 1. Oathlaw Galahad

Lake District Live 2019 - The Aftermath

The only thing I bought during our Saturday rummage of the junk shops was a prettily embroidered hankerchief to turn into a bedspread for the brass bed in the Magpie's Nest, but I found a ton of excellent little bits at the carboot on Sunday.

Lake District Live 2019 - The Show

Since it's around a five hour trip for me, I prefer to arrive the day before and leave the day after the show instead of driving down at oh-god o'clock for the 9am opening time and driving home in the middle of the night after the dinner.

It was a surprisingly uneventful drive down, and we didn't get lost once which was a minor miracle.

We usually try to time things to arrive later in the afternoon so we can check in directly and put our things in the room, out of the hot car, and then have a bit of a walk around. Most of my pictures of the area are in the Travels with Rok posts.

Lake District Live 2019 - The Preparation

Lake District Live is the only show I usually manage to attend as most of the other shows are down below Birmingham, and that's just a bit too far for my elderly vehicle. As it is, we usually have to weld something back on after the Lake District run.

The class list is generally announced around February, which sounds like loads of time to prepare, but when you're trying to keep a household running, as well as a business with a time-intensive product, time slips away from you pretty quickly.

Travels With Farfrae Ragnarök Aftershock - Monday

Since neither of us had anywhere we really needed to be on Monday, we made a tour of some of the charity shops we had missed on Saturday after we loaded up Spot. We left town around 12:30 and made it back to Glasgow around 4:30. Right as we pulled into Eg's neighbourhood, Spot's exhaust burst (this happens frequently), so I had a very long, slow, and extremely loud drive home. It was nearly eight by the time I roared into my driveway.

Travels With Farfrae Ragnarök Aftershock - Sunday

The show as usual, was wonderful. Stacey and her family have it down to an art and are lovely and friendly and make everyone the most delightful goodie bags. It's a small crowd, but we have such fun together.

Travels With Farfrae Ragnarök Aftershock - Saturday

It's that time of year again, time for the one show far enough north for me to easily reach. It's only about five hours away, but I like to have company when I travel, so I usually pick up a couple of friends on the way. This year Magda was away for her sister's wedding, so I only had to swing through Glasgow for EG before heading south. This year I remembered to keep out a travel pony with which to amuse myself.


Getting ready to leave Kirriemuir for Glasgow, a drive which usually takes around two hours.

Adventures with Black Mountain Koshari Katsina

For Spring Break 2017, we headed up to Aviemore for a few days of sightseeing.

Up the hills in Glenshee

Travels with Oathlaw Galahad, aka Jaime

Every year we have several vintage shows which we attend with some of our big toys. For the 2016 Scone Yesteryear show I took Oathlaw Galahad, otherwise known as Jaime, for some fun photos.

Folks seemed to get a kick out of him and were tickled with the pictures I was taking in the junk stalls and around the show.

Havillands Julip Photo Scavenger Hunt - 2019

1. A Julip wearing a hat of some description
2. A Julip stomping on a model car Godzilla style
3. A head study of a Julip horse framed in some way
4. An interpretation of a famous film poster/ scene movie
5. A photo of a Julip equine tacked up and ready to go out for a ride
6. A picture that would fulfill the caption “When Pets Attack”
7. A Julip holding something in its mouth
8. Riders behaving badly
9. Julip tack on an unlikely victim/object
10. A photo of as many members of your Julip collection you can get in one photo

ASIS's Early Summer Photo Show - 2019

1. Ponies and Donkeys

Class 1. Attwood Crake

Travels with Farfrae Kadhaba Alfarawila: The Texas Trip, Part 16 - Flying Home II

I'm always surprised by how quickly the time passes on the flight home.

A hint of sunrise

Travels with Farfrae Kadhaba Alfarawila: The Texas Trip, Part 15 - Flying Home I

The flight home was fairly uneventful and as usual, seemed much faster. The DFW airport looks nothing like I remember and is actually a pretty nice place in which to pass the time.

My son's baby, Benjamin James. He wanted to bring Amelia Jane, too, but I told him we could only look after one child, and besides, Amelia came from Texas and Benjamin had never been. I missed a trick this time by not making Benjamin a passport as every security person we met offered to stamp it if he had one. Kadhaba only got confused looks.

Travels with Farfrae Kadhaba Alfarawila: The Texas Trip, Part 14 - Swapmeet

The North Texas model horse folk held a swap meet near us the morning of my cousin's wedding. Since we weren't leaving until 4-ish, I had plenty of time to nip out and meet with my old show friends and to pick up a few more new ponies. There were many brands in the room - Breyer, Stone, Hartland, etc., but Fara was the only Julip in the room.

Travels with Farfrae Kadhaba Alfarawila: The Texas Trip, Part 13 - Food

The main point of a visit to Texas is to eat all the things. Yeah, yeah, we're there to see family, but the food!!

Texas breakfast - Little Debbie donuts and ice tea

Travels with Farfrae Kadhaba Alfarawila: The Texas Trip, Part 12 - Fort Worth Water Gardens

The Fort Worth Water Gardens are an absolute haven of cool peace in the middle of downtown. I've always loved this place even though I still find the waterfall pool frightening. When I was little my older cousin (the one getting married) told me that the water in this pool was acid and I was too afraid to even test her statement until I was around 18. Just so you know, it's not acid, just water.

Travels with Farfrae Kadhaba Alfarawila: The Texas Trip, Part 11 - Fort Worth Botanic Gardens

We chose a fairly cool morning to visit the Botanic gardens. It's much shadier than I remembered and they've got a lovely native Texas bit now.

Travels with Farfrae Kadhaba Alfarawila: The Texas Trip, Part 10 - Gas Monkeys

My husband is majorly into vintage vihicles and things with wheels in general and really, really wanted to make a stop at the Gas Monkey Garage. So, after an incredibly rainy drive around Denton to show my son my old university, we headed to Dallas. In the rain, at 4:30, on a week day. It just goes to show how much I love my husband. For those who have never driven in Dallas traffic, it was an act of pure devotion.

Travels with Farfrae Kadhaba Alfarawila: The Texas Trip, Part 9 - Dinosaur Valley Park

One of my earliest memories is of camping with my family at Dinosaur Park when I was two. I have been coming here all of my life for camping trips - including New Year's eve 1999 and a particularly memorable one in college when a cold front came through in the night, dropping the temperature 50 degrees in about an hour - for picnics, and even my 18th birthday party.

Travels with Farfrae Kadhaba Alfarawila: The Texas Trip, Part 8 - Antiquing

Rambling around our local antique malls is my favourite Texas activity. They're cool in the summer, warm in the winter, and out of the wind and sun. I'm always on the hunt for model horses and dollhouse items, but I love all the weird and wacky things you can stumble across.

Travels with Farfrae Kadhaba Alfarawila: The Texas Trip, Part 7 - Wandering Around

We spent a lot of this trip visiting my old homes and haunts. We live in the house my husband grew up in, in his home town, surrounded by his family's history, so I wanted to share my family history with my son.

We used to hang out at this accessibility park a lot growing up, especially in high school. The rambling wooden structure has been replaced by an even larger metal and plastic one. We stopped by Taco Bueno on the way here and had our lunch in the big gazebo. My son didn't want to play very long here as the heat and humidity got to him quickly.

There might be a picture of me rocking out on this five minutes later

Travels with Farfrae Kadhaba Alfarawila: The Texas Trip, Part 6 - Fort Worth Zoo IV

The walk through Texas let us out in a collection of enclosures for assorted native Texas wildlife and an exploration building where we got to look at a lot of fun skulls and rocks. Then we took the little train back to the front of the zoo and took the path through the elephants, giraffes, and hippos.

I vividly remember this area when it was new. We would run from one patch of shade to another, trying to avoid being singed by the sun. Now the plant life was all grown up and the paths were beautifully shady and (relatively) cool.

After a quick trip through the gift shop we staggered back to the house and made a raid on Taco Bell.

Travels with Farfrae Kadhaba Alfarawila: The Texas Trip, Part 5 - Fort Worth Zoo III

One of the new-to-me exhibits was the blessedly indoors and air-conditioned walk through Texas.

Travels with Farfrae Kadhaba Alfarawila: The Texas Trip, Part 4 - Fort Worth Zoo II

After lunch we moved on to the reptile house, which was new to me, and then onto the Texas section which had been substantially expanded since I was last there.

Travels with Farfrae Kadhaba Alfarawila: The Texas Trip, Part 3 - Fort Worth Zoo I

On a hot, steamy morning, after a massive breakfast at the Old South Pancake House, we headed for the Fort Worth Zoo. The last time I went there was in high school, so it's been a while. A lot has changed, but some of the exhibits I remembered are still there, such as the primate house, which I remember them building when I was in school.

Travels with Farfrae Kadhaba Alfarawila: The Texas Trip, Part 2 - The Stockyards

Our first stop was the historic Fort Worth Stockyards, just outside of downtown. This is one of the few places we went that has hardly changed in the ten years since I moved to Scotland.

Travels with Farfrae Kadhaba Alfarawila: The Texas Trip, Part 1 - Flying Out

This past October one of my cousins got married back in my home town of Fort Worth, Texas. Fortunately her wedding fell within the Tattie Holiday dates, so we were all able to go out for two weeks. I like to bring a pony with me on holiday for fun photos as I hate taking pictures of myself, this time it was Farfrae Kadhaba Alfarawila's (Fara) turn.

 My mother had already gone out a couple of weeks before, and my daddy was flying out of Edinburgh a few hours later (yeah, I don't know why he didn't fly out of Aberdeen with us, either), so it was just the three of us hanging out in the airport in Aberdeen. Well, five if you count Fara and my son's Cabbage Patch doll, Benjamin. 😄

Gradation of Cat

A massive herd of black and white cats made up the second half of my Xmas order. I planned out the patterns of the cats to move from black to white. The patterns of some, especially the more peculiar facial markings are based on pictures of cats I found online.

Top Hat

Sea of Spots

This year I used my Xmas money to torment Mr. R, the Julip pet painter, and to make a dent in my massive pet wish list. The model horse hobby gave my interest in genetics a focus and I very easily get sucked into the world of colour variations when learning about a breed.

A few years ago I saw a super spotty Dalmatian at a show in Yorkshire and a Google search later dumped me down a polka-dotted rabbit hole. I picked a few of my favourite examples, made a few mock-ups, named them, and sat on them until the right time came to spring them on Mr. R. I decided to go with a German theme for this lot.

Vintage Boxes & The Treasures Within

I recently won a lot of vintage riders, accessories, and pets, which all came in their original boxes, which is a rather unusual occurrence as most people would just throw the packaging away. I've been wanting a vintage sidesaddle rider for a while and the other riders were particularly nice as well... and I've never been known to pass up a chance at any pet.

I couldn't find any dates on the boxes beyond the month - October, November, and one blurred - but the stamps are pre-decimalization stamps which were discontinued in 1971 and I've found examples of these particular stamps listed with the date of 1967, though I'm not sure how many years they were available. So, I'm guessing the dates of these models are some time between 1967 and 1971.

The Adventures of Southern Gothic Zirondelle - Summer Holiday

The next time Zirondelle left the house was for our 2016 summer holiday in August. We usually go down the east coast and up the west coast, but this year we went down the west coast first, in order to catch a vintage vehicle show in Leyland.

Best Western Premier, Leyland