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