Little Worlds

Dear Diary,

It's "Scan it Sunday" and I have to thank my sister for this one.  She acquired all my father's colored slides and has been slowly scanning them to digital files.  This is the extensive little world he created in our basement for the electric trains.  It must have been early on since later my mother would paint a mural on the wall behind it.  Dad cut a tunnel hole in which the train would disappear only to reappear further down the wall much to the delight of our cat!

He made me a doll house too which my mother wallpapered and made tiny curtains and rugs to put inside.  I've always wondered what happened to it.  It probably went to a little cousin when I grew too old to play with dolls.  But I've never lost my fascination for miniature worlds.  When I went to England in 1990 I made sure I saw the famous Queen Mary doll house in London.  Doll palace they should call it...amazing!

I always said I wanted to do an adult version of the doll house since learning about Tasha Tudor's amazing one but I never have.  Still, when I was in Ireland two years ago I visited Tara's Palace, a 24 room doll house at Powerscourt south of Dublin.  I was enchanted again.  I don't think the little girl ever left me in this respect.  Maybe that's why I took my first grade students every year to build fairy houses!  Just passing on the love of little worlds to another generation!