Welcome to my blog for March!
I have had several emails about our visit to Cambodia and the lack of photographs on our album page! As we only had 4 days to visit Cambodia we spent this time exploring the very famous Temples of Angkor Wat and I have now added more pictures of this great architectural wonder.
For those who may not be aware Angkor Wat became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1992. Their official website describes it as
‘Angkor is one of the most important archaeological sites in South-East Asia. Stretching over some 400 km2, including forested area, Angkor Archaeological Park contains the magnificent remains of the different capitals of the Khmer Empire, from the 9th to the 15th century. They include the famous Temple of Angkor Wat and, at Angkor Thom, the Bayon Temple with its countless sculptural decorations’
Its hard to believe that these grey stone walls wer
e once covered with brilliant golds, blues and reds. Many of the artefacts would have been encrusted with rubies, sapphires and emeralds all of which were looted before the demise of the Khmer Empire. If you look closely at some of the photographs you may see traces of colour - this is all that remains. Not only were the precious stones stolen but souvenir hunters removed the heads of hundreds of Buddha statues. For transportation reasons this was far easier than trying to remove the whole thing. These are now either in private collections or on display in museums around the world.
Following Jayavarman VII’s death Angkor entered a long period of decline, lying forgotten as Thai invaders ravaged the land, and the forest took over. Evidence of the structural damage that this caused can be seen in my photographs. In the late 19th Century Angkor Wat was ‘discovered’ by European explorers and a period of restoration and conservation began which continues to this day.
As I watched the sun go down over today’s Ankgor Wat I could only imagine in the shadows of the temples what this former city of gold and colour would have looked like.
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Welcome to February’s blog. Well, what a month this has been!
As everyone knows this is the most romantic month of the year, not only is it a leap year but my niece, Claire, chose this month to get married. A fairytale 
wedding took place over two days at Comlongon Castle, near Dumfries. Of course, like all weddings not all went to plan! I was entrusted to transport her wedding dress to the castle, unfortunately I became ill and panic set in as Claire had already left for Scotland. A quick call to one of Julie’s friends saved the day and although I was unable to attend Claire & Richard’s wedding 
Julie and her friend, Carole, travelled to Scotland and delivered the dress! I would like to take this opportunity to wish the new Mr & Mrs Whiteford, along with 7 year old Reace, the very best for the future and their life together. I am hoping to post some pictures of the happy event shortly!
On the miniatures side of things I have been trying to juggle between creating new work and posting it on the web site. The weather, as everyone knows, has not been good so things have been slower at coming out than I’d hoped. The next main event will of course be Miniatura at the NEC Birmingham which is celebrating its 50th show this year and I look forward to seeing you there!
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Hello everybody and welcome to the New Year!
For those of you that have been logging on to my site on a regular
basis you will have noticed that my blog hasn’t been updated since August. After attending Autumn Miniatura my mind has been focused on bringing out new models ready for 2008 and of course I have been on my travels again! This time we travelled to Vietnam and Cambodia and for those of you who may be interested I have posted some pictures of both places on the Photograph Album page of this website.
I am currently finalising which shows I will be attending in 2008. I will, of course, be at Spring Miniatura and the London Dollshouse Festival and I am busy preparing for these already.
This month I am also working hard at photographing more of my work and the new range of items that will be posted on the ‘What’s New’ page very soon.
May I once again take this opportunity to wish you all a Happy New Year!
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August 2007, Windsor & London August has been a quieter month on the work front. After returning from Scottish Miniatura the shingles virus that I have now and again was triggered off- possibly due to stress - and although I thought I was over it I think it carried on into this month which affected my motivation. So I decided to take some time out and had a couple of trips out with my friend Sally from Miss Sally World.
On the first occasion we spent the day in London which was most enjoya
ble. After attending to some business we proceeded to spend the rest of the day sitting in a café in Covent Garden watching the world go by! A couple of weeks later we met up again and after an eventful business trip we spent the rest of the evening in Windsor where I actually managed to persuade a nervous Sally to go on Windsor's version of the London Eye! We both had cameras with us and were snapping away at all the sights that Windsor had to offer and had great fun comparing our efforts. We finished off the day having a very nice meal at a Mediterranean restaurant with a couple of hours of people watching. Sally has discussed with me several new ideas that she has planned for the future so keep an eye on her web site for updates (See our Favourite Links page for details of her web site).
I have had a few emails asking about Molly. As most of you already know she visits us regularly and some of you have asked for more photographs. Have a look at this one but please don't tell her owner as she always arrives at our house whiter than white and I do try to send her home the same way!
As a final note I have now completed my version of the Phoenix washing machine! I will shortly be posting some photographs of this on my ‘What's New’ page. I would also like to thank everyone for their patience over what has proved to be a difficult couple of months.
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I also visited the spa town of San Pellegrino (home of the Italian water!) in search of the Art Nouveaux interiors some of its grand buildings are famous for. The casino was alas closed during my visit and the grand hotel is now being renovated so although it was disappointing not to see what I had hoped, it is wonderful that 
the restoration work is under way and it is the perfect excuse to return!