MUSINGS FROM THE BOWER 55

 

Clematis around the Bower

 Well, firstly I am pleased to say that the bower has been looking beautiful, swathed in clematis, honeysuckle and passionflower, and with roses nearby. It’s very tempting to sit inside or nearby, gazing into the pond at the newts, listening to the trickling fountain and being soaked by bathing blackbirds. However, work still has to be done, so I try to ignore its lure!



Horatio

Recently I spent a few days in Devon; my Husband had an ‘experience day’ – riding on the footplate of the Horatio steam engine between Paignton and Kingsweir. I was able to travel in the luxury Pullman Observation car – why can’t all train travel be like that?! It was wonderful looking out across the glorious countryside and the sea; what a pretty county Devon is. I thought that my husband would be covered in soot or enveloped in smoke when we went through a particularly long tunnel, but no, he was fine – and he was in his element when he was allowed to pull the handle to sound the whistle at the end of the trip! Whilst in the area, we decided to venture on the enormous wheel that is at present in Torquay, giving a fantastic, birds-eye view of the town and the marina. One day I should like to go on the London Eye; that must be a very exciting experience.



Avocet at Cley Marshes

My daughter and I had a short break in Norfolk, visiting our favourite places such as Sandringham and the nature reserve at Pensthorpe. There we heard cuckoos – there aren’t so many around nowadays.  Twenty years ago, we would hear cuckoos from our garden, in fact, once, a calling cuckoo flew over really low. We saw avocets too, those graceful, black and white birds with stilt-like legs and long curved beaks, and also discovered another reserve at Cley where not only did we see avocets, but watched sedge warblers calling from deep among the reeds. Another trip was to Anglesey Abbey near Cambridge; the gardens are beautiful whatever time of the year you visit. At the moment the rose garden is lovely, and I also saw some vibrant pink peonies. One of my favourite roses is the shell pink ‘New Dawn’ and at Anglesey Abbey it grows well against a sun-warmed wall.

New Dawn climbing rose



Mepal Church

I’ve been tracing the family tree for years and years, and a cousin and I decided to arrange a get-together for relatives on our mothers’ side. It was a huge success; we descended on a small village in the Cambridge fens and visited the places where our ancestors lived, visiting the church where they were married, baptised and buried. We exchanged photos and stories, and copied my findings onto memory sticks so that everyone could add on the dates of their children’s births and marriages, to make it even more comprehensive. How on earth did we manage our family trees before computer and the internet arrived? I remember how, years ago, I had to travel to Somerset house and lift enormously heavy dusty volumes from the shelves to find ancestors’ details, and then go back a few days later to collect the certificates. Nowadays, there is so much information available and it makes things much easier.



On the beach!

I’ve been taking some fun pictures of some of my small dolls, for a doll magazine that I publish called Doll Showcase. I gathered together all kinds of props – it’s surprising what you can find/make/adapt. Sanded sheets intended for pet birds make wonderful beaches, and, with the fashionable trends for tea-light holders and the seaside look for bathrooms, shops are filled with wonderful things. I found a boat tea-light holder, a beach hut box and many other useful accessories. It was great fun setting up the scenes – they took hours, yet the actual photo is just one click of a button.

 

 

 

 

I mentioned recently my latest novel, ‘Birds, Beasts and Ben’, a light-hearted look at what goes on behind the scenes of an imaginary wildlife programme. I’m pleased to announce that it is now available in both paperback and Kindle. This is a link to its mention on Books Go Social - http://bit.ly/SQADkP

And here is a link to a Kindle version - http://tinyurl.com/olau54k  

 



Peony at Anglesey Abbey

MUSINGS FROM THE BOWER 54

 

Sorry the blog musings dried up – I wasn’t being unproductive, far from it. I was writing my latest novel, and when you have a dozen or so characters running riot in your head it makes it difficult to think of anything else. Hopefully the paperback version of the book – Birds, Beasts and Ben – should be out at the beginning of May, and there may be a kindle version to follow. The book is a light-hearted look at a fictional team of presenters of a television wildlife programme, the creatures they feature, the people they meet and the team’s feelings when the programme is threatened with closure. It also takes a peek at the complicated love lives of the presenters.  Here is the front cover:

 

 

 

and the back cover:

 

However, I am now – I hope – back on track, and delighted to report that already enormous clematis buds are appearing over the bower, while the honeysuckle and passion flower are in full twine, so to speak. In fact, the whole garden is looking pretty at the moment, with plants in bloom far earlier than last year, when we still had snow and ice in late March. As well as the daffodils, snowdrops and crocuses which were beautiful a couple of weeks ago, we now have cowslips, oxlips, wild violets – both scented and dog – spring snowflakes, polyanthus and pansies. Best of all is the blossom; hopefully it will be a good cropping year. The apple blossom is coming out, while both crab apples – white blossom and red blossom – are fully open. Also open are plum, greengage and nectarine blossoms. Apart from the main apple tree, all the others are pot grown but do exceedingly well. The trick is to feed them regularly and keep them watered.

We had a frantic few weeks regarding the health of our elderly rabbit, Moppet. He is eight years old, and the vet said that he needed his front teeth removed as there seemed to be an abscess underneath. For almost a month he ate very little; we had to syringe feed him with pulped up rabbit mixture, but very, very gradually, he progressed to taking normal rabbit pellets and to greenstuff. Now his eating is almost back to normal, though he needs to have his cabbage and greens chopped up as he can’t bite off pieces. The main thing is that he is now running around the house again, and has his grunt back! Most people think that rabbits don’t make sounds, but Moppet has a loud grunt that he makes when he is happy or excited.

Last week my husband and I (gosh, I sound like the Queen!) celebrated our sapphire wedding – 45 years of marriage. Yet it only seems yesterday that I was wearing my beautiful gown (which cost £20 and I was horrified at spending so much on a dress), trotting up the aisle with my three pink-frocked bridesmaids trailing behind. We walked up the aisle to the glorious sound of ‘Nimrod’ from Elgar’s Enigma Variations – I was determined I wouldn’t have ‘Here comes the bride, all fat and wide’ played at my wedding!

I’ve also been creative in another way over the last few weeks – I have been making various ‘props’ for dolls. I decided a bakers’ shop would be fun, so have made cakes, tarts and pasties from salt dough. Then I fancied making a dairy, so, using Fimo air-drying clay, butter and cheese appeared. I made a butter churn, too, from wood and card, and also a three-legged stool. It’s very relaxing making models, and I love it all, from the moulding of the items through to the painting and varnishing. Once the photos have been taken, I will put some up on this blog. I think, too, a florist’s shop would be fun, or maybe a fish stall. For now though, the models are all packed away until I’m ready to assemble them into a whole.

 Meanwhile, the most pressing job is to clear out the bower – because though it may look pretty on the outside, it is a mass of flowerpots, bird feeders and garden canes inside. Scarcely room to sit and write my blog!

MUSINGS FROM THE BOWER 53

 

Have you had any snow this winter?  Nor have we, though apparently it’s on its way.  I like snow, I like the way it hides all the ugliness, transforming litter, cars and wheelie bins under a glistening white blanket. I must admit, though, I am not so keen on going out in it – oh, I’m fine walking through snowy parks or fields, but I don’t like walking on slippery, mushy pavements.

What I do love are snow globes, those glassy balls that incorporate tiny flakes of snow which can be transformed from a gentle flutter to a positive blizzard depending on how hard you shake the globe. Magical, enchanting and very tactile, these little transparent snowy globes have intrigued children and adults for years. It’s virtually impossible to pass a display of snows globes without picking up at least one and shaking it, to watch the snow whirl madly around before it gradually settles. Sometimes they are made from glass, though nowadays the globes are frequently moulded from plastic, and each contains an ornamental figure which becomes hidden amongst a flurry of snow or glitter when agitated.

Yet, although these toys have enchanted people for generations, no-one seems to know for sure exactly when snow globes were first made. Certainly the Victorians enjoyed them and collected them as souvenirs of their travels, while some of the earliest were displayed an ‘all nations’ exhibition in Paris in 1878, but they must have been manufactured for several years beforehand. Nowadays snow globes, or snowstorms or snow shakers as many people call them, are becoming extremely sophisticated, and many contain musical movements, animated figures, glitter, lights or even a mechanism to do the shaking for you. Some hold tiny fans to whirr polystyrene snow from within, but that really is the height of laziness!

At one time children often found a snow globe in their stocking at Christmas, but now they have gained a new lease of life and can be found in gift shops and tourist attractions, sometimes with glitter replacing the ‘snow’. Have you ever wondered what the snow is made of, and why it doesn’t fall straight to the bottom of the globe when it is shaken? Well, before the advent of plastic, globes were made from glass, using various substances for snow such as ground-up bone, ceramic dust, sand or ground rice, but today both globe and snow are often plastic. Apparently, the correct technical term for the snow is flitter! The liquid inside is usually water mixed with glycol to thicken it slightly, thus keeping the snow in suspension a bit longer.

Snow globes aren’t always round - in the 1940s a German manufacturer experimented with various shapes and decided that a compressed oval shape was less likely to break than the traditional globe. Before then, the majority of them were spherical and could be viewed from any angle, which meant they needed to contain a three-dimensional sculpture or figurine. With the advent of the new shape, half of the dome was painted (normally blue) to create a back drop, and because flat-backed figures could be then used, it lead to a saving in labour. It meant that the backs of the figures didn't need to be painted and the figures could easily be stamped from plastic.  Although globes are still made, the oval shape is very common, especially for the cheaper plastic ranges. Rectangular, bullet, cube, bottle, octagonal, cylindrical, conical, lantern and egg-shaped are just a few of the other shapes encountered. Interestingly, many other designs inside snow globes go back several decades – only recently I saw one on sale containing the figure of a little angel with a fawn, identical in every way to one which I was given (and still own) in 1957.

This time last year we had thick snow, and I took lots of photographs in the garden and park. The bare trees against a wintry sky looked bleak and cheerless, and the ice was thick and treacherous on the paths. I remember that the only thing to break up the white and grey of the scene was a perky little robin, red breast glowing defiantly against the element, singing his heart out. I am sure that someone, somewhere, will have produced a robin in a snow globe; I must keep a lookout.

 

MUSINGS FROM THE BOWER 52

 

Now that the decorations have come down, the baubles carefully wrapped in tissue and returned to the loft and the last of the Christmas pudding donated to the sparrows, it’s time to look forward to a new year. I was watching the news showing thousands of people crammed into stores, determined to buy new clothing, furniture or ‘white goods’ – and it set me thinking. 

!970s' Kenwood Mixer



English Electric Cooker 1969

When I was younger, in the 1950s, 60s or even 70s, people didn’t seem to feel the urge to rush out and replace their goods regularly. They bought only when something didn’t work, was shabby or damaged. Even today, I tend not to buy an item unless it needs replacing – and so items such as my fridge, washing machine and tumble drier have been in use for many years. In fact my cooker, an English Electric, has been in use since 1969 – we purchased it when we got married. At that time it was a top design – it even had a double oven, which was the height of kitchen sophistication! My 1970s’ Kenwood mixer still makes great cakes, too and the Russell Hobbs percolator still percs! In the 1960s we tended to be better informed than those who had set up homes in the immediate post-war years and through most of the 1950s. No longer did you need to be posh to follow the latest trends, or even to hear about them.

 

 

 

 

 

1970s Russell Hobbs Percolator



Ridgway Potteries Homemaker plate

Admittedly the 1951 Festival of Britain had introduced many exciting new designs and concepts, though the majority didn’t filter their way into the average home till the mid to late fifties, such as the ubiquitous Homemaker plate, designed by Enid Seeley and made by Ridgway Potteries for Woolworths in 1957.This black and white crockery was decorated with stylish pictures of coffee tables, lamps, chairs and cutlery. But with the sixties came excitement, colour, change, and beautiful sleek designs. Mixing with my fellow students at art and design school opened my eyes to the stimulating new ideas which were pouring from the studios and workshops, changing the way we looked at conventional objects. We were taught to view everything from new angles and to lose our traditional concepts, even if this did mean suffering the embarrassment of walking round a shopping centre wearing a face-covering helmet of red, blue, green or orange cellophane in order that we saw things in a different light.  However, it wasn’t just us art students who were made more aware – everyone was. People all around were doing exciting things; it was as though the air was supercharged, causing people to break free from their safe world and dare to try something new. A teacher from my school suddenly upped and founded a pottery, Tremaen, in Devon, while an acquaintance found a job helping sculptor Henry Moore at his studio. Everyone, it seemed, was into art, music, fashion or ‘doing their own thing’ – and people were discovering that however ordinary you were, you could still have a fashionable home.



Ercol Rocking Chair 1969

 Design was a buzzword, and newspapers and magazines were packed with adverts. By the time I married, Ercol, G-Plan, Meakin, Viners, Midwinter and Russell Hobbs were just a few of the must-have manufacturers that brides turned to for their first purchases. I was no exception. My first significant buy was a small Ercol rocking chair, which I saw in a sale for just over £6. A bargain!  After queuing for a couple of hours one January morning, the chair was mine, and stored away as a rather large part of my ‘bottom drawer’. Yes, we all had them then; mine was filled with orange and purple tea cloths, a bright blue Spong mincer, colourful melamine plates, Poole cookware and a set of Pyrex casseroles decorated with assorted motifs. It also contained some stunning black and gold Portmeirion mugs and a couple of circular pink-edged tin trays adorned with animals; the latest thing in style!

  We chose Meakin for our china, just as did most of our friends. Meakin – characterised by the ‘Bull in the China Shop’ advertising logo – was made by J & G Meakin, who were based in Staffordshire. Amongst the designs which poured forth in those heady sixties’ days were Poppy, Capri, Rondo, Aztec, Palma and Filigree, which was the pattern we chose. I loved this understated, delicate design of pink flowers, such a contrast to the more vibrant patterns of the time, and one which was perhaps reflecting a newer side to the sixties – a more gentle, low-key, softer feminine approach. We used our Filigree for years, but eventually the pattern began to fade on a few items, so it has now been safely put away, to be brought out for special occasions. The cutlery we chose was Viners – we went for the new ‘Love Story’ range, with tiny daisies embossed around the handles, and collected the whole lot, even the fish knives, items rarely used today. Viners cutlery was the in-thing at the time, and had quite a long history, as it was founded in Sheffield in 1901.

 My parents had embraced sixties style earlier in the decade by throwing out their old utility, heavy wood sideboard and hefty, thick-armed padded armchairs, settling instead for an Ercol three piece suite and a modern dining table and sideboard. Ercol was cool, light, curvy and airy, and a complete contrast to that heavy utility look. Their suite had green textured woven covers, and looked stunning. The Ercol company was founded in 1920 in High Wycombe, by a designer called Lucian Ercolani, who perfected the technique of steam-bending wood into ‘bows’ to form chair backs, discovering how to work with elm, a wood with a beautiful grain but notoriously difficult to tame for furniture. The company was particularly renowned for its Windsor chairs, which featured a bent wood frame and an arched back, and I remember that this type of chair was later used when I was at secondary school. It was in the sixties that Ercol really came into its own. My parents’ suite was later given to my brother, and then a few years ago he gave it to me, so it’s in daily use and still as comfortable as ever.

A 1970s photo of our G-Plan when it was still new!

When we had chosen our new flat, my fiancé and I made a trip to Waring and Gillows, a renowned furniture stockist in London’s Oxford Street. The company dated back to the late 1800s, and we went there to choose a dining-room suite. We already knew that we wanted our table to be circular, and soon chose a G-Plan model which we loved, not only for the superb teak wood grain, but because the table was impressively solid. It looked as though it would last. The accompanying chairs, with their circular seats, were padded with a pineapple-coloured woven fabric, while the six foot long, low sideboard featured a two-door cupboard at the left and a drop down cupboard at the right. In the centre were four drawers. We were spot-on with the assumption the pieces would last – we still use them every day! The sideboard looked super in our flat against the pale orange walls, and the table was attractive, its centre graced with a Poole pottery Delphis bowl which had been a wedding present. The Ercol rocking chair looked good too, but we had no money for other furniture so we utilised an old white-painted single wardrobe which we laid on its side, padded with foam and covered with orange fabric to match the curtains to give us a bench. Yes, you’ve guessed – we still have that, too…

One of our wedding presents was a super orange fibreglass lamp supported on three dark wood legs, vaguely resembling a blunt-nosed rocket. At the time it cost just under £10, and these Scandinavian inspired lamps are once more finding favour, both the floor-standing lamps – ours is 41inches high – and the smaller tabletop versions. Although people used these coloured lamps to cast a warm glow, in most houses in general the ‘main’ lighting was from a single ceiling light, not the multiple lights we so often see today. Lampshades were often made from paper slotted together, or woven from raffia, or perhaps colourful geometric shaped shades moulded from thin plastic. Perhaps it’s worth mentioning that, if the average person wanted to buy fittings, furnishings or china, we were very much reliant on the chain stores – we bought lamps from British Home Stores, (it wasn’t BHS in those days!), curtains and bedding from Marks and Spencer and everyday china from Woolworths.

 Department stores such as John Lewis were good for the best china and special items, but, on the whole, there weren’t the huge warehouse type stores we are so used to, today. Most people did their own interior decoration, buying paint from their local ‘wallpaper shop’, or choosing the paper by browsing through the large books of patterns which were on the counters. When we bought our new flat in the late sixties, the living room floor was just concrete and so we stuck down grey Marley rubber floor tiles, interspersing them every so often with green, orange and yellow tiles – very fashionable, and perfect with our Nordic long-pile rug. Of course, we couldn’t take the floor tiles with us when we moved into our house, but we took the Nordic rug and – yes, yet again, it’s still in use today.  I am sure manufacturers must loathe people like me, but my policy is ‘If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’.

Poole Bowl 1969

Naturally, I do still buy new things – I’m an avid mug collector and the kitchen reflects this, and only last year I invested in a new kettle! (The old one coughed and died.)  Modern electrical technology needs to be updated regularly too. And I know that styles and tastes change. Luckily, however, at the moment the retro/vintage look is in vogue, so I’m once more living in a fashionable house, enjoying my Ercol, G-Plan, fibreglass lamp and orange Nordic rug!

 

 

MUSINGS FROM THE BOWER 51

 

 

Christmas! It’s that special time of year. I think as you get older you treasure Christmas even more. It’s a time packed with memories, of loved ones no longer with us, of long ago happenings –opening stockings, making decorations from crepe paper, shaping milk bottle tops round a lemon squeezer to make bells for the tree and enjoying enormous family get-togethers when my Dad and Uncle John played festive songs on their harmonicas.

 

Small Roddy fairy lovingly passed down from the 1950s

 



1930s' celluloid fairy

This is the one time of year that I have an excuse to make my dolls the centre of attraction. At Christmas they can be incorporated into the general festive scheme quite legitimately. First and foremost of course is the Christmas fairy. I have a selection of these, mainly vintage, so they take it in turns to be the fairy on top of the tree. Have you noticed, incidentally, how difficult it is to buy a traditional fairy doll nowadays? Angels are easy to find – but Christmas fairies? They all seem to have fluttered off. I can remember as a child seeing shop counters massed with little plastic fairies. A special Christmas treat was to buy a fairy doll for the tree; after Twelfth Night she would be my ‘extra present’. Did you know that in the 1920s and 30s, fairy dolls were often made of celluloid, which is highly inflammable? As the trees often had lighted candles clipped to the branches, it must have been very hazardous.

 

This year my fairies are clustered together in a large festive bowl. They look delightful together, and they can gossip about the one who has been chosen to grace the tree. (You think I’m joking? Fairies might look sweet, but I’ve often come downstairs in the morning to find a fairy or two on the floor while the others, tinsel wreaths over one eye and wands akimbo, peer gleefully down at their victims.) Tableaux are fun to make – all you need is a roll of white packing fleece, some blue or black card for a background, maybe a mirror (if you want to make an ‘ice-rink’) and plenty of glitter, and your winter dolls will make a super display. You can have them skating, skiing, sledging or even building a snowman, depending on the props you include.

 

Two 'Vanity Fair' dolls from a local garden centre



A 1930s' styled Patsy toddler

Last week I visited one of our local garden centres and discovered a couple of porcelain dolls that had been marked right down in a sale, and were dressed in coats, scarves, boots and mitts – perfect for a winter display. They are now ensconced in the living room on a ‘snowy’ table, with a sledge laden with wreaths and a mini Christmas tree. They look very festive. A favourite doll of mine is dressed as a ‘Snow Baby’ in a fleecy white coat with matching hat and leggings, looking very 1930s, whilst another wears a brightly coloured jumper and hat with a pair of quilted trousers. She has skis and ski sticks, an excuse for making a cotton wool ski-slope.

I make a point of going to as many garden centres as I can in the run up to Christmas, because so often they have stunning Christmas displays with coloured lights and animated effects, just as good, if not better, as any department store. Van Hages this year has a life-size animated camel! Garden centres are also a good source for unusual or quirky gifts, often featuring handmade or craft items, while of course a pot of bulbs or a Christmas Hellebore make lovely presents. I’m not so keen, though, on the ‘themed’ Christmas trees – one centre I went to last year was proudly displaying white trees with black decorations, while many have trees all in purple, gold or even brown. Our tree always has a mishmash of decorations, some that I inherited from my parents, some my husband and I bought for our very first Christmas together, some that my children have made, and some that have been purchased on shopping sprees over the years. Of course, I always have to give pride of place to the paper snowflake made by my son when he was at nursery school thirty-something years ago, and the red cardboard Father Christmas that he made at infants’ school. This Santa is very unusual as he has no beard. Or arms…. (My son once told me he had no arms because his hands were in his pockets.)

 



A large camel at Van Hages Garde Centre, Amwell



 Just like everyone else, we have our own family traditions – a sparkler in the Christmas pudding is a ‘must’,as is blowing the ceiling decorations to see who can make them spin the most. We always put up a paper owl (it is very tatty now, but we’ve had it almost forty years, so can’t complain) and however it is hung, it still insists on facing the wall so all we see is its back. And a local tradition is – or was – children in our area being told that Father Christmas keeps his reindeer in the woods near the Hastingwood roundabout! (Okay, they might be fallow deer, but to a small child they are magical.)

 

Happy Christmas everyone, and please don’t forget to put out some seed, nuts and a dish of water for our feathered friends, especially if it’s really cold. I’ll see you in the new year– I’m just off to decorate the bower with fairy lights!

To get you into the festive mood, you might like to venture to:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-wOkBnx71Q

where some of my bears and toys are acting out their version of 'Twas The Night Before Christmas!

Two 1920s German bisque fairies in a decorated sleigh

 

 

MUSINGS FROM THE BOWER 50

 

 

 

Well, the desk is now looking respectable, and though it isn’t as green and pretty as the bower, there are shelves and notice boards for useful and favourite things.  I mentioned recently that I had rediscovered my Furby; I have now found Furby’s friend, Shelby. Shelby is noisier than Furby, sings and tells ‘Knock Knock’ jokes, so I will have to make sure his shell is clamped down or else I will never get any work done! By my feet, curled up on his red tartan rug, is my cat Tigger. Unfortunately, due to the fact that our garden is too small with a main road at the end, I can’t have a real cat – and anyway, our garden is a bird haven, so I can’t risk disrupting that. Therefore Tigger is the next best thing, a sleeping toy cat, perpetually curled on his red tartan blanket.

We do, however, have a lionhead rabbit, called Moppet, who is seven and a half years old. Lionheads seem to be particularly laid-back rabbits, very gentle and placid. Ours tends to relax by lying in weird un-rabbit-like positions, such as almost on his back with his legs in the air – which was quite worrying at first! His soft fluffy coat needs a lot of brushing, and tends to attract wisps of hay which he trails through the house. He is quite vocal, too – he grunts happily as he runs along the hall, or when sitting under the kitchen table.

 

I’ve had so many pets over the years – cats, tortoises, hamsters, mice, guineapigs, gerbils, terrapins, budgies, canaries, zebra finches, fish, lizards, stick insects, axolotls, clawed frogs and giant snails. Many of them I have bred. I have only ever had one dog, way back in the 1950s and 60s. His name was Rex, and he was a cross between a spaniel and some kind of terrier, but his fur grew so long he resembled a small Old English Sheepdog. Rex was very friendly, a great companion for a child, and he adored running through the woods near our home plunging his nose down rabbit holes or seeking out sticks. Rex thought big. He never brought home a small stick – oh no, he dragged home fallen branches! He almost did himself an injury once when he misjudged the size of the enormous branch he had in his mouth. It was wider than the width of the door and he ran towards it only to be brought jarringly to a halt as the branch caught in the ornamental trellis of the porch. It was a wonder that his teeth didn’t fall out.

 

Fire Bellied Toad

Asian Painted Frogs

 

White's Tree Frog

 I’ve always been drawn to small exotic creatures, especially amphibians, and managed to breed several species in the 1980s and 90s, writing my experiences in various fish and reptile-keeping magazines. Creatures such as fire-bellied toads with their beautiful orange tummies, and the even more beautiful Oriental fire- bellied toads with bright scarlet undersides, as well as the no-less colourful yellow-bellied toads – all these provided hundreds of tadpoles, and, in time, tiny froglets. Then there were fire-bellied salamanders who were meant to give birth to live young (rather than lay eggs) by immersing themselves in shallow water, although in the case of my female, shunning the shallow water and giving birth in damp moss so I had to quickly save the young before they dried up. I bred various types of newts, too, but my favourite frogs, so-called ‘Asian painted frogs’, never bred for me though they called for hours. And I never attempted breeding with my enormous green, grinning White’s tree frogs. These enjoyed being out of their tank, liking best of all, for some reason, to sit on top of a clock in the dining room! My favourite amphibian ‘pet’ was a big black axolotl (like a large newt larvae, with feathery gills) which I called Fred. I bought Fred when I was about ten or eleven, and he lived for around fifteen years.

 

MacLeays Spectre Stick Insect

Then there were Indian stick insects, which sprayed their thousands of eggs all over the floor of the tank and which soon hatched into minute replicas of their mothers (the females were so liberated they didn’t need a male to breed) and delicate pink winged stick insects which tended to hang from our ceiling. I also kept Macleays Spectre stick insects, which were enormous, about 6 inches long, and very spiny, resembling something from a science fiction film. They laid attractive marbled brown eggs, like small beads, which hatched into scuttling little nymphs and it wasn’t till they had moulted several times that they suddenly made the dramatic transition into a spiny monster.  Giant land snails were interesting; they are hermaphrodites (they have both male and female parts). They had a weird love play which entailed them simultaneously firing a ‘love dart’ at each other, and they would stay entwined, mating, for several hours before gliding off to bury their clutches of pearly eggs in the damp soil.

Alpine Newt

 Perhaps by now you’ll have guessed that during my desk clear out, I came across plenty of photos of my ‘exotic pets’, and so I was inspired to write about them in my blog. As I do so, Moppet the rabbit sits on my feet grunting softly, to remind me that he’s there and that he would like his ears stroked. And that is one of the drawbacks of toads, frogs, snails and newts – fascinating though they are, you can’t really pet them!

 

Moppet enjoying the snow