I love finding mushrooms. I don't pick any as I'm still learning to identify them. I was taking a photo of the big mushroom shelf growing from the side of this tree stump, and didn't even notice the tiny little wispy guys on top until I was looking at the photo.
Although I’ve been interested in vintage for absolutely years I’ve never really been drawn to the 1940s and WWII side of it until more recently, and a lot of that new found interest is due to Eden Camp. I’ve been to this museum before, I’m pretty sure I even posted about it, but honestly it’s probably my favourite museum in the whole world and I love going whenever I can.
Eden Camp was originally a Prisoner of War camp in North Yorkshire, and has since been turned into a WWII museum. Which I know sounds super boring, it certainly did to me the first time I went, but it just frames it in a way that I’ve never seen before. I worry how amazing it is and how it makes me feel can never come across in photographs, especially as I don’t know how to get across in words the profound effect it has on me either, so you’ll just have to trust me that ITS AMAZING!! Even more so than I can describe!
Because it’s based in a former Prisoner of War camp it gives the museum an authenticity that a lot of these kinds of places usually lack, but it’s surprisingly not somber, if anything it really brings the human element to what happened instead of it seeming so detached. It’s set across the original buildings, with each hut dedicated to a different aspect of wartime life with reconstructed scenes that even smell like 1940s Britain. One minute you’re wandering through a blacked out street, the next it’s the Blitz, then in another moment you're with evacuated children being loaded on to steam trains, or sheltering from the bombs on the London Underground. It’s so immersive that it’s hard not to feel swept up in it all and admire the lengths these people went through. I feel like most things about the war focus exclusively on the army or the horrors of the Holocaust, which is what’s always put me off as it feels a bit like an excuse for glorification of violence instead of empathy for what these people were actually put through, you know? And that’s exactly what Eden Camp doesn’t do. It covers all aspects of the war from the home front and how the people left behind were affected, as well as the wider picture of what was happening around the globe.
When you look at this stuff and the things that made up peoples lives and the way society was, it feels like such a huge difference to today. Like I know it was 80 years ago, but the world changed so very much just between 1940 and 1970, and 1970 doesn’t seem as long ago, you know? And yet it’s only 30 years apart. Which is the same equivalent as 1991 is to us today, and yet the difference between 1991 and 2021 doesn’t seem as vast as the differences between 1940 and 1970. It just really fascinates me how quickly and how much things changed, both in terms of social attitudes as well as more superficial things like how stuff was made and what was available to people. Like even when there was extreme rationing, things were still well made and expected to last and made of proper materials and the government took steps to ensure that no one was overcharged for these things. Like, can you even imagine???
I meant to post about this sooner, but I went to the antiques center last week! I last went in December 2019, and I always love taking photos and seeing how much it's changed every time I go. Especially this time as you can imagine with the whole pandemic it felt very different! I used to come out of these places with armfuls of things, but I'm definitely more chill nowadays and I just really like looking at quirky old stuff and seeing how things have changed over time (or not!) and thinking about the kinds of people who maybe owned it before. Especially as these places always get me thinking about consumerism and how much old stuff exists and how much new stuff is constantly being made, and how all of these lovely old things often end up in garbage dumps or left to rot in attics and how unsustainable it all is. Which really bums me out so I try to only buy stuff that I want to give a forever home.
I'm really into bears lately, and I love old carved stuff like this that looks handmade.
I've been admiring this painting for years! It used to be at another antiques place locally, now it's moved to here, and I swear I've been looking at it for about 6 years so it always makes me really happy to try and spot where they've hung it up this time. I'm going to be so disappointed when it sells.
I love old packaging design, and this iron was tiny. I did think about getting it as it would literally be perfect for travel, but it was super heavy which isn't airline friendly.
I've never seen canisters specifically for different types of sugar before.
I traveled to London yesterday to go to the theater and I can't believe how long it's been since I've been able to type that!! It all felt a bit weird and surreal all day as I haven't been to London since coming back from Japan. I haven't been much of anywhere really and I did feel anxious and a bit of reverse culture shock because I've become so used to navigating Tokyo and Japanese etiquette and customs that things kept taking me by surprise and I found myself unsure of what to do. I posted about it on my Instagram stories and I had a couple of my friends from Japan messaging me to say they've felt the same since returning home so at least it's not just me!
I went to see Heathers which is a show I've wanted to see for years as I really love the cast recording. To be honest I'm not often drawn to musicals based on movies, there's been a lot of them lately which is kind of it's own gripe. I think Heathers works better as a musical though as it's such heightened reality anyway, although to be fair I've never much liked the movie so it's not too hard for it to be an improvement to me. The issue I often have with musicals I've only ever listened to and not actually seen is because I'm such a visual person I kind of make up my own version of it in my head because I don't know how it's staged (I don't like bootlegs personally, watching something through someone's shaky phone camera where they're constantly zooming in and out is not a fun time for me). So sometimes actually seeing the show can be a bit of a letdown compared to what I pictured, but this wasn't and I really enjoyed it!
Photos from this week! It's been a pretty relaxed one overall, which has been nice. It's been cold and I've just wanted to stay inside and be cozy and do slow activities like read and paint.
I collected some moss from my little Totoro terrarium! I wasn't going to as the moss always dies, but I'm determined to look after it better this time as i just love how it looks. I used to put stuff on the glass to stop the condensation, but I actually prefer it? It makes more sense for Totoro to be holding his umbrella!
I'm really trying to make an effort to read more, I used to be an avid reader growing up, at least a book a week and I don't know what happened but I miss it. I found a bunch of my old books in a cupboard, I think this is the first Stephen King book I ever read? And I've read most of them now except the Dark Tower series! I got this because I remember Iliked the movie of Secret Window. I'm not rereading all of the novellas, just The Library Policeman which I remember as being the creepiest.
I painted this money pot. I've been wanting one of those savings pots that you smash to enter for a while as I'm bad at raiding my savings, but they all come with such tacky designs. So I painted over it. It's not perfect, but I wasn't after creating a masterpiece as I still have to smash it up some day!
Oh, Chops. He's a villager I had back in Animal Crossing New Leaf, and when I got New Horizons he was the first villager to my campsite so it kind of felt like he'd come over from my old Island. We became pretty good buddies (I like the smug villagers for some reason) but when I wanted another campsite villager to move in he got kicked off and I felt SO BAD. I regretted it instantly and kept hoping to find him on a Nook Island, but I gave up and decided to just get his Amiibo card. He is kinda ugly, but I love him anyway.
My new Filofax arrived and I had fun putting it all together. I love notebooks and organisation so much!! I've even thought about starting a "study gram" on Instagram for the longest time.
An albino squirrel that currently lives down our lane. He seems to have poor eyesight so I hope he makes it!
One of the things I really wanted to do the most in Japan was visit the Studio Ghibli Museum as I'd missed it the first time I came to Tokyo which I was super gutted about. You've always had to pre-book tickets through the convenience store Lawson, and they're only released so far in advance and it's just a whole process that I wasn't prepared for and so it was really high on my priority list this time round. Then Covid happened and it shut, and then while locked down they decided to do some renovations and keep it closed longer and it was basically closed for the entire time I lived in Japan and I thought I was going to miss out on it again. Until!! They announced they were opening mid-January, 2 weeks before I was due to fly back to Europe. Serendipity!
The building itself is completely magical, I don't know how else to describe it it's just so whimsically built and full of tiny details even down to the doorknobs and Jiji shaped faucets. Some of it's almost like a maze with tiny doors you have to crouch to go through and spiral staircases that lead to no where in particular. There's all kinds of different rooms, from detailing the history of the company and how the animations are made, to all of the behind the scenes artwork and research that goes into everything. This was my favorite bit as it's set out like spaces where the artists are in the middle of working and like they just got up for a break, and the walls are covered in genuine concept work, story boards, and background art. I found it so, so inspiring, so much that I even bought a set of the watercolors the artists use (the Japanese brand Holbein of course). There were photo albums to flick through of the photographs the researchers had taken on locations, shelves of books they used as reference (nothing specific either, just books about birds or certain cities that are the kind of thing you'd probably overlook at the thrift store). I think the reason I found it so inspiring was because there wasn't any fancy expensive equipment or tools so it all felt really accessible and realistic. It made me want to thrift a bunch of books and paint from them as reference, and I loved seeing that all of the fantastical locations and creatures in Ghibli movies are based on things so mundane.
They also have a movie theater showing exclusive short movies that are only viewable at the museum, I think there's 8 or so that they rotate through? The one I saw was about a caterpillar and you saw him hatching and experiencing the world for the first time and it was so cute! It also had no speech, just sound effects, so you could understand it in any language which I thought was smart although I don't know if they're all like this.
Photos are only allowed outside of the museum, which on the one hand I was kind of bummed about because I'd of loved to photograph the artists rooms in detail, but it's also really nice because it makes it more immersive and you're not slowed down by people taking selfies. You can also buy a photo book like I did for ¥1000 which is well worth it.
