This week’s Wednesday Whimsy is all about the parasol….couldn’t find too many quotes about them, other than this one from author Anne Sexton, in a poem entitled “The Kite: “The parasol girls slept, sun-sitting their lovely years.”

When I interviewed steampunk author Gail Carriger for my USA Today/HEA column awhile ago, of course she has written an entire series entitled The Parasol Protectorate. Here’s one quick Q&A from the interview:

Veronica: Which piece of steampunk “technology” in the series is your favorite invention and why?

Gail: I like the really silly ones. So I’d probably go for some of those in the Finishing School series, like Bumbersnoot (a steam-powered mechanical sausage dog), which are a bit more whimsical. In the Parasol Protectorate books, I’d have to choose Alexia’s third parasol, the one Biffy decorates. It’s the ultimate Swiss Army knife of parasols.

I don’t have any Victorian trade cards with parasols that multi-purpose, but some fun-to-look-at nonetheless. And I love the dress this lady to the right is wearing….

Humans weren’t the only creatures who needed parasols in the late 1800’s, as you can see from the cards below. (The one with the chickens reminds me of my author friend Pippa Jay, not because she writes terrific science fiction romance (although she does)  but because she keeps “chooks”, as she calls them, in her Colchester UK home.

I think the lady mouse on her “slow coach” with her leaf or flower petal parasol is very endearing….I like the way she’s keeping her sang froid on that  less than secure perch!

And two more photos below, although it almost seems the couple has a beach umbrella rather than a parasol but it fits my theme (almost), so there you are!