Beatrix Potter for Wednesday Whimsy No Bunnies!

004Everyone knows Beatrix Potter wrote about rabbits, as in Peter and his family. Her mice and her kittens are nearly as famous. Even her hedgehog laundress, Mrs. Tiggywinkle! I thought today I’d feature a few of her other creatures, from my collection of figurines.

012Did you know she included a few dogs in her tales? Here are Duchess with a pie, and John Joiner…

The following quotes are all from Ms. Potter, collected from various sources:

Thank goodness I was never sent to school; it would have rubbed off some of the originality. 

There is something delicious about writing the first words of a story. You never quite know where they’ll take you. 

I do so hate finishing books. I would like to go on with them for years. 

“In the time of swords and periwigs and full-skirted coats with flowered 010lappets – when gentlemen wore ruffles, and gold-laced waistcoats of paduasoy and taffeta – there lived a tailor in Gloucester.”

Everything was romantic in my imagination. The woods were peopled by the mysterious good folk. The Lords and Ladies of the last century walked with me along the overgrown paths, and picked the old fashioned flowers among the box and rose hedges of the garden.

011For quiet, solitary and observant children create their own world and live in it, nourishing their imaginations on the material at hand.008

The pigs aren’t my personal favorites but at the end of the post are a trio, including “Yock-Yock in the Tub”. I must confess I’ve never read whatever story featured this scene!

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B is for Beatrix Potter

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Continuing on with my own slow version of the A to Z challenge, this week is the letter “B” and the first thing that came to mind was Beatrix Potter, author of “The Tale of Peter Rabbit” and countless other charming stories of life in the English countryside as enacted by darling animals in Regency dress. Our family’s copies of the books are very well loved!

She’s firmly fixed in my mind now as Renee Zellweger, since I saw the 2006 movie version of her life, “Miss Potter”. The tagline for the movie said “Her life was the most enchanting tale of all.” Well, no spoilers from me, but I’m not convinced, folks. Parts of the movie were very happy, however, and I was fascinated at how she managed to become a published author. She left a rare legacy for all of us to enjoy. The actress Emma Thompson has been commissioned by the copyright holders  to write a new tale for wily Peter. You can read a fun interview with her here on how she was asked to take on the task and how she went about writing the book.

I have a large, LARGE collection of Beatrix Potter figurines, which I’m happy to share a few photos of today. My favorite is Timmy Willie Sleeping.

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But I’m also very fond of the various mice ladies, the cats, Mrs. Tiggywinkle the Hedgehog…not so fond of the pigs but I’ve acquired a few…

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I also have some Bunnykins and some Brambly Hedge figurines which you may have noticed,  mixed in with the Beatrix Potter but I think they all go together pretty well.

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Five Things I Got From My Mother

???????????????????????????????In honor of Mother’s Day coming up this next weekend, I thought I’d write a blog about five of my favorite things, ???????????????????????????????which I learned to love because my Mother loved them:

Birds! And adding new birds to my Life List, and feeding the birds…

Beatrix Potter! Such charming tales, with the most wonderful illustrations…here are a few of the figurines from my collection (yes, perhaps some Brambly Hedge and Bunnykins have crept in but there’s room for all…) My Mother’s favorite character was Mrs. Tiggywinkle, the hedgehog laundress. Mine would probably be one of the Cats (or maybe Lady Mouse) BUT my favorite figurine is Timmie Willie Sleeping, which you can see at the front of photo. My mother got her love of Beatrix Potter from her mother, my oh-so-stern Gramma Lucy, who must have had her lighter moments, as she and her sister were affectionately known as Flopsy and Mopsy as children. Hmm, that means my greatgrandmother must have  enjoyed Ms. Potter’s Tales as well.

???????????????????????????????Cats! Which doesn’t always go so well with my love of birds and other small creatures…

Tea! Actually my mother was the Compleat Anglophile and loved all things English. ???????????????????????????????British? I think if you’d given her the chance to go back in time and live, she’d have thought herself in Paradise if she could have lived in the Victorian Age and been married to a Duke (waltzing optional). (Yes, that is the Queen Mother on my tea cup, not my actual Mother, just to clear up any confusion LOL.)

Tap Dancing! Which extended to a love of all movie musicals on my part…somehow I never got her adoration of “Gone With The Wind” or Dr. Zhivago. I require an ironclad Happily Ever After to love a movie. Here are the links to three of my all time favorite tap dancing sequences, from Fred Astaire the Master (he and Eleanor Powell appear at :56), Gene Kelly (song starts at 1:09), and the incomparable Sutton Foster with a stage full of sexy sailors (need I say more LOL?)…



But the most important thing I got from my Mother was the love of being a mother myself, to my own two daughters. Happy Mother’s Day!

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