Medieval Barbie

Medieval Barbie

Medieval Barbie is wearing a dress made of dark green velvet with an underskirt of very fragile gold metallic brocade.  She is standing by the dark pink peonies that came into bloom yesterday.

Medieval fairs are very popular attractions in the summer and there is one near here every year in the hamlet called Osgoode.  Here one can watch jousting, a hand-fasting and see crafts people ply their ancient trades.  There will be puppet shows, magicians, dancers, and a murder mystery dinner.  You can buy jewellery,  bread and honey, clothing and armour. 

Barbie will fit right in.   Fit might not be exactly the right word; she's a little shorter than most of the other fair-goers but you know what I mean. 

Spring Flowers Barbie

Spring Flowers Barbie

Siberian irises are among the earliest blooms in my garden.  They are lovely mauve flowers with yellow accents on the petals.  They are the perfect flower for people who don't have green thumbs.  Siberian irises are resistant to soft rot and iris borers.  They are hardy to Zone 3 and don't fall down in the rain like peonies.

Barbie's dress is a light mauve with yellow/green beading on the collar and drop waist.  You can't see the pretty trim at the bottom of her skirt because I am not a photographer.  I realized as I perched on my makeshift seat that I kept posing Barbie with a telephone pole growing out of her head. (You can still see the pole on the left).

I did try other angles and vantage points but Barbie has little patience.   I noticed her smile was increasingly plastic so I had to make do with the shots I had.

Bridal Wreath Barbie

Bridal Wreath Barbie

Barbie hasn't had a wedding in weeks!  But this weekend the bridal wreath spirea was in full bloom and if that isn't a reason to get married I don't know what is.

You'll notice Barbie's wedding gown is not white.  Vera Wang has featured entire collections of non-white wedding dresses including a series of  red tones and this dress is a tribute to her work. In the movie Time Again, Rachel MacAdams wears a red wedding dress, not by Vera Wang but it is a great dress. 

Queen Victoria's wedding dress was white and started a fashion that has been copied many, many times.  The biggest problem with white of course is it is so hard to keep it clean and red wine leaves such a hideous, conspicuous stain.  

A little free advice to brides, stick to white wine until all the pictures have been taken. And don't eat the salad at dinner in case a leaf becomes lodged in your teeth.  You can thank me later.

Barbie Karenina

Barbie Karenina

Clothing fashions take us from the scanty clothing of the Roaring Twenties and the Mod Sixties to the opulent extravagance of the aristocracy during any number of reigns.

In L.M. Montgomery's Anne of Green Gables,  Marilla comments when she sees Anne's new dress that 'there's enough material in those sleeves to make a waist'.  But fashion, however ridiculous, can never be ignored.  In Emily of New Moon (same author)  Emily notes that even her dour Aunt Elizabeth wears a bustle, 'just  a little one'.

The 2012 movie, Anna Karenina, was a symphony of dresses and bustles made with layers upon layers of fabric.  While I could not imagine actually wearing a skirt as huge and a bodice as tight as the ones  worn in the  film, Barbie loves to dress like a princess. 

Achy Breaky Barbie

Achy Breaky Barbie

I learned to line dance to Billy Ray Cyrus' Achy Breaky heart in the 90's at an aerobics class.  I took a line dancing course ten years later and  I learned it again.  A few years ago, I started line dancing once a week with a group of patient friends and I learned it for a third time.

Things have progressed and I now sort of know a lot more dances.  I am always an eighth beat behind the group and often finish a turn facing in the wrong direction.

Barbie does everything with ease and grace.  She never misses a beat, always turns with precision and never panics during the bridge.  She can clap on the off-beat and count to eight over and over.

She's dressed for dancing in a blue suede skirt and vest and her favourite gingham shirt.

Barbie gives me an envious, achy-breaky heart.

Barbie Mercer

Barbie Mercer

If you are a fan of Rick Mercer, you have already seen the RMR 7 day forecast on You Tube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkDvqQKGgDA. 

The sketch neatly captures the fruitless hope and the endless despair of what was a brutal winter and what is becoming a cold and dreary spring.  But let me introduce Barbie Mercer, a vernal goddess.  She is dressed in pink and gold and has celestial wings to remind us that in some parts of the world spring arrived on time.  She is a beacon of hope for the warmth of the summer to come (cross your fingers on that one).  She evokes the gentle colours of flowers and the soft breezes of a warm night. 

She is a complete fantasy. 

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear Barbie

It Came Upon a Midnight Clear Barbie

A debate that occurred regularly in our house could have been called "French Christmas or English Christmas?"  My mother came from Acadian stock and my father's parents were British.

My mother felt Christmas began with everyone who was old enough attending  midnight mass. After mass, you woke up the little ones and the réveillon began.  Rabbit pie was the featured treat.  People went to bed at dawn and turkey dinner was served in the evening of the 25th.

My father wanted everyone to hang stockings and go to bed on Christmas Eve.  Then we could wake up early to open gifts.  (As a child, I interpreted early as 3 AM, not popular but in retrospect a nice meld of the two traditions).  There was children's mass at 9 and we could play with our new toys all day until the turkey dinner was served.

When we were little the English tradition prevailed but, over time, the scheduling got more French.  My brother was an altar boy and my mother was so proud she made him a cassock and surplice of his own.  There was some in the sacristy but they were of dubious hygiene, often needed repair and the right size was not always available.

When he was 9 or possibly 10 years old, he was asked to serve at Midnight Mass.  In those days, mass was in Latin and after the gospel there was a long prayer called the Confiteor.  The altar boys would crouch, heads down, on the floor and recite it with the priest.  The congregation knelt and bowed their heads.  At the end of the prayer, we lifted our heads and three of the four altar boys did too.

But not my brother, he'd fallen asleep.