The Swenglish Home

OK then, are you with me for Plan B...?

I don't know about your end, but where I am standing...

not a lot of spring has sprung since our last joint efforts in cajoling spring to do its spring thing...

I am grateful to you for trying, but it seems like we are dealing with a shy one this time...

So Plan B involves pussy willow, tulips and roses...

... which should be a safe bet for a successful flirt with the season of green and of growth...

All we have to do now is sit tight and wait...

...and remember, patience is a virtue...

Today has been a "long rain journey" into an equally rainy night, and taking photos indoors seems to only result in bluey-grey images, grainy and dull... Before you raise a hand to point at the seemingly bright light in some of the images above, let me just say they have been given a complementing lick of computerized make-up.

I do not know if it is my Swedish heritage of worrying about appearing boastful, but there is something about the Swenglish Home I have not mentioned here on the blog. The Swenglish Home is not just a place for  crash-landed paper aeroplanes, young boys blasting off into space in imaginary rockets, grown-ups collapsing in front of the telly after a long day of work and play. It is a house with a job of its own. 

Tomorrow The Swenglish Home hosts its seventh commercial photo shoot since it started its "modelling career" a year ago. By coincidence, we were approached by two different people, asking if we would be interested in becoming a "film and photo shoot location", and we decided to give it a go. I have met some lovely, interesting and creative people during these shoots, working for advertising agencies, knitting and cross-stitching magazines, a furniture company, to mention a few. Sometimes the shoot involves several models, sometimes it is just close-ups of the client's products. Sometimes it is a big crew (client, ad agency, models, stylists, photographers, hair&make-up etc), sometimes a small group of only six people.

Glamorous? The first time, which was also the biggest photo shoot, with over twenty people working here, was exciting, I admit. But more than that, it was so interesting to see how the advertising agency worked with their ideas, trying to take them from paper drawings to final photographic product. Now, we only look at these shoots as a job, and for me, it is a Cleaning job with capital C before each shoot. And believe me, trying to scrape the filth from every corner and every nook, not the most glamorous activity...!

So, whizzing around like a whirlwind trying to clean the house today, I found myself drawn several times to these pots of hope. Hope of spring to come and the world to be green once more. "Squeeking" the fresh tulip leaves a little, a quick stroke of a pussy willow, and off to hoover another part of a sensationally dusty house... Dirt, be gone! Looking around me, I see that the dust cloth and I are in for a long, cosy evening together, so I bid you farewell. But you will continue to help me with Operation Bring on Spring, won't you?! Together, we can do it!

Ps. If you would like to see some "Behind the Scenes" photos, visit http://www.theagencyonline.co.uk/behind-the-scenes#ciabatta-rolls-product-launch-q1-2010. In the third photo from the end, you might see a long purple scarf on a woman standing under the clock, hidden behind someone. That is yours truly... (Click on the images if you want them larger.)