Travelling Tinies

Tinies are travelling and here are some curiosities all the way from Mexico and Arizona. Some are tinier than others, but they all have tiny detail you would never notice if you were whizzing past in a splendiferous machine...

One way!

Arizona cowboy

Colourful wall in Bisbee, Arizona

Oaxaca corner ... what does it mean?

New Mexican door

  

Wall in Oaxaca ... more than ten tinies here alone!

Virgin of Guadalupe, with followers

A curious object

Wall made from jalapeno tins!

Metal bull in a field

What a fabulous range of tinies. You can travel far and wide to find them, or you can spot them in your own backyard. Either way, we approve! Keep on keeping your eyes open; we promise to do the same.

Transforming Tinies

Today we're highlighting a different sort of tiny, or perhaps a different way of seeing tinies.

As it happens, Meg is a bit shortsighted, and that means that from a distance, things aren't always what they seem.

Being shortsighted brings its own problems, but it also provides a shortcut to an unexpected angle on things, which is very useful for a writer. And sometimes it's not exactly shortsightedness but perhaps more like 'shortmindedness'; it's that Meg seems to view things from a wacky angle anyway - misreading, misconstruing, unintentionally overlooking the obvious in favour of the odd. Some of her most interesting ideas have had their beginnings in misunderstanding and misinterpretation.

Here are some misunderstood tinies - some of them kickstarted ideas, while others just made Meg smile. None of them could have been seen in this way - or perhaps at all - if Meg had been driving.

From a distance, this was a cravat-wearing gentleman. Up close, we have no idea what it is!

A viper makes its way across the local park.

A red-haired creature is trapped in the footpath, and it's not happy ...

If you open the lid, you might hear a tiny choir!

  

A ship's mast! A crows nest! There must be a shipwreck in this sea of grass!

"Shipwreck" from a closer vantage point. Not sure what this is; still happy with mast. Tiny pirates could be buried down there somewhere!

Meg's daily reminder to not let too much noise into her head, to not let 'stuff' weigh her down. It probably isn't what the Water Corporation intended, but she'll take it all the same.

So those are some transforming (transformed?) tinies. We bet there are hundreds all around you; if you don't have the gift of shortsightedness, just blink a bit, tilt your head on an odd angle, and let your imagination take over.

Meadow Springs Tinies

Some new tinies have come to us from Meadow Springs, near Mandurah. With many thanks to Connor (8), Erin (11) and Dad (42) for these gems. It was great to meet you guys at Perth Writers Festival, and we hope you're having extra fun these days on your walks to school.

A very surprised letterbox (Connor)

A tree that looks like someone was planted upside down and grew branches from their legs (Connor)

Two holes in the path where a very small space rocket must have landed (Dad)

A kangaroo letterbox (Erin)

The imprint of a leaf in the concrete path (Erin)

These are fantastic! We particularly love the upside-down tree-person. It would be ticklish having birds nesting in your toes, wouldn't it?

And here's something we love that we didn't expect - some of our tinies appear to be 'talking' to each other. For example, we're seeing a real letterbox theme develop. There are two here of course, but we also have some pretty cool letterboxes in other posts. Which makes us wonder if something is going on among the letterboxes of the world. Why are some trying to fly away and others acting surprised? Maybe the one that flies away will go and visit the others? Perhaps they'll end up banding together to form a really weird letterbox army and one morning we'll wake up to find them marching the streets in rusty formation?

And as for those 'space rocket holes' above, remember the meteorites that hit the wall in the city? This is making us suspect that the aliens are among us, that they've already begun paying little visits to us here on earth. And it's only those of us who really have our eyes open who will notice, and perhaps get to travel with them to distant stars ...

We hope so, anyway.

Thanks so much for the tinies, guys. We understand you are now on the lookout for ten tiny triangles. Kyle will be absolutely delighted!

Tinies at the (City) Farm

It's been a restful Christmas break but now school's back and so are we! And for our first 2013 tinies, we want to show you some things we found at City Farm in East Perth. Meg went along in December last year to help celebrate the TravelSmart to School Awards with some fantastic kids from all over Perth.

There were presentations and prizes and activities of all kinds.

And there were also tinies. Here's some of what we found hiding here and there at City Farm.

Metal chicken says "Welcome!"

A little blue dragon, pining for something

His next-door neighbour, telling him to pipe down.

An egg from which dragons hatch?

  

An ocean on a gate ...

  

A secret lantern to light up the shade

Tree-hanging beast

Mosaic guard-dog

  

The whole world in one small sculpture

'Leave' your mark here

Mosaic chair will leave its mark on your bottom

  

Surely this flower is from outer space?

It was a fantastic day! If you've never been to City Farm, it's a great place to hunt tinies. We highly recommend a visit.

Kununurra Things

The Ten Tiny Things team has been travelling. And that's good because it means we can collect lots of tinies - in our minds' eyes and in our cameras. But the trick then is to find time, in between travels, to post them here for you.

Today there is a window of time, a tiny, rare thing in itself, so here are some tinies from Kununurra, way up in the top end of Western Australia.

So tiny and light he can walk on water ...

The fabulous reeds in which the birds hide

Like this one!

We don't know what this is, or who broke it open. Maybe one of those innocent-looking birds?

Bearded tree stump

  

Green wrapping itself around this tree, a creeping scarf

A creeping something else!

A boab tree is not tiny, but this plaque was. The tree was planted in the  "Celebrity Tree Park" by author Libby Gleeson. Meg's offer to plant her own celebrity tree was sadly rebuffed....

The Kimberley is famous for the scale of things - the sweeping gorges, the massive outcrops of rock, the incredible vastness of the landscape. It made Meg feel very tiny herself. But in the midst of all that, there are so many smaller treasures to be found. It was a very quick flying visit this time, but next time there will be more days to spend, more exploring to be done, more glorious tinies to uncover ...

Close-to-Home Tinies

So we've been to Singapore and Paris and Mississippi ... and today we return to our own backyard. These tinies come from a suburb near Fremantle.

These shoes have lost their tightrope walker

Anyone for juice?

A quiet watering hole for the birds

Footpath art

Stories on stories. If you look closely you can see the words "Long live verse" etched into the concrete underneath 

A closer view...

A secret grotto. What would live here?

The funkiest letterbox ever

And the second funkiest ...

A eucalyptus curtain

  

The opposite of tiny, but still a secret. A giant spider hiding in someone's yard.

I wonder where our next tinies will come from. And where they will take us...