Littlefield Eleven

Littlefield Grid turns 11 years old as an independent grid and they're celebrating!

From Nasa to Firestorm, Littlefield Grid is celebrating the past and the future

There's a special Anniversary region on the grid where many of the grid's residents have set up displays that illustrate the range of builds that you can visit here. There's also a gallery that explains the history of Stonehaven, from the days of SL onwards.

Heart Box

 There are places - and people - that have been on the Safari radar forever, as examples of enormous talent combined with wicked humor, and endless heart - Frankie Rockett is a case in point. After many years, the Safari finally got a chance to meet up with him and experience the iconic build Art Box, now transferred to LFGrid, where it has found a stable and permanently open venue. Full address as always at the end of the post.

Armed and dangerously talented 
Frankie Rockett

 There is something of the Willy Wonka about Frankie - with one caveat, none of the annoying 'follow the rules or else' in Frankie's ethos. 

A charming, brilliant, yet somehow elusive figure, Frankie's build Art Box - the fruit of well over a decade of creativity - speaks for itself, it is a chocolate box full of sweet treats. 

The premise of the build for those few people who haven't experienced it over the past decade or so, is that you can be 'part of the picture' - be it a well known poster, photo, album cover, oil painting, watercolor - in short, famous artwork from all genres and time periods. 

It's both fun and philosophical as you put yourself quite literally in the picture, thus inviting thoughts of 'what is going on here.... or just a lot of giggles, depending on your mood of the moment. It's flexible.

Home Sweet Gnome

 "Sometimes I feel like I'm actually on the wrong planet, 
and it's great when I'm in my garden. 
But the minute I go out the gate I think:
'What the hell am I doing here?' "
George Harrison

In January 1970, George Harrison bought a house called Friar Park, on the western edge of  the Thames-side town of Henley, about an hour west of central London. The 60-acre estate has its feet, as it were, in the realm of the bus-stop-and-bins of suburbia, but its head rests quietly on the edges of the Chilterns. A rambling neo-gothic mansion built in the 1880's, by the '70s Friar Park had fallen into such a state of disrepair that it was due to be demolished. Instead, it was rescued and repaired. For thirty years it was home to Harrison, and the location of his main recording studio, and his family live there to this day. 

The house must have hundreds of tales to tell, but this post is about the garden, which has been recreated in the virtual world of Littlefield Grid by Pete Clements, aka Mudpuddle Cleanslate, on a region called 'All Things Must Pass'. This picture, as with all the landscape images below, was taken in that place in the  metaverse.

Safari goes to the Docks

This week, two Beatles related builds! One recreating Liverpool Docks, and the other recreating all the joy of the Yellow Submarine. Both exploring a time long, long before you or I were born, naturally. Liverpool is a city with a rich, sometimes troubled history. A port city from the beginning of the 1700s, the ships that plied the Transatlantic routes carried all sorts, manufactured European goods, American cotton, tobacco, sugar, and people - immigrants, but also slaves. The famous Penny Lane immortalized by the Beatles is named after James Penny, described by some as a slave merchant, although the jury is still out on that. One thing that is without a doubt is that the Beatles are Liverpool's number one export, the pride and joy of the city. A huge Beatles museum is located a converted warehouse building on Albert Dock.

We start with a truly amazing trip to Kitely, and the Old Liverpool Dock. This region is normally closed to the public, so our visit was a little bit of HG heaven, and our host Graham Mills has done a