Author: Inara Pey

The last week has been a little rough on me with things health-wise throwing a bit of a wobbly – probably not for the last time, things being what they are, but c’est la vie as they say. So to try to get back into things within Second Life, I decided to hop over to see the 2025 winter setting at Lam Erin’s Cherishville.

This is a location I’ve been visiting pretty much annually (at least) since 2017. As a landscape photographer himself, Lam has the eye for putting together settings that are always pleasing to the eye and well-balanced, and this attracts me to his designs. There’s also the fact that whilst each iteration of Cherishville is unique to itself, can oft carry motifs and themes forward one to the next, and I’m a fan of such themes and motifs.

Some of these motifs clear to see for regular visitors to Cherishville, such as the little town theme running through several of his 2024 Cherishville designs, other of which are more subtle in nature

For 2025, Lam offers a genuinely delightful winter setting which offers a new landscape perfectly blending with the region surround to create a very real sense of depth to the design, but which again presents little familiar nods to past designs, even if they might not be recognised as such by the casual eye. There’s also – to me at least – a little quasi-literary touch to be found by lovers of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The first of those potentially familiar motifs seen with Lam’s designs comes at the Landing Point. This takes the form a railways platform, which here is indirectly linked to a small station house and with a single line of track also close to hand. The latter runs straight eastwards to an engine shed, whilst to the west it doglegs around what looks to be a permanent fairground sitting with its back to the frozen waters of a ribbon lake.

The lake in turn snakes between the high mountains surrounding the setting as snow falls from a leaden sky to blanket almost everything it touches. These mountains in turn help to give the impression this is a place far inland among a snow-capped mountain range, thus given Cherishville that sense of depth. The depth is furthered by the way in which the frozen water cuts through the region, neatly splitting it.

Again, for those familiar with past iterations of the region, this use of water to split the land in twain is a motif frequently found within Cherishville designs. Here, the land is divided between north and south, with a single bridge linking them located at the western extent of the setting.

Splitting the landscape like this further enhances the feeling of depth within it, giving as it does a real sense that human habitation here has been forced to crowd itself into the narrow lowlands sitting between the passage of the lake and the sharply rising slopes of the mountains.

It is here that the visual allusion to F. Scott Fitzgerald – whether intentional or purely an invention of my imagination – might be found. Cross the tracks from the Landing Point and walk towards the two steam locomotives and you’ll find, just off to the right, a little wooden pier jutting out over the frozen waters of the lake.

The pier sits almost directly opposite the grand house on the far side of the lake. When standing on it, it’s hard not to have thoughts of Jay Gatsby standing at the end of his dock staring out over the waters towards East Egg and the bulk of the Buchanan mansion, the Christmas lights outside of the grand house here standing in for the green light at the end of the Buchanan’s dock.

Another attraction – for me, at least – with this version of Cherishville is the fact that while Christmas-y touches are to be found throughout, they are not overwhelming. Thus when they are seen, they tend to feel more like a seasonal addition to a place that has long been in existence, rather than the entire setting built in celebration of the holiday season.

As always with Lam’s Cherishville, this iteration has a lot of detail tucked away within it, indoors and out, with the entire setting highly photogenic. So, do be sure to go and visit – and do be sure to use the local environment settings to see the region at its best.

SLurl Details

• Cherishville (Tuscan Hills, rated Moderate)

My first and – at least until a few days before writing this piece – only visit to Pususaari, the Homestead region setting designed by Lu and Leelou Von Perkle (Lu Carrillo and LeeLou Graves respectively) for 2025 was made back in April, just as spring was about to burst forth. It was a location that immediately struck a chord in me, and I thoroughly enjoyed exploring it back then, as I noted in Pususaari: romance and kisses in Second Life.

Well, the year has clearly rolled on by since then, and 2026 is not that far off. As a result, much of Second Life turning to winter settings and wintery things to do, in keeping with the northern hemisphere – including Pususaari. Given this, I felt it was time for me to make a return visit and take in how the region has been transformed into an entirely natural wintertime setting.

Enjoy winter on Pususaari.

Glide on the frozen lake, drift over white hills, or ride through snow. Warm up at the café, slip under the northern lights with your date, and let the night soften around you

Maybe you’ll be the one to find the butterflies?

– Pususaari’s winter 2025 About Land description

The first thing that struck me on my arrival – alongside the sheer beauty of the setting – was the manner the landscape, whilst different in form and content, echoed in part the rugged handsomeness that had marked Pususaari when I first visited in April, albeit it this iteration of the setting only having a single rocky highland over which Nature has thrown a blanket of snow.

The Landing Point faces this highland area from across the region. It sits on a large deck reaching out over the icy waters from a snow-covered beach. The home of a little café, the deck offers a striking view to the north across the island and west towards the revolving eye of light as it is cast around by the lamp of a tall lighthouse.

Sitting between the beach and the highlands is a broad meadow, again somewhat mindful of the April 2025 iteration of the setting. Within it, horses and donkeys roam through tall grass. Across it, and sheltered in part by the lee of a large table of rock extending southwards from the setting’s higher slopes, sits a barn in which the local chickens and turkeys are wisely avoiding the snow.

The well alongside this barn offers a rapid ascent up to the snowy peaks, being an Experience-driven teleport. Clicking on it and accepting the local Experience will play the teleport animation and deliver you to the local Office up on the hills. The sign is one of a number scattered across the setting offering opportunities to do things – teleport, dance, obtain skates for use on the local frozen pond, rez a sled, and so on.

The sled (and skis) can be obtained from the little office on the hill, the western slope of which is ideal for getting back down to the lowlands when using them (or indeed, for walking up to the office). Whilst there is a slope to the east of the office, using it for sledding or skiing might be inadvisable, given both the gorge barring a part of the way down and the fact that were the slope does descend to the lowlands, it does so steeply and ends abruptly in the waters of a cold stream dropping down from the lower plateau.

For romantics, there is a little hideaway sitting on this plateau as it reaches south towards the meadow, and which can be reached easily enough by walking part-way down the eastern slope of the peak – or by turning off as you climb up the western slope. This little cabin is one of several places waiting to be found around Pususaari which offer nice little retreats. Some are easily spotted when wandering, others might need a little more work to find, such as the little greenhouse converted into a cosy cliff-top nook.

It is these little locations, each one neatly furnished and offering its own particular attractiveness to visitors, which make wandering the setting on foot more than worthwhile. As is reading the various signs scattered about the landscape, not just because they might offer opportunities for activities, but because one in particular will help guide you to the butterflies mentioned in the setting’s About Land description. I’m not going to tell you where this is; suffice it to say that the butterflies reside in a little suggestion of warmer, snow-free months, thus reminding us that even in the depths of winter, summer is not that far away.

With skating available on the large frozen lake, a mix of wildlife that suggests this is very definitely a northern hemisphere sub-Arctic / Arctic location, all caught under the snow / star spangled sky with a rippling aurora, Pususaari – Where winter comes to rest is an engaging and peaceful wintertime setting.

SLurl Details

• Pususaari (Bisous Island, rated Moderate)