Tag: Small Town Green

Shawn Shakespeare pointed out to me that, after a extended absence from Second Life, Small Town Green is once again open for visitors to appreciate.  This being the case I recently jumped over to take a look.

The work of Mido Littlepaws, Small Town Green (or Small Town, if you prefer) is a place which has featured in these pages a number of times in the pas. My very first visit being almost a decade ago (!) in the summer of 2013 – although I didn’t actually write about it until winter of that year. Further visits followed through until 2016, when the Mido halted her builds for a while, although Small Town Green re-appeared in 2019, which marked the last time I wrote about it.

To be honest, I have no idea if Mido has has iterations of Small Town Green between then and now, but I’m happy that I’ve been able to rediscover it thanks to the nudge from Shawn; Mido has a way of building highly attractive region settings which are fun to explore, with this one taking the form of two islands, hugged in the arms of surroundings hills.

The largest of these two islands has the landing point located on it, sitting on a curled tongue of land holding within it a small, round bay open to the outer waters on one side, where a wrought iron and wood bridge arches over a narrow neck of water. This curling spit of land touched the ruler-like wall of a raised tramway, itself separating the land from a pair of wooden piers, one of which offers the opportunity to take a kayak out onto the water – possibly the easiest way to reach the second (and smaller) island.

I admit that I initially took the smaller island to be a private home whilst initially exploring, and so didn’t pay it too much attention. However, it appears to be open to the public if you do opt to paddle over to it, and despite what looks like a little bit of unfinished landscaping, it presents a charming bath house reached along a lantern lit path overseen by a bamboo copse and bamboo fencing.

Back on the main island, a path follows the curve of the landing point’s tongue of land, offering two directions of exploration. The first runs west and then north, passing through a little field of brightly coloured flowers and past a ruined house with little places to sit and relax, and thence over the little bridge mentioned above. Eastwards, the path also swings to the north after a short walk, passing between tramway and an expanse of nanohana to offer a choice of two further routes.

The first is a grassy trail running between trees and sheltered by their boughs, and the second a waterfront boardwalk arcing around the bay’s inner shore and under the outstretched arms of sakura trees which have sprinkled their blossoms on the waters. Both of these routes recombine at a set of steps leading up to the arched gateway of a little town sitting on the north side of the island, the path linking with the one from the little bridge in the process, the two thus forming a looped a walk around the little inlet.

The little town carries with it a very western sensibility, comprising two cobbled streets that cross one another and are marked at their extremes by arched gateways under which the cobbles pass and end. Two pubs vie for attention at point the two roads cross one another to form an erstwhile town square, the signs of the hostelries staring at one another from opposite diagonals, possibly seeing who will blink first. They share the streets with a mix of business places, some backed by what might be townhouses. 

The majority of the builds here are, admittedly, shells, with the exception of two places of refreshment. The first is Murphy’s Old Ale House as it looks across the square at its rival. It boasts a cosy interior, complete with a little furnished apartment over it, reached by a separate doorway. Just down the street and alongside the steps connecting town to aforementioned looping paths, sits the Café Expresso 

Throughout all of this, there are numerous places where visitors can sit and pass the time during a visit, and it would be remiss of me not to suggest viewing the setting under its intended EEP settings (World → Environment → make sure Use Shared Environment is checked). It really gives this iteration of Small Town an extra sense of depth and romance.

SLurl Details

• Small Town Green (Smalltown, rated: Moderate)

Small Town Green, June 2019 – click any image for full size

Update: Small Town Green has closed and the host region is now home to a club / hangout.

Miro Collas gave us the nudge about visiting Small Town Green, the Homestead region design by Mido (Doli3).

A few years back there was a region also by the name of Small Town Green, but whether this build is a continuation / renewal of that, I honestly cannot say. However, I can say that Mido has in the past been responsible for Small Town Café (see A visit to a Small Town Café), and we did hop over to an earlier iteration of her Small Town Green roughly six months ago, prior to it popping up in its current location, but I didn’t blog about it at that time.

Small Town Green, June 2019

The current iteration of Small Town Green is an eclectic build in three parts defined by three separate islands. One of these, tucked into the south-west corner of the region appears to be a private home (ban lines denote it is certainly off-limits to casual visitors). The second island is to the north-west, and is certainly open to the public, as is the largest of the three, sitting on the region’s east side.

This large island contains the region’s landing point – or rather, it is the closest of the three major landmasses in the region to the landing point, given the latter sits under pouring rain on a flooded section of roadway, a submerged railway line paralleling it as they point towards the ruins of a town on the island.

Small Town Green, June 2019

It would appear that something has happened here at some point; not only are the road and track submerged, they are partially blocked by large boulders, and while the wreck of a car and a train respectively sit on or against them, the car has been around long enough to become festooned with flowers while the tracks from which the train has toppled is similarly overgrown with flowers sprouting out of the water.

Follow the road “inland” and you’ll start to discover the eclectic novelty of the region that makes it so attractive: koi carp slowly circle around the entrance to a subway station, rain falling around them as they bring a new perspective to the term “flying fish”. More fish – but somewhat smaller – can be found idly circling within and old British telephone box close by.

Small Town Green, June 2019

Take the stairs down to the subway and more surprises await.  While it might be under water, the station nevertheless has a train awaiting passengers – although the tree growing on that platform is probably not the kind of “passenger” you might expect to encounter in an underground station! Across the road sits the ruin of a school, the upper floor of which is still occupied by surprisingly pristine looking desks, the building itself long overgrown and roofless. More shells of buildings and skyscrapers, equally overgrown, mark the eastern extreme of the town, suggesting this place has been long deserted.

Across the water, and beyond the small island with its broken lighthouse that lies close to the road, the second public island is similarly overgrown and offers curios of its own. There is a gabled avenue of trees, for example, pointing the way to where an old manor house lies in ruin, the trees growing around and through are festooned with lights. Then there is the old tram car converted into a diner and accompanied by its odd little menagerie of giraffe, zebra and raccoon, it’s entrance long blocked by a wild garden despite the apparent freshness of the meals placed at the tables.

Small Town Green, June 2019

Not far from the tramcar is a little café, a trifle overgrown, perhaps, but cosy nonetheless, while between them is a delightful little curio of a corner, stacked with books and more, and just beyond it a cosy little hideaway perfect for cuddles. It is these contrasts: ruin and little snuggle spaces, the rain and the little, perfectly-detailed dioramas, the open waters and the wild, yet someone cultivated islands, that make this Small Town green a genuine pleasure to explore (although some might find the rain around the landing point and island a little hard going).

Amenable to a wide range of windlight settings, Small Town Green makes for an ideal photographic study, and an engaging opportunity for exploration.

Small Town Green, June 2019

SLurl Details

• Small Town Green (Baroque, rated: Moderate)

Small Town Café, Luck (Flickr) – click any image for full size

Every so often you happen across a place you weren’t expecting to find, whether it be purely by random chance, the nudge of coincidence or the chance remark. Insofar as this article is concerned, it was the latter: a chance remark I caught in open chat concerning places to photograph in SL, which led me to Small Town Café, an utterly delightful 1/4 full region designed by Mido (Mido77077 Liotta). Mido was responsible for Small Town Green, A place I visited in 2013, only to lose track of it; I’m not sure is Small Town Café is a new iteration of Small Town Green or something that happens to share part of the name; either way I had to take a look.

Most of the land is submerged bordered on two side by tall, plateau-like cliffs on two sides. Grass and tulips grow tall in the shallow water, forming islands of green and yellow against the blue, between which the water seems to snake, presenting the visitor with the feeling of standing at the mouth of a slow-flowing river as it meets the gentle currents of the sea – or perhaps a lake.

Small Town Café, Luck (Flickr)

Through the middle of the water, almost cutting it in two and pointing east, a long wooden walkway winds its way from the  the landing point to the open water, where there is a subtle wash of mixing currents. A grassy path runs northwards from the landing point, marking the way to the primary signs of habitation here. Nestled in the shadow of the tall cliffs sits an empty town house or shop, a Tuscan cottage occupying the cobbles alongside it, both fronted by a paved footpath protecting them from the lapping waters.

Here the scene is almost urban; a scooter, loaded with bags and boxes, sit on the footpath, while the shop is fronted by the entrance to an underground station. Is it genuine, or is it something perhaps transplanted here on a whim, the boards over the entrance hiding the fact only more cobblestones sit beneath them? It’s up to visitors to decide. Here, as well, under a rocky arch, is a gated wall, suggesting a garden beyond, distracting the eye from the arched entranceway close by which provides access to one of the region’s genuine secrets.

Small Town Café, Luck (Flickr)

Across the waters from these, on the south side of the region, and raised above the waters over which they stand is the café bar that perhaps gives the place its name, and red bulk of an old shipping container, now converted into a workshop. To reach these, you’ll have to do a little wading, and I strongly recommend you do so around the edge of the water; not because of any risk of drowning, but because that way you’ll find more little touches – such as the greenhouse converted into a little vinyl record shop. Just do try not to disturb the deer too much as you make your way to the café bar.

Music is obviously popular here; the café features an old upright piano, and guitars on their stands can be found here and there across the region, as can places to sit and pass the time with friends or a loved one. This is also a place where cats roam and play with puppies, content to let the mice enjoy the atmosphere unhindered, and even the big cats are wish to do little more than watch things from on high.

Small Town Café, Luck (Flickr)

Given my love of music, cats and watery scenes is Second Life, little wonder I was enchanted by Small Town Café. I’m sure that when you visit, you will be as well – and who knows, if I’m there, maybe I’ll play you a little something on the piano or if you prefer, strum a guitar for a while. If I do (or even if I don’t), please consider leaving a tip; not for me, but for Mido, to help keep tranquil setting alive for many more to enjoy.

Related Links

• Small Town Café SLurl (Rated:  Moderate)

Winter is coming. At least in the northern hemisphere it is. I know this not so much because the days are getting shorter and colder (although these are both the case), but because today my car went to the garage for its pre-winter check-up. I’m a bit of a Sloane Ranger in that I don’t exactly live in the countryside (although I’m not far off it), but I do drive a 4×4 in the shape of a Land Rover Discovery. It’s a bit of a monster, I know, but I in part got it after my previous car was totalled in a head-on, courtesy of someone deciding going around corners on the wrong side of the road was a good idea. My other reason for getting it was that at the time, spending a good deal of my winter time in the woolly wilds of Northumberland, and having a 4×4 up there in winter really is a good idea.

Anyway, all the talk of winter checks and making sure everything was topped-up, cleaned-up, safe for the rigours of winter driving (ice, frost, snow, slush, salt, etc.), left me feeling I needed a little bit of an early winter wander in SL. There’s obviously going to be a good many regions switching to winter themes over the coming weeks (many already have, I know), so I opted to start my winter travels a little modestly, visiting a region I dropped-in on back in summer, but never actually blogged about.

Small Town Green has been completely redesigned since my initial summertime visit. Most of the region has been sunk to form a deep water bay surrounded by a U-shaped island, with a rocky central islet. While the theme is again winter in look and feel, rather than presenting a contiguous scene, the region is perhaps more of a series of interlinked tableaux, which makes for interesting wandering.

You start at the small town (village?) of the title, which lines a winding road leading away from the railway on the west side of the island and which meanders around to wilder country to the north-east, and the towers of an old stone bridge which looks to have once spanned the mouth of the bay.

Meanwhile, the railway line, running from nowhere to nowhere on the west side of the island, forms a little tableau of its own which links with the town with the snowy hills to the south. Here sits a log cabin, possibly a house or perhaps a hunting lodge, with trees bereft of their leaves climbing up the hills behond in orderly ranks.Wander through the trees and you’ll pass reindeer and come to a small camp at the top which someone has managed to reach in their own 4×4, ready for a spot of snowboarding.

Each of these elements, together with the central island, linked to the rest by two slender rope-and-wood bridges, present the visitor with individual scenes to be enjoyed and photographed, while also leading one on from one to the next, encouraging exploration.

Within each of these scenes are additional stories, each of which is separated from the others and yet part of the whole. In the town, for example, there’s the pizza bar, clearly a takeaway service, sitting at the side of the road with only an old telephone box from the UK to keep it company.  Is the ‘phone box actually where orders for pizza are received? And what’s the story at the cottage at the foot of the hills? Clearly someone is living there – someone with a good taste in literature, given they’re reading F. Scott Fitzgerald. Are they a resident, or someone here for the hunting season? If so, are the reindeer further up the hill really safe?

There are also odd little juxtapositions here as well, such as the old cart, complete with solid wooden wheels from a bygone era of history, slowly hauled down the street by a shaggy ox while shiny new cars sit parked at the roadside.

All told, Small town Green is an ideal location if you’re seeking somewhere that offers a number of unique locations linked by a central theme or series of idea for a photo shoot. It’s also ideal for the SL traveller who is looking for somewhere to simply enjoy a winter’s feel; the region lends itself particularly well to early morning misty settings in windlight, or early evening / night scenes.

I was also going to mention that you should make a point of crossing the bridges to the central islet and taking a peek at the frozen pond there, complete with penguins. On ice skates. Sadly, the penguins vanished at some point during my visit, to be replaced by a couple of ice sculptures.  While they are not quite as wacky as penguins on ice skates, the sculptures and the pond and its seats are still worth a visit.

Related Links

• Small Town Green SLurl (Rated: Moderate)