And the winner is…….

Drum roll please…….because the winner of my tree painting giveaway is……..but first let’s watch the draw…..All the names are in the hat, which is taken by Special Courier to the Fella, enjoying the Autumn sunshine down the back of the house…..

…..where he draws out the winning name…..

which is ……..

MARINA who blogs at Letters from Athens!!  🎉🎊🎉 Congratulations!

So the painting will be winging its way to Greece. (No Warren Beatty opening the wrong envelope at this celebration!)

A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who commented. I loved all your ~up towns, and was glad that I hadn’t made the competition about the best name. There is no way I could have chosen a winner! Thank you too if you didn’t enter, but still enjoy reading my blog. It is one of my pleasures to know that in this crazy old world there are people like you who delight in the simple things and enjoy the humanity of others.

If you are really shattered that you didn’t win the painting, you have the chance to buy one! They are in my Etsy shop, AnneLawsonArt. (You can also click on the feather drawing on the side bar at the right.) It is easy to buy through Etsy, but if you don’t want to, email me and we can work things out.

My email: annebags@optusnet.com.au

Just to let you know, I am working on larger versions of the trees that are not in the shop. They are 23 x 16 inches (59 x 41 cm). Again, email me if you would like to know more.

And lastly, Happy International Women’s Day to you all! Let’s celebrate the great gains women have made, and work towards eradicating sexism and the barriers that still exist.

 

Time for a tree giveaway

I have created one of my oil pastel trees just for you. It is small, A5 (8 x 6 inches; 12 x 15 cm) and on good quality watercolour paper. Unfortunately, it is only for one of you. ☹️ And you have to do a little bit to earn it. Let me explain……

To celebrate the launch of my new series of trees I want to give away this drawing. To win it leave me a comment by Sunday 5th March. Then, on Monday, I will write all the names on slips of paper and the Fella will pull one out of the hat. I will happily post it any where in the world.

So what do you need to do?

As you know I have recently been over to Western Australia. In the southern part of the state there are many towns with names that end in ‘up’. We stayed for a couple of nights in Manjimup ~ a wonderful name that is fun to say. How about this for a list:

• Coolbellup
• Kendenup
• Myalup
• Nannup
• Noggerup
• Wannaup
• and many more

The suffix originated in a dialect of Noongar, an Indigenous Australian language, in which “-up” means “place of”. The suffix “-in” or “-ing” has a similar meaning in a related dialect of Noongar.^[1] Places tended to be named after their distinctive features, whereby the place names could be used to create a “mental map” allowing Indigenous Australians to determine where water, food and other raw materials could be found. These sites were often located near sources of fresh water, leading to the common misconception that “up” and “in” mean “near water”.^[1]

The Fella and I had great fun with these names ~ well I did anyway! I created my own ‘Up’ towns. Wheat fields would flash past the car window and all of a sudden I would ‘Pipeup’ with ‘Buggerup’ or ‘Fillerup’. It certainly whiled away the time! I came up with a good list, but most of my pearls are lost ~ my memory is not what it once was, sigh. Here’s a few I do remember

• Shutup
• Timeisup
• Standup
• Liveitup
• CanIfillitup

So, your job is to help me compile my list. You need to ‘Makeup’ your own ‘Up’ town and leave it in the comments. I will happily accept other languages, as of course the originals were not English names. So that’s all you have to do….. Have fun!