flowersandstripes

Genuine Happiness

2012-02-14T06:04:00.001Z

As it's Florence Finds Book Club today and St. Valentine's Day I thought I'd find an appropropriate quote from L.M. Alcott. Mother March sensible and loving as ever on the question of Meg marrying John.

"I'm not ambitious for a splendid fortune, a fashionable position, or a great name for my girls. If rank and money come with love and virtue, also, I should accept them gratefully, and enjoy your good fortune; but I know, by experience, how much genuine happiness can be had in a plain little house, where the daily bread is earned, and some privations give sweetness to the few pleasures;" L.M Alcott Little Women

simple

Flimsiest of papers

2012-02-13T07:00:00.000Z

I joyfully joined in with Venice in February partly as I knew we had a book I could read, without having to buy another one. It was Ian McEwan's The Comfort of Strangers. I had been forewarned about this book. My is it eerie. Read Bellezza's review and the comments to find out more. After finishing it I felt the need to return to Miss Pettigrew lives for the day to restore my faith in the comfort of strangers.
I shall just post on this passage, quite near the beginning, which made me smile.

'A variety of maps was on sale. The least significant were produced by commercial interests and, besides showing the more obvious tourist attractions, they gave great prominence to certain shops or restaurants. These maps were marked with the principal streets only. Another map was in the form of a badly printed booklet and it was easy, Mary and Colin had found, to get lost as they walked from one page to another. Yet another was the expensive, officially sanctioned map which showed the whole city and named even the narrowest of passageways. Unfolded, it measured four feet by three and, printed on the flimsiest of papers, was impossible to manage outdoors without a suitable table and special clips. Finally there was a series of maps, noticeable by their blue-and-white striped covers, which divided the city into five manageable sections, none of them unfortunately overlapping.' Ian McEwan The Comfort of Strangers

map

How is your map of Venice?

True Love

2012-02-10T08:00:00.000Z

Wislawa Szymborska. Somewhere I read this poem. I loved it so much I searched for my own copy. When I read about the death of Polish Nobel Laureaute, Wislawa Szymborska I knew who she was, felt sad and reached for my book of her poems.

True Love

True Love. Is it normal,

is it serious, is it practical?

What does the world get from two people

who exist in the world of their own?

true love

..........

Look at the happy couple.

Couldn't they at least try to hide it,

fake a little depression for their friends' sake?

Listen to them laughing - it's an insult.

The language they use - deceptively clear.

And their little celebrations, rituals,

the elaborate mutual routines-

it's obviously a plot behind the human race's back!

true love

............

True love. Is it really necessary?

Tact and common sense tell us to pass over it in silence,

like a scandal in Life's highest circles.

Perfectly good children are born without its help.

It couldn't populate the planet in a million years,

it comes along so rarely.

True Love

...............

Wislawsa Szymborska

Bare Black Branches

2012-02-07T06:30:00.000Z

Seventh February
There is something very beautiful in the tracery of the bare black branches of the trees against the pale blue sky. D.E Stevenson Mrs Tim and the Regiment

branches

Yet another of Mrs Tim's thoughts that I have often thought. I love it when that happens in a book. Suddenly coming across your own thoughts expressed by a character. It's even better when you like the character.

Winter Night

2012-02-06T06:00:00.000Z

Winter Night

Snow swept over the earth,

Swept it from end to end.

The candle on the table burned.

Like swarms of summer midges

Drawn to the flame

The snowflakes

Flocked to the window.

The driven snow drew circles and arrows

On the window pane.

The candle on the table burned,

The candle burned.

window

.....

And everything was lost

In the white-haired, white, snowy darkness.

The candle on the table burned,

The candle burned.

.....

snow

The snow swept all through February,

And now and again

The candle on the table burned,

The candle burned.

Boris Pasternak

Dr. Zhivago

How did you spend your snowy Sunday?

Venice in February

2012-02-02T06:07:00.000Z

Dolce Bellezza is hosting Venice in February. I thought I'd join in. I shall be reading Ian McEwan's Comfort of Strangers. This challenge also fits into my own personal, and very much on going challenge, of reading some of Warmth's very many books. I shall also be using this as an excuse to post some of my favourite quotes from Salley Vickers' Miss Garnet's Angel and The Merchant of Venice.

Venice

Will you be travelling to Venice this February?

The Month of January

2012-01-31T17:00:00.001Z

Started with a small supper party to celebrate the new year.
After the postponed meet ups with Warmth and his brother we finally met for drinks at The Duke of Wellington.
Hurrah! Both Warmth and I had the Tuesday off work. We braved the elements to walk into town and then had the last day of Christmas munching, took down the tree and the cards and finally at 4pm on the last day of my holidays I started some school work.
A Warmth Family gathering for Card of the Year. A Warmth family tradition of judging each Christmas card and then announcing a winner, and also loser... This year betting was added to the mix. We then played Charades, although I so now want to call it The Game after Maggie Smith in Downton Abbey. Finally Consequences. All washed down with much laughter, prosecco, sausages, Christmas cake and Christmas pudding. Christmas has finally ended.
Exploring our new home. A walk to Oxlea Woods. Lovely - I know we will return.
Book Club - discussing our book, Christmas, shopping and so much more.
An early Saturday brunch on the opposite side of London. Lovely to catch up with old book club friends. Then a wintery mooch in Barnes and meeting Warmth's brother and wife for drinks.
A delicious Sunday lunch with friends and then a cold walk around their local park.
Finally swapping to the new blogger - and liking it very quickly.
Meeting a friend in Shoreditch. Exploring BoxPark and a warming supper at The Albion.
Friday supper with the dear old colleagues at Sofra.
Saturday travelling westward again, this time back to Putney, home for my first six years in London. A late afternoon hot chocolate and glass of red wine with one of my first teaching friends. Then a party at one of the boat clubs along the river.
A Sunday birthday celebration lunch at Baltic for Warmth's father's 75th birthday.
Meeting up with a dearest best girl and exploring Drink Shop Do. Oh it is fantastic and feminine. Cocktails and cakes with a little bit of shopping thrown in for good measure.
Finally ordering our wallpaper for the dining room.
Off to friends for the night. Delicious Chinese take away and more importantly a catch up.
Setting up a tumblr JHD366. I've managed a month of a photo a day. Hoping to keep going for another 11 months.

Books read - Finishing Good Wives, reading Wait for me! by Deborah Duchess of Devonshire. I realise the last few books I've read have all been about sisters - and lots of them! Finally my Persephone Secret Santa - Hostages to Fortune by Elizabeth Cambridge.

Discovering the first snowdrop in our garden...

Very Sundayish

2012-01-30T06:03:00.000Z

Thirty-first January
Wake very late after night's revels. The sun is shining and everything looks and feels very Sundayish. D.E. Stevenson Mrs Tim of the Regiment

sunday

We woke up at friends' home. Drank copious cups of tea. A cold drive home. The weekly food shop. A delicious afternoon sleep. Fresh bed linen. Warming supper.
How was your Sunday?

Like Audrey Hepburn

2012-01-27T06:30:00.000Z

Our Book club book for discussion this month was The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides. An unusual story that created a good discussion. I especially liked the words he uses, in fact there was nearly going to be a blog post on the way he uses words, but I decided to read and enjoy the words instead of recording. This line made me smile.

'She held herself very straight, like Audrey Hepburn, whom all women idolize and men never think about.' Jeffrey Eugenides

Audrey

It may be sacrilegious to write Audrey in the same sentence as SJP but here is another example of a woman whom women love and men just don't understand why.

There's something similar with women and clothes, and I think it's probably where the Audrey SJP thoughts relate. We all have one. That item we love, other women love, but our partner loathes. At the weekend we, well all the women, commented on Sister in Law's necklace. She loves it. We loved it. It's that item that she always receives compliments on, from women. But her husband dislikes it. For Warmth and I it's a black velvet three quarter sleeved jacket. Do you agree? And if so, what is that item for you?

A fairy, a sylph

2012-01-24T06:42:00.001Z

"She was more than human to me. she was a fairy, a sylph. I don't know what she was - anything that no one ever saw, and everything that everybody ever wanted. I was swallowed up in an abyss of love in an instant. There was no pausing on the brink; no looking down, or looking back; I was gone, headlong, before I had sense to say a word to her.' Charles Dickens David Copperfield

fairy

Reading through all my Dickens quotes I realise how passionate he writes about love. Yet my love isn't a passionate, violent, headlong love. I definately am a person who pauses on the brink. Still his passages on love speak and stay with me.

Stop all the clocks

2012-01-23T06:04:00.000Z

A very very close friend of Twin, her husband and The Blessings has very sadly and suddenly died. I looked through my books and this blog for a passage to send. It was this poem that kept running through my mind. I think I understand it now.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,

Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,

Silence the pianos and with muffled drum

Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever:
I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good

W.H.Auden

Her pearls, her satin train

2012-01-18T07:03:00.001Z

It took me a long time to read The Ladies of Lyndon finally I finished it. There's alot about marriage in it and as it's the anniversary of our first date and engagement I thought we'd have these passages.

The silence in which she drove with her father to the church was comforting and lovely.

John, handsome and competent as ever, waited for her at the chancel steps, and at the sight of his cheerful self-possession she became more collected. While the clergyman was haranguing them about those carnal lusts of which the bride is supposed to know nothing, she reflected composedly that John ought really to be married as often as possible, he did it so well.

waiting

As she returned down the aisle Mendelson's triumph seemed to epitomise her own satisfaction in her beautiful behaviour. She had quitted the maiden state becomingly.

flowers

They had drawn up before the Cocks's door, triumphant with its gala awning and crimson carpet. It was flung wide by beaming maidservants and John handed Agatha and her lilies, her pearls, her satin train and lace veil, out of the car.

She was already rather tired of hearing her new name.

bride

John twitched her train into becoming folds round her feet and assumed the posture of happy groom at her side.

happy

"I've not crushed your flowers," he murmured in her ear as a bevvy of bridesmaids flocked into the room. "Isn't that exemplary in a bridegroom?" Margaret Kennedy The Ladies of Lyndon

crushed

Her Heart

2012-01-17T06:42:00.002Z

'Her heart - is given him, with all it's love and truth. she would joyfully die with him, or better than that die for him. She knows he has failings, but she thinks they have grown up through his being like one cast away, for the want of something to trust in, and care for, and think well of." Charles Dickens Our Mutual Friend

love

Re reading this passage I'm not so sure about what I think. Dying for someone? If I love you I want you to be with me through life. What do you think?

Like nothing on earth

2012-01-13T06:30:00.002Z

"I never was in Agatha's bedroom," said Hubert wistfully, "What was it like?"
"Like nothing on earth. A wonderful Elizabethan bed, all hung with old Italian tapestries... And a Louis Quinze dressing-table, and a crystal jug and basin from somewhere in Hungary. And, by way of pictures, a Gainsborough portrait, and a landscape... And a good deal of carved jade and ivory lying around. It was just like all the other rooms in the house, only she had seized on the very best things." Margaret Kennedy The Ladies of Lyndon

I'm not sure Agatha's bedroom would be my idea of nothing on earth, but this one might be... And when we gather ourselves to decorate our bedroom well then that shall be Like nothing on earth.

bedroom

How would you like your dream bedroom to be?

A better world

2012-01-10T21:08:00.000Z

I'm using Dickens in January as an excuse to post some of my favourite Dickens quotes. I first read Great Expectations at school but it was the re read, having watched Gwyneth Paltrow's film, that changed my thoughts on him. After that I tried to read a Dickens a year. I've slightly slacked recently but still hold Dickens dear and claim him as one of my favourite authors. Maybe this will kick start me to read another Dickens this year.

"If you can tell me that you will go through the world with me, you will surely make it a better world for me, and me a better man for it, and I will try hard to make it a better world for you." Charles Dickens Great Expectations

promise

An alarum clock

2012-01-09T06:40:00.001Z

"That's not an alarum clock going off upstairs?" she cried. "It must be late! I can't bear to think of people getting up already; I need to recruit a lot of energy before I can even think of a new day." Margaret Kennedy The Ladies of Lyndon

clocks

Do you need an alarm or do your have your own internal alarm clock? I need an alarm clock and a cuddle from Warmth to wake me...

A dash of yellow

2012-01-06T06:22:00.004Z

Let's brighten things up. Shake the possible January gloom away and think of flowers.
'Lady Slane liked them [his little offerings] best when they took the form of flowers... He would make daring and surprising combinations of colour and form, till the result was more like a still-life painting than like a bunch of living flowers, yet informed with a life that no paint could rival. Set upon their window-sill, luminous in the sun... he would produce a bunch as garish as a gipsy, all blue and purple and orange, but next week a bunch discreet as a pastel, all rose and grey with a dash of yellow..' Vita Sackville-West All Passion Spent

yellow

January Afternoon

2012-01-04T15:54:00.004Z

"... she stood by the landing window. The twilight was disappearing into darkness; there was the wonderful pause which comes between the two. The chestnut tree stood out against the sapphire sky, black, calm and majestic. Such a winter's twilight is perhaps the most beautiful of all aspects of the year. She had never failed since she was a child to gaze at it on some December or January afternoon." F.M. Mayor The Rector's Daughter

It's my first day back at work today and I would much rather be standing by the landing window, or lying on the sofa reading, gazing at the twilight. Where would you like to be this January afternoon?
twilight

Oceans are moving

2012-01-01T06:02:00.002Z

"A whole year passed, unremarkable, one of those periods of consolidation in change when one is growing and filling out into the spaces of a life the shape of which has been set but not yet seen: the time will come to stop shout, and look, up and around at the walls, the ceilings, the staircases leading from here to there, that one has built around oneself out of daily dabs of mud. Or the year was like a ship; inside it seems much the same town you have always lived in... But beneath the patterned carpet oceans are moving past your feet; and you yourself have determined this with a ticket you bought months back." Nadime Gordimer The Lying Days

For us 2011 definately wasn't like a ship - we knew we'd moved...
@
What was 2011 for you a staircase or a ship? And how would you like 2012 to be?

The Month of December

2011-12-31T16:00:00.001Z

Started with Christmas shopping in full swing. Hopeful awaiting of parcels, marching through the crowds, trying not to buy presents for me...
A visit to Mortlake to see Warmth's brother and wife's new home with the other brother and his wife. A fun evening of laughter and then tapas lookng forward to many more in their home.
Meeting up with university friends in Browns for our annual Christmas lunch.
Meeting Warmth's brother and wife who live near us in their newly renovated local pub.
Getting ready for a family Christmas gathering. Lots of cooking, cleaning and decorating in advance. Much fun on the day. And many left overs to nibble on afterwards.
Travelling back to West London and back in time to leaving drinks for a former colleague. Lots of memories and catching up.
Meeting up with a dear friend to discover she and her family are going to be moving to Singapore in the summer. We don't see alot of each other but I will really miss our six monthly meet ups in Angel over supper and a bottle of wine.
A quiet weekend together ending with Sunday afternoon tea at Warmth' s parents. Mince pies, tea loaf and warming tea.
Finally the end of term. Celebrating by meeting a dear friend for mooching, Wahaca and cocktails.
Meeting my dear old colleagues for a celebratory supper and catch up. Each time we meet we say 'oh I miss you'. Then a hop across the river to catch up with other dear friends reuniting. Finally the last train home.
A lovely Christmas Eve with Warmth. Leisurely morning then into town to Dickens' house for a reading of A Christmas Carol, mulled wine, mince pies and a good old nose around his house.
A cold and quiet walk to London Bridge to meet Brother for drinks. Alas chosen pub was closed. Off to where they live. Alas their local pub was closed. So back home for a Christmas Eve drink.
Christmas Day. Opening gifts in front of the fire with a delicious cup of tea. Part of the Warmth family, with Granny Warmth came for bucks fizz & biscuits. Then some of us walked to the other brother's so we were all together for a lovely delicious family Christmas day.
Boxing Day a drive to Kent to my family. A cold Christmas meal, more pudding, brandy butter, fizz, wine, laughter and family.
Meeting friends in Blackheath for lunch, just a salad for me please, at The Railway.
Meeting Warmth for a Friday Late at Tate Modern viewing Gerhard Richter and then on for tapas at Brindisa
A re arranged New Years' Eve. Now just Warmth and I. We're going to the matinee of The Pitman Painters then a cocktail before being back in our new home for spaghetti carbonara and bubbles to welcome in 2012.

Baking for Christmas gathering shepherd's pie. Nigella's courgette fritters, Yule log, a rebake of the plum and orange cake from River Cafe Easy. Mother kindly brought along the family favourite of Bethlehem Star Pie. Nigella's Gold Dust biscuits as gifts for friends with a glittery bird attached just incase there wasn't enough sparkle. Chestnut and Lentil soup for Christmas Eve. Stilton and walnut biscuits for Christmas Day.
Books read The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides for book club. Little Women and Good Wives by Louise May Alcott for Florence Finds book club.

Wishing you all a very Happy New Year x

That this is the best time to dream

2011-12-25T07:25:00.004Z

For, after the gospels,
After the human and divine comedies,
After the one thousand and one nights,
After crime and punishment,
War and peace, pride and prejudice,
The sound and the fury,
Between good and evil,
Being and nothingness,
After the tempest, the trial,
And the wasteland,
After things have fallen apart,
After the hundred years of solitude,
And the rememberance of things past,
In the kingdom of this world,
We can still astonish the gods in humanity
And be the stuff of legends,
If we but dare to be real,
And have the courage to see
That this is the best time to dream
The best dream of them all.
Ben Okri, last stanza 'Mental Fight'

With Christmas Love x

This time in December

2011-12-23T06:23:00.005Z

Today it's Carol Ann Duffy's birthday and so any excuse for some Duffy. This piece comes from her 'Another Night before Christmas'.

Then she watched as the room filled with magic and light
As the spirit of Christmas made everything bright
And suddenly presents were heaped by the tree -
But she didn't wonder, which ones are for me?

For the best gift of all is to truly believe
In the wonderful night that we call Christmas Eve,
When adults remember, of all childhood's laws,
This time in December will bring Santa Claus.
presents

How will you be spending today?

It's like Tiffany's

2011-12-20T13:00:00.000Z

'It's a little inconvenient, his not having a name. But I haven't any right to give him one: he'll have to wait until he belongs to somebody. We just sort of took up by the river one day, we don't belong to each other: he's an independent, and so am I. I don't want to own anything until I know that I've found the place where me and things belong together. I'm not quite sure where that is just yet. But I know what it's like.' She smiled, and let the cat drop to the floor. 'It's like Tiffany's...' Truman Capote Breakfast at Tiffany's

Tiffany's

Over on Florence Finds Breakfast at Tiffany's is being discussed. Do pop over read and add your thoughts...

My day in books

2011-12-19T06:34:00.002Z

This really caught my attention and so I had a go myself.

I began the day with Breakfast at Tiffany's.
On my way to work I saw Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire
and walked by Union Street
to avoid Mrs Tim and the regiment
but I made sure to stop at The Moon and Sixpence.
In the office, my boss said "Excellent Women"
and sent me to research Chocolat.
At lunch with The Third Miss Symon's
I noticed The Cat
under Miss Buncle's Book
then went back to my desk All Passion Spent.
Later, on the journey home, I bought Snowdrops
because I have Round about a pound a week.
Then settling down for the evening, I picked up The hand that first held mine
and studied The Virgin Suicides

before saying goodnight to The Ladies of Lyndon.

Christmas Reading

Persephone Secret Santa

2011-12-14T06:32:00.001Z

Last week a parcel arrived. On the back was written 'Persephone Secret Santa!' And inside.....

A lovely card, holly Christmas tree decoration and Elizabeth Cambridge Hostages to fortune from Simon at Stuck in a Book. What is so lovely is that I gave to Simon last year for Persephone Secret Santa, and he mentioned this in his card.

Thank you Simon for the gifts - I look forward to finding time to read this inbetween Christmas and New Year.

And thank you Claire and Verity for organising it again this year.

What did you receive/give for Persephone Secret Santa?

The pleasantest week

2011-12-12T06:30:00.002Z

"...and the second week in December, when she chose her Christmas presents for all her nieces and nephews, was the pleasantest week in the year to her." F.M. Mayor The Third Miss Symons

Some how I don't think Miss Symon's would buy this many, wrapped in pink and piled high on a car - but maybe she'll suprise us.

How is your Christmas shopping going?

Wishing you all a most pleasant week.

A feast of cake

2011-12-09T07:09:00.001Z

'She remembered the great decorated kitchen, with holly hung from the rafters among the salt-rimed shrouded hams and puddings, a fiddler on the back stairs, and a feast of cake and fruit and pasties, wine and whisky.' Winifred Holtby South Riding
cake, fruit
What are your Christmas memories of food?

Delight in human relationships

2011-12-07T06:30:00.003Z

'But her heart was so generous, her range of acquaintance so wide and her delight in human relationships so unstaled, that she could have spent a national income without difficulty. As it was, she was put to desperate straits to accommodate her lavish tastes to her narrow fortune.' Winifred Holtby South Riding

If you want to be stirred up for Christmas do go and read the whole of this passage. it's Book v11 Chapter 1 Mrs. Beddows Receives a Christmas Present.

A few instagram images from Liberty's and Fortnum & Mason's Christmas windows. I should think Mrs Beddows would have loved to do her Christmas shopping at these two shops.

Scarlet Tulips

2011-12-05T06:20:00.005Z

As you know I read South Riding this year and there were so many lovely Christmas quotes that I've decided to have a week of South Riding Christmas quotes to truly get in the festive spirit. Let's start with the gift of flowers.

'On the wet pavement women stood selling flowers in odd-shaped curving baskets; chrysanthemums, vivid dyed crimson leaves, holly, tight little bunches of scarlet tulips and roses in buds hard as porcelain.
She stopped before a basket of red and yellow rosebuds. 'Oh,' she thought, 'I must have some for Pattie.' Winifred Holtby South Riding

holly
What flowers would you like to receive this Christmas?

Knowing a person

2011-12-02T07:00:00.002Z

I'm meeting up with university friends for lunch this weekend. I realise we've known each other for over 20 years. Re reading my letters last month, there are many from them. Letters written whilst on holiday, on gap years after university, thank you letters, good luck in new home, sharing the excitement of engagements. Many memories. Our lives are quite different somehow, I don't know about their day to day thoughts and emotions. They're not the friends I would go to in a crisis. But they are friends I've known for a very long time.

'Well, this is one way of knowing a person, I suppose; to know the outline, not the detail; to sit on the veranda and look at the contour of the hill - that shoulder, such a jagged shoulder it looks, running down steeply into the silverwater of the loch. I know Mrs Anstruther in that way - just a few jags, sticking up into the blue sky, just a rounded piece of hill with a few pine trees on it. Some day I may climb the hill and feel the smoothness of the jagged rocks, and find a piece of bog-myrtle in a crevice, or move a stone and see the ants and beetles wriggling amongst the pale roots of grass.' D.E. Stevenson Mrs Tim of the Regiment
socks
Thankfully we no longer need to snuggle by the fire to keep warm as we did in student days. What are your thoughts on friendship over time?

The Month of November

2011-11-30T16:49:00.010Z

It started with The Ofsted Telephone Call. So the first week was lost with school.
As a Friday end of Ofsted treat I bought this lovely perfume bottle. Mooched in Selfridges and then met a friend for supper at The Waterloo Bar and Kitchen.
Saturday a day of epic sleeping. Sunday a gentle mooch around Greenwich.
Thankfully we had a day off for Eid on the Monday. Meeting a dear friend for lunch at Peter Jones. I'd quite like to work a four day week.
Meeting my dear dear old colleagues at Royal Festival Hall Bar for drinks and more importantly catch up and friendship.
Supper with Warmth's old school friends at Browns.
A day trip to Margate to visit Turner Contemporary. Lunch in the cafe. Stunning sea views. A mooch around old town in the shops and then tea and teacakes at The MadHatters Tea Place. It was truly mad.
Book Club meet and discuss of Snowdrops and the chance to walk and admire Fortnum & Mason Christmas windows.
A coffee meet at The Albion with Anna. It turned into a little bit of a Carol Ann Duffy appreciation society.
Purchasing a new beret and scarf. Both grey with tiny flecks of silver in them. My take on the glitter theme this season.
A Friday evening shop in Liberty's and Paperchase - getting our Christmas card pieces together for a weekend of making.
An evening with Warmth's eldest brother and wife. Wandering the streets of Hither Green for Lee Open Studio. How lovely to mooch knowing that if we had seen something we do have a litttle 'need' to buy. Alas all our favourite prints and paintings had already been sold. The evening finished with a warming curry.
Starting to find a church to call home in our new area.
An afternoon wrapping up the garden for winter.
Meeting a dear friend for an early supper along Bermondsey Street and eating at Zucca.
A Friday evening cinema trip to see The Help.
A perfect Saturday. First stop to The Book Club for Patchwork Harmony's Merry Magpie Christmas Boutique. Should have been buying gifts for others. Alas two things for me, a lovely tote and bird trays for my dressing table. Then I hopped on the bus and stopping off at Bea's of Bloomsbury for a coffee before meeting a friend for a trip along Lambs Conduit Street, a pop into Ben Penreath, Something and of course Persephone for Persephone Secret Santa. We had a lovely chat about PSS too. Then finally onto Cockpit Arts where it felt a little like one gift for others, one gift for me. After all that we needed cocktails and food. Hurrah for The Zetter and Morito.
A very festive Sunday. Coffee from a Starbucks red cup, a Pret turkey sandwich, Christmas shopping in John Lewis and then an Advent Carol service.
The month ended with this.
An delicious orange, plum and almond cake from River Cafe made easy. I had said that November was a no entertaining month and it shows in the cooking.
Books read The Ladies of Lyndon by Margaret Kennedy. That's all I've read in November? I am finding it a alow book. Has anyone else read it?
Wow it's been a long month. How was your November?

Tufted Bundles

2011-11-28T06:42:00.003Z

There's now a small monthly Farmer's Market in where we live. Not quite as amazing as this sounds but still....

'The stalls were piled high with scarlet tomatoes, clear green lettuces, tufted bundles of white whiskered crimson radishes. Sacks of new potatoes squatted low on the cobbles... cottage women offered for sale long sticks of bright pink rhubarb and bunches of forget-me-nots or wallflowers.' Winifred Holtby South Riding

market

Used to being adored

2011-11-25T06:14:00.005Z

I'd had The Third Miss Symon's noted down to read for a long time but found The Rector's Daughter first. When reading The Rector's Daughter I loved it and knew I'd found a special book that would stay with me and I should definately like to re read again. Having finished The Third Miss Symon's I'm reflecting on the two stories.

As it's finally going to be the weekend tomorrow and one of the many lovely parts to the weekend is a leisurely breakfast this line seems fun. I hope it brings a smile to your Friday breakfast in the hopeful knowledge of maybe a lie in tomorrow.

'She was as used to being adored as having her breakfast.' F.M. Mayor The Rector's Daughter. 1

(Just in case you haven't read this book this passage doesn't refer to The Rector's Daughter.)
Wishing you a lovely weekend when it arrives.

Wash you ashore

2011-11-23T07:00:00.002Z

Reflecting on the previous post being a young woman waiting for love and continuing to mull on the emotions and stories remembered through sorting letters from the years. I'm thinking quite a lot about memories.

'He knew that memory was as uncertain in its behaviour as the sea; it could wash you ashore on any old forgotten beach;' Rose Tremain The beauty of the dawn shift in The darkness of Wallis Simpson

Thankfully I've now been washed back to the present shore.

memory

The Magic Season

2011-11-21T06:43:00.006Z

I finally managed to find a second hand copy of The Third Miss Symon's. There are two pages that a previous reader has turned down. Both of them mention Jane Eyre. (I'm intrigued why?) At the same time I read two really good posts on the Brontes. All this is really making me want to re read it in 2012.

'...Henrietta discovered that heroines after the sixteenth birthday are likely to be pestered with adorers. The heroines, it is true, were exquisitely beautiful, which, Henrietta knew she was not, but from a study of "Jane Eyre" and "Vilette" in the holidays, Charlotte Bronte was forbidden at school owing to an excess of passion, Henrietta realised that the plain may be adored too, so she had a modest hope that when the magic season of young ladyhood arrived, a Prince Charming would come and fall in love with her.' F.M. Mayor The Third Miss Symons
beauty

Do the books we read when 'the magic season of young ladyhood arrives' help or hinder us?

Certain Moments

2011-11-16T06:35:00.004Z

In amongst all these letters are quotes and poems sent to me, mainly from mum. A quote in a card sent from Twin when nursing a broken heart in 2001.

'For a while she [Mrs Morel] could not control her consciousness; mechanically she went over the last scene, then over it again, certain phrases, certain moments coming each time like a brand red hot down on her soul; and each time she enacted again the past hour, each time the brand came down at the same points, till the mark was burnt in, and the pain burnt in, and at last she came to herself.' D.H. Lawrence Sons and Lovers
love

A proper letter

2011-11-14T07:09:00.001Z

Last time I saw mum she raved about this book. She lent me her copy. I loved it so much I now want my own. At the same time mum also made sure all the letters I've been storing at home are now here with us. I am currently trying to go through over 20years of letters. Wish me luck as I try to decide which to throw and which to keep. So, as well as loving this passage it also seemed relevant. Thinking about all the different papers used to write these many letters.

"Nonetheless, as she read them over and over, she forgot for a moment where she was and she could picture her mother in the kitchen taking her Basildon Bond notepad and her envelopes and setting out to write a proper letter with nothing crossed out. Rose, she thought, might have gone into the dining room to write on paper she had taken home from work, using a longer, more elegant white envelope than her mother had. " Colm Toibin Brooklyn
letters

Have you read Brooklyn? If you have what did you feel/think? If you haven't please do and then write about it so I can think about it more.

Seed of goodness

2011-11-11T11:11:00.003Z

'But for war to be won without a winner, to be lost without a loser, how is this to be understood? How, except it be clearly seen who is the enemy? Who is the worst enemy all men must fight till the victory without a vanquished be won? To ask that little question is to see the answer. The worst enemy every man must fight is himself! ...It comes to a question,'....'of whether there is enough of what we are calling kindness left in the hearts of men to triumph at last and for always over brutality, greed, cruelty. ...And yet in every man is there this seed of goodness, in every man the free will to choose what he will be, what he will do. Not once, but a thousand times win or lose the war against himself.' Jocelyn Playfair A House in the Country

poppies

Just another Autumn day

2011-11-08T07:36:00.000Z

We haven't had any poetry for a while, I think we can just about still call it autumn and there's a lot going on in our world so here is

Just another Autumn day by Roger McGough

In Parliament, the Minister
for Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness
announces, that owing to
inflation and rising costs
there will be no Autumn
next year. September, October
and November are to be
cancelled, and the Government
to bring in the nine-month year instead.
Thus we will all live longer.

Emergency measures are to be
introduced to combat outbreaks
of well-being, and feelings
of elation inspired by the season.
Breathtaking sunsets will be
restricted to alternate Fridays
and gentle dusks prohibited.
Fallen leaves will be outlawed
and persons found in possession
of conkers, imprisoned without trial.
Thus we will all work harder.

The announcement caused little reaction.
People either way don't really care
No time have they to stand and stare
Looking for work or slaving away
Just another Autumn day.

1,2

How will our world be next autumn?

The Month of October

2011-10-31T16:21:00.006Z

Twin and The Blessings came to stay for their first sleepover. We had a bbq, a hose shower down in the garden, not what we'd expected in October.
Our lovely new sofas arrived. They are wonderful to sink into these autumn nights.
Deciding that having a swimming pool less than 10 minutes walk away we really should use it. Enormous respect to Verity, and any other long distance swimmers. How do you do it?
Another family filled weekend. Including house guests of Warmth's brother and wife whilst they're inbetween homes.
Meeting a friend and visiting an Orla Kiely sale. One bag and one bath mat purchased.
Working out that as another weekend of having friends to stay drew close that since we've been in our new home we've entertained every weekend, bar one. And that was when we took the Blessings out. There shall be no entertaining in November.
Finished planting my first bulbs. Eagerly awaiting, and hoping, their splendour.
Meeting a dear friend for afternoon tea and catch up at The Botanist.
A wonderful mooch in Blackheath. The Bookshop on the Heath has a fantastic selection of affordable second hand books (two Viragos bought. One being The Third Miss Symons by F.M.Mayor. I've been wanting to read this since reading one of your reviews.) I look forward to delving further into the rows of books for special present books.
Off to Berlin. What an assault on history. Ancient civilizations at The Pergammon. Regal Prussian living at Schloss Charlottenburg and that's before you've even arrrived in the twentieth century.
New bedroom furniture arrived. Oh how we love it. Oh how many more clothes I have than Warmth. Enjoying thing about how to arrange my dressing table.
Supper at dear friends who have just moved in this week. Lots of new home talk & excitement.

Read Breakfast at Tiffany's and watched the film for Florence Finds Book Club. Brooklyn by Colm Toibin on Mum's recommendation. Snowdrops by A.D. Miller for Book Club. The Third Miss Symons by F.M. Mayor.
Baked my first cheesecake - Hummingbird Summer Cheese Cake and Berry muffins. Loved the cheesecake so much that I baked it again the next weekend. First roast in our new home. A Julia Child's inspired supper. French onion soup, boeuf bourginon and tarte au citron. The latter was also insired by GBBO.
How was your October?

Golden Afternoons

2011-10-28T06:48:00.005+01:00

We may have just come home from a wonderful time in Berlin but... Who can resist a quote by Gabriel Garcia Marquez about Paris, love and autumn?

'In Paris, strolling arm in arm with a casual sweetheart through a late autumn, it seemed impossible to imagine a purer happiness than those golden afternoons, with the woody odor of chestnuts on the braziers, the languid accordions, the insatiable lovers kissing in the open terraces...' Gabriel Garcia Marquez Love in the time of cholera

Where would you like to be strolling this weekend?

paris

Awakened

2011-10-21T07:11:00.006+01:00

We're off to Berlin for a few nights. Here's Mrs Tim's thoughts on sleeping in a hotel bedroom.

"How many hundreds and thousands of people have awakened in this room; awakened to their sorrows and joys, their hopes and their fears? Strange that I should have slept so well, untroubled by the haunting of their thoughts!" D.E.Stevenson Mrs Tim and the regiment

Some day dream bedrooms to dream of lazing in...

bed

Regarding Lipstick

2011-10-19T07:33:00.004+01:00

One of the lovely ladies I follow on Twitter referred to her 'Autumn wardrobe of lipsticks'. It made me smile. Then I read this passage in South Riding.

'I regard lipstick as a symbol of self-respect, of interest in one's appearance, of a hopeful and self-assured attitude towards life,' Winifred Holtby South Riding

lipstick
How do you regard lipstick?

Glistened

2011-10-17T06:56:00.004+01:00

"The dew glistened on the grass like millions of diamonds..." D.E. Stevenson Miss Buncle's Book

Walking on the grass this weekend the dew really did glisten. I am loving, and quietly coveting, all the sequins being showered in front of my eyes this autumn.

toast dew

Last smiles of the year

2011-10-13T06:57:00.005+01:00

'Her pleasure in the walk must arise from the exercise and the day, from the view of the last smiles of the year upon the tawny leaves and withered hedges, and from repeating to herself some few of the thousand poetical descriptions extant of autumn, that season of peculiar and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste and tenderness, that season which has drawn from every poet, worthy of being read, some attempt at description, or some lines of feeling. 'Jane Austen Persuasion

autumn

Do you have a favourite autumn poem?

Dead Leaves

2011-10-10T06:59:00.001+01:00

Dear, dear Norland," said Elinor, "probably looks much as it always does at this time of year. The woods and walks thickly covered with dead leaves."
"Oh!" cried Marianne, "with what transporting sensations have I formerly seen them fall! How have I delighted, as I walked, to see them driven in showers about me by the wind! What feelings have they, the season, the air altogether inspired! Now there is no one to regard them. They are seen only as a nuisance, swept hastily off, and driven as much as possible from the sight."
"It is not everyone," said Elinor, "who has your passion for dead leaves."Jane Austen Sense & Sensibility

leaves

Are you a Marianne or Elinor in your regard for autumn leaves?

Gingery Spices

2011-10-06T07:26:00.002+01:00

After the glorious warm weather autumn has arrived.....

'The autumn smelled of these brown bitter leaves and of many other gingery spices. Greedily he breathed in the mixed peppery smell of chilled apples, bitter dry twigs, sweetish damp earth and that of the blue September mist which smoked like the fumes of a recently extinguished fire.' Boris Pasternak Dr. Zhivago

What is the scent of autumn for you?

autumn

The Tea Table Waited

2011-10-04T15:49:00.003+01:00

In honour of the final GBBO and finishing South Riding. A post dedicated to South Riding cake moments, and there were quite a few.

'...where, before a leaping cheerful fire, the tea table waited, silver kettle bubbling and shining teapot already warmed, caddy of Earl Grey mixture a covered hot-plate of buttered anchovy toast, an angel cake like a snowdrift.'

'Tea was tea at Willow Lodge... the plates were piled high with bread and butter, currant loaf and queen cakes; the cheese cakes and lemon tarts lay on frilled netted d'oylies; the spice-bread was rich as buttered cold plum pudding;'
'Up on the first floor Lily could see ladies in green arm-chairs eating muffins...The tea was good. The toast was hot dripping with butter.'

'And even the so-called plain teas included cheese-cakes, tarts, scones, spiced bread, currant tea-cakes.' 1,2,3,4
Will you be watching The Great British Bake Off?

The Month of September

2011-09-30T16:00:00.002+01:00

Started with a gentle introduction back into school.
A Friday mooch around Borough Market.
Taking The Blessings out for the day to a Kentish Country Fair.
Discovering The Painted Lady for nails. I shall return. They're small, they're friendly, they have a good selection of OPI and Essie and they offer you wine on a Friday night.
A wonderful wonderful evening at Any Other Party. All the women there were so warm, fun and thoughtful.
My mother arrived with boxes of letters from the past for me to sort through and store now we're somewhere larger. What to keep? What to throw?
A first, and by no means last visit to Eltham Palace. This was for an Art Deco fair. Oh I should have bought the beautiful wooden bookcase...
Celebrating a friend's 40th at Gauthier in a private dining room. The company was as gorgeous as our surroundings.
Buying furniture - quite a bit of it.
You've read about it before - meeting up with my old colleagues at The Electric for Porn Star Martinis. These meet ups are so precious. We've all gone our separate ways. But there is a tie that I don't think anything can break.
Drinks at Electricity Showrooms in Hoxton. How strange that over ten years ago I looked at a flat in this area, how would life have been different if I'd chosen that path?
Meeting up with dear friends to supposedly watch Spinal Tap. I've still to see it all the way through but it was great fun to meet up.
Trying to fit too much into one day. Ordering a carpet, visiting an open studio in New Cross to buy a painting and then back in time for a friend to come to lunch. Such glorious weather we sat sipping our gin and tonics outside.

Baking - lots of apple dishes from our apple tree. Apple and almond pudding, apple crumble. Salted caramel macarons - they tasted wonderful but they would have been marched off GBBO on looks. A Lemon Drizzle cake with an extra spoonful or two or lemon curd woven through it. A delicious Nigella Onion Supper Pie - devoured in front of GBBO. Finally bought the new Hummingbird Bakery Cake Days. Now what to bake?

Finished Persuasion. But you already knew that. South Riding by Winifred Holtby. It started off being interesting read a novel where the author has such hopes for the role of the local authority to change lives when we're in the midst of such local authority cutbacks. And then it became truly emotional and absorbing.

And just for the record on the 30th September I wore white linen shorts, a t-shirt and sandals to work!

Purple Evenings

2011-09-28T07:30:00.006+01:00

..."a month of vintage September weather; travelling in easy stages through autumnal landscapes which seemed to be moistly wrapped in fruit-skins....There were purple evenings, juicy as grapes, the thin moon cutting a cloud like a knife..." Laurie Lee As I walked out one midsummer morning

Ours has most definately been a vintage September. The first in our new home, enjoying the apples from our tree. Even managing to sit outside some days.

How has your September been?

september

Later Love

2011-09-26T07:46:00.004+01:00

And the final passage linking my thoughts to Persuasion. As Anne and Wentworth walk together ' There they returned again into the past, more exquisitely happy, perhaps, in their re-union, than when it had been first projected; more tender, more tried, more fixed in a knowledge of each other's character, truth, and attachment;' Jane Austen Persuasion

Reminds me of this passage. I may wish I'd met Warmth earlier but this reminds me of all the additional thoughts and experiences we bring to our relationship.

'How is it that poets have said so many fine things about our first love, so few about our later love? Are their first poems their best? Or are not those the best which come from fuller thought, their larger experience, their deeper-rooted affections?' George Eliot Adam Bede

As you know I have so enjoyed this Persuasion read along. Reading by myself and then reading all your thoughts. Thank you Rachel for initiating and organising this event. What was your favourite part of the readalong?

laterlove

Princes Welcome

2011-09-23T06:52:00.004+01:00

This passage reminds me of Anne at the concert, trying to catch Wentworth's eyes, annoyed at having to speak to Elliot and then the next day when she is overheard by Wentworth speaking to Captain Harville and he writes that letter.

'You've got to be responsible for your own happiness - you can't expect it to come flopping through the door like a parcel... People sit at home thinking Some Day My Prince Will Come. But that's no good unless you've got a sign up saying 'Princes Welcome'. Julian Barnes Talking it Over

welcome

And it works both ways in having a sign 'Princesses Welcome'
'for now I could at least put myself in the way of happiness... I could do something.' Jane Austen Persuasion

Polite and Cheery

2011-09-21T06:50:00.002+01:00

Oh Anne and all the time she spends with her sister Mary, the lovely Mrs Smith. Surely she must have thought this sometimes? I know I did.

'I help little old ladies across the road. I'm polite and cheery... I don't leave litter. I give to charities. I don't lay music too loud. When mail is misdelivered, I promptly repost it... When I'm tired of clothes I take them clean and neatly folded to a charity shop... I give blood... I eat carefully... I'm told I'm attractive. I'm told I'm good company. I don't want to be rich. I don't want to be famous. I don't want to rule the country. I'm twenty-six and all I want, please is someone I can love.' Tibor Fischer The Collector Collector

waiting

You pierce my soul

2011-09-20T20:32:00.005+01:00

Whilst rereading Persuasion I was reminded of favourite quotes from other books about waiting for love to arrive. Here follows a week of passages prompted by Persuasion. I've already posted some over the time of this blog. They're in the 'Threads of Thinking' cloud under 'desiring love', 'waiting' or 'painful love' if you were interested in reading more.

A Response to Persuasion

2011-09-19T07:00:00.000+01:00

Rachel suggested a read along of Persuasion. After having read the final word I felt compelled to write her a letter, and I shall use this as my first post, of possibly many, regarding Persuasion.

Dear Dear Rachel,

Oh thank you for suggesting a Persuasion read along. I've just finished it and felt compelled to write my thoughts down in a letter to you. I write this on the train to work on my first morning of term at 7.30am.
Persuasion has thrilled, delighted, touched, inspired and moved me. This read along will stay with me forever. I didn't want the story to end. I wanted it to all be about Anne and Wentworth and became impatient to return to their story.
I first read Persuasion as a gift from Warmth, within the first year of being together. I think I must have been so caught up with being in a strong relationship that I missed so much of the story and emotions.
Now I read. I remember. I reflect. I am so pleased to have fallen in love with Anne and Wentworth now. Whilst waiting for my ship to sail in, in the middle of 'a little fever of admiration', with a troubled heart, I would have read and re read . Whilst waiting for the 'phone to ring or when it was dawning that another small relationship coming to an end. "Should I have been different? If I had changed my ways would the 'we' of that moment succeeded?" Maybe Anne would have encouraged me to not doubt being the constant 'me' that makes up Rachel.
Jane Austen writes so knowingly about the thrill and turmoil of attraction. Yes it is like 'a thousand feelings rushed on Anne.' Reflections on having met up with a previous boyfriend ring true 'she smiled over the many anxious feelings she had wasted on the subject.' When Mr Elliott notices Anne as she's out walking, and how Wentworth notices Anne is noticed and Anne notices Wentworth notices she's noticed. The cheeky joy and expectation that such occasions would bring.
The sensation when you can sense that something is changing, perhaps the attraction is mutual? 'All the over-powering, blinding, bewildering, first effects of strong surprise were over with her. Still, however, she had enough to feel! It was agitation, pain, pleasure, a something between delight and misery.'
Reading about the concert in the octogon room was also delight and misery for me. The guilt of rearranging meeting a dear friend for the hope of meeting that someone. Oh how well I recognised trying to catch a glimmer of a glance 'It seemed as if she had been one moment too late; and as long as she dared observe, he did not look again.' Or the anxiety of being seen speaking to someone else.
Oh That Letter that leads to these final emotions.

'and grew steadfast and fearless, in the thankfulness of her enjoyment... and always the knowledge of his being there!'

So now, just incase you hadn't guessed, if asked for my favourite Austen I shall now whole heartedly, with immense pride and without any persuasion say 'Yes - Persuasion.'

Thank you. I spend today in the glow of Anne and Wentworth thanking God for Warmth and praying for your Wentworth.

With love to you,

Rachel Anne (yes I share her middle name.)

Quiet Days

2011-09-15T07:23:00.011+01:00

September 15th. - This is the month of quiet days, crimson creepers, and blackberries; of mellow afternoons in the ripening garden; of tea under acacias instead of too shady beeches; of wood fires in the library in chilly evenings. Elizabeth von Arnim Elizabeth and her German Garden

blackberries

How will you be spending these September days and evenings?

A Spotless Abode

2011-09-12T06:52:00.003+01:00

Warmth and I have lived in small flats before. He is much tidier than me. I'm quite happy with piles. I'd smiled when I read this passage during Persephone Reading Weekend and now as we find the path of decor styles and levels of tidiness it chimes true.

This comes in Round about a Pound a week under the chapter 'People'

It is a fact that a woman the law of whose being is cleanliness and order at all costs may, to a slovenly man, make a most tiresome wife. Her little home may be shining and spotless... at the cost of her vitality and temper.
...
But a steady woman who is not as tidy as her husband might wish her has many ways of producing a semblance of order which makes for peace.... better for the man's sake, the children's sake, and the woman's sake, a dingy room where peace and quiet are than a spotless abode where no love is.' Maud Pember Reeves

Thingsorganizedneatly

How does it work itself out in your abode?

Charming Little Notes

2011-09-09T07:01:00.006+01:00

We've been left a beautiful very old stamp with our address on, it looks a little like letterpress when used. I spent a delightful few afternoons using it to make our change of address cards. Scribbling small messages, or for friends far away writing letters to enclose in them. So when I read this it made me smile.

"My dear little Jane, everyone is born with a vocation, and yours is to write charming little notes." Mary Ann shaffer & Annie Barrows The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.

Having lived in a flat for all my London years I'd forgotten how exciting I find the thud of letters through the letter box... It's bringing back memories of Twin and I racing for the
front door as soon as we saw and heard the post van turn up.

Have you received any charming little notes recently?

little notes

Late Summer Rain

2011-09-07T06:54:00.007+01:00

I really enjoy reading short stories on holiday. Not normally a 'more than one book on the go at a time' woman short stories give a break from the main book, a change when able to read for extended leisurely periods of time. I remember reading Katherine Mansfield at school and have wanted to read more of her. A beautiful birthday gift meant here was my opportunity.

There were some days like this..
'It had been raining all the morning, later summer rain, warm, heavy, quick, and now the sky was clear, except for a long tail of little clouds, like ducklings, sailing over the forest.' Mr & Mrs Dove (in Something childish but very natural by Katherine Mansfield

summerrain

Not the first woman

2011-09-05T06:53:00.006+01:00

As I didn't post last month I thought this week would be a catch up of a quote from each of the books read in August. It took a long time, partly through the break of Paris in July but I finally finished it.

'She was not the first woman, nor the last, to resent watching men with considerably less talent than herself enjoy far greater and challenging opportunities.' Amanda Foreman Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire.

and a chaise longue

2011-09-02T07:34:00.003+01:00

Our new house started to feel like home as soon as we unpacked the boxes of books. They are in no particular order, and we already need more book space.

'Thus: of windows, there were two. Both of them faced south, and were high off the floor... Between the two windows was a fourth shelf - the shelf for English and French books. Against the left-hand window was an office-type desk, flanked by a small table for the portable typewriter on one side, and on the other by a fifth bookshelf, this one for Italian literature, classic and modern, and for translations: mainly from Russian - Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Chekov. On the floor, a large Persian carpet, and at the centre of the room, which was long but rather narrow, three armchairs and a chaise longue to stretch out on while reading.'The Garden of the Finzi-Continis Giorgio Bassani

Hope you get a moment to laze and read this weekend.

a beautiful world

The Month of August

2011-08-31T18:00:00.000+01:00

Settling in to our new home. The days took on a gentle rhythm. Warmth leaving for work. A gradual awakening, a potter downstairs, watering the gardening, admiring the lovely roses. Maybe picking one and putting a single stem in a jar. A clean of a room, an unpack of a box, a little bit of a garden, the joy of being able to hang washing out outside. A wander into our new town center to explore and do a few chores. An internet browse - of blogs and gorgeous home ideas and possibilities. Waiting in for a delivery or someone to check on something be it aerial or internet or new bed delivery. BBQ suppers because we had no cooker.
Cleaning and a little more cleaning and imagining the women who'd have cleaned in this house of the years.... Feeling the need to have a scrubbing brush.
Visits from both sets of parents, within days of moving in.
Meeting a dear dear friend along the Southbank. I team taught with her as a newly qualified teacher. She is my friend, mentor and Early Years Guru.
Delightful bubbles in Selfridges and then along to Aubaine for supper. This included the purchasing of a fantastic denim tunic from Gap.
Twin and the blessings came up. They'd made a chocolate cake the shape of the house decorated with jelly sweets. So lovely to have a garden for them to play in.
A delicious day in Regents Park with goddaughter and mum. A picnic, a play on the climbing, alot of chat and a great ice cream to finish the day off.
A guest post over here.
Loving having a garden. Picking roses and hydrangeas to display. All the little glass bottles I've been collecting have a purpose. Enjoying the garden. Enjoying thinking about the plants and flowers and how spending time sitting. Weeding is a novelty and I, at the moment enjoy it. Though currently the blackberry bramble is winning the fight in whether it stays or goes.
Tea with our new neighbour.
Another gorgeous day with a friend in Regents Park.
Putting together said John Lewis deliveries. Or rather supporting Warmth.
Having read alot about da Polpo I finally sampled the delicious food. And my it was lovely. I already want to return there and eat in their two other restaurants. Pudding was courtesy of The Icecreamists.
We celebrated a second wedding anniversary in our locality at Cafe Buenos Aires with views of sunset over Blackheath. By the way the sunsets in south east London are just incredible. And oh my the rain....
Decorating the spare bedroom, the bathroom and house in chaos with a glamorous damp proof course being done. And finally on the 25th a cooker arrived.
A total of nine BBQ's for friends and family over the course of August.

Having a garden, no cooker and all the visitors means we've explored different foods. Lots of salads and our favourite marinades. Missing not having an oven to bake. Still hurrah for refridgerator cakes, Boodles, jelly and no bake cheese cakes. Experimenting with cake pops. I'm not sure about them. I have a sweet tooth and found them a little sickly. What are your thoughts? First cakes baked in the new cooker chocolate and hazlenut and an apple cake with apples harvested from our apple tree!

Books read. Finally I finished Amanda Foreman's Georgiana, tripped delightfully through a small book of Katherine Mansfield's short stories (Something childish but very natural) raced through The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows. For book club The Shadow of the wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (Reader, I gave up after about 20 pages.) Starting Persuasion early. Reading many home decoration magazines and Decorate and modern vintage styling.
Returning from a blogging holiday and looking forward to seeing you all.

Blogging Holiday

2011-08-04T08:45:00.000+01:00

Whoop Whoop hurrah we've moved home. I'm taking August off posting, but still hope to read your blogs, for starting the journey of making our house our home.
@

Verity and Ken

2011-08-02T08:15:00.002+01:00

Dear Verity and Ken,
On this your wedding day,

A poem,

Hinterhof by James Fenton

Stay near to me and I'll stay near to you -
As near as you are dear to me will do,
Near as the rainbow to the rain,
The west wind to the window pane,
As fire to the hearth, as dawn to dew.

Stay true to me and I'll stay true to you -
As true as you are new to me will do,
New as the rainbow in the spray,
Utterly new in everyway,
New in the way that you say is true.

Stay near to me, stay true to me. I'll stay
As near, as true to you as heart could pray.
Heart never hoped that one might be
Half of the things you are to me -
The dawn, the fire, the rainbow and the day.

James Fenton

Flowers and books.

A gluten free pink wedding cake for you.

Just Married bicycles for you and Ken, knowing that Ken likes cycling.

And balloons - well what's a virtual celebration without virtual balloons?

Wishing you both a wonderful day, honeymoon, celebration lunch and marriage.

xrachel

The Month of July

2011-07-31T23:00:00.003+01:00

Started with receiving a date for our move. Hurrah.
Celebrating a birthday with drinks in town. A great night but bad pub. I was asked if I wanted ice with my G&T!
Friends for lunch delicious time to cook together for Warmth and I before hand.
Celebrating Warmth's birthday with an evening of 20-20 cricket at Lords with friends.
Buying an iPad. Oh how we love it.
Supper with dear friends at Rocket.
Joining Mama and Papa Warmth at Cleaver Square Fair.
A second visit to The Summer Exhibiton with printmaking friends. Lovely to see favourite paintings again and seeing others for the first time.
In the midst of rain an afternoon at The Berkeley for Pret-a-Portea. It was delicate. It was delightful. It was delicious. And there was a very lovely pistachio green cake bag to take a few treats home with me.
Then onto Baltic to celebrate all the recent birthdays with Warmth's family. And the next day another meal out to celebrate all the recent birthdays in my family. Yes basically everyone I know is born in June or July. I'm running behind on presents and cards too....
Back to my dear and much missed friend Portobello Road for leaving drinks with dear friends at The Electric. Even though they're leaving the area we will return for Porn Star Martinis. We even have the date in our diaries.
Finally the end of term. The end of the school year.

Paris in July celebrations
Reading Ripening Seed by Colette, rereading Chocolat by Joanne Harris, The Cat by Colette.

By the time you read this we shall hopefully be in our new home. I've decided to take the month of August off blogging as there will be too many lovely/tiring things to be doing in our new home.
Happy August and see you in September!

My Mark

2011-07-31T05:51:00.002+01:00

Today is Granny's birthday. Our first without her with us. Granny had asked for this to be part of her funeral and it seems fitting to post it today.

'My daughters, I am written into you forever.

When you have children I'll be written into them too.

There will always be a genetic inscription that reads - MY MARK.'

Morris West - Eminence

Frailty and Endurance

2011-07-29T07:36:00.002+01:00

Sunday would have been Granny's birthday. I didn't manage to post this before she died but I think her final months expressed how true this quote is.

'...human can mean frailty and endurance both at the same time.' Irene Nemirovsky Suite Francaise
ballet

Chocolat

2011-07-25T07:54:00.007+01:00

Instead of 'I sit here writing with my feet in the sink...' it's 'I sit here posting about Chocolat whilst eating some delicious chocolates..'

Here are some of my favourite mouth watering passages from Chocolat.

'On a white marble shelf are aligned innumerable boxes, packages, cornets of silver and gold paper, rosettes, bells, flowers hearts and long curls of multicoloured ribbon. In glass bells and dishes lie the chocolates, the pralines... truffles, mendiants, candied fruits, hazelnut clusters, chocolate seashells, candied rose-petals sugared violets...'

'... I went into the kitchen for two meringues, which were still warm and treacly inside their chocolate envelopes and served with thick creme Chantilly and chopped hazlenuts.'

'We make the delicate liquer chocolates, the rose-petal clusters, the gold-wrapped coins the violet creams, the chocolate cherries and almond rolls in batches of fifty at a time...The smells of vanilla essence and cognac and caramelized apple and bitter chocolate fill the house.' Joanne Harris Chocolat

chocolat chocolat chocolat

What's your favourite chocolate?

Never let him go

2011-07-20T07:32:00.001+01:00

In amongst all that angst there was the hope of this....

'But some day I'm going to find somebody and love him and love him and never let him go.' F. Scott Fitzgerald Tender is the Night
ruffled

Romantic Travails

2011-07-18T07:19:00.001+01:00

I read Charlotte Grey in 1999 and stored this quote away to give me perspective when fretting over affairs of the heart and to try to make me remember not to bore my friends too much.

'...how absurd and irritating most people found the romantic travails of others. How different her own dilemma was, how much more serious... everyone was convinced that their own plight had a particular poignancy, a special unfairness. She was just like all the other young women; her crisis was as perpetual and comic as theirs.' Sebastian Faulks Charlotte Grey
@

Champagne

2011-07-15T14:17:00.001+01:00

How can we have Paris in July without a little champagne?

'He was on familiar terms with everyone with whom he drank champagne, and he drank champagne with everyone;' Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina
champagne & macarons
Do join me for some champagne, and a macaron or two, this Friday afternoon.

A Pervasive Aroma

2011-07-13T07:18:00.005+01:00

'He felt assured of his welcome, however, when he saw the studied half-light in the salon and noticed the almost invisible table from which rose a pervasive aroma of slow-ripening peaches, of red cantaloup melon cut in slices the shape of crescent moons, and of black coffee poured over crushed ice.' Colette Ripening Seed

peaches

What would be in your perfect summer feast? This sounds very close to mine...

Stripes

2011-07-11T06:45:00.000+01:00

'There is no doubt a new dress is a help under all circumstances.' Noel Streatfield quoted in Vogue September 2002

As this blog is called FlowersandStripes and it's Paris in July I felt we should have some Gallic stripes gracing the pages...
Sportmax,maxi, French Connection<

What helps you in all circumstances?

Eyes surfeited with beauty

2011-07-08T07:19:00.008+01:00

I'm enjoying reading Ripening Seed by Colette for passages like this. Although it is making me want to be on holiday, by the coast, in France.

'An off-shore breeze wafted the scent of the new-mown after-crop, farmyard smells, and the fragrance of bruised mint: little by little, along the level of the sea a dusty pink was usurping the domain of blue unchallenged since the early morning. Phillippe did not know how to express such a thought as: 'All too few are the occasions in life when with mind content, eyes surfeited with beauty, heart light, retentive, and almost empty, there comes a moment for the senses to be filled to overflowing: I shall remember this as just such a moment.' Colette Ripening SeedWhat moments are you remembering this month?

Regretting Rien

2011-07-06T07:06:00.000+01:00

As well as collecting quotes from novels in my note books there are also a few from newspaper articles. This one is from The Times (2oth November 1999)

Alan Jackson: "And when you look back at your life, meanwhile, are you Frank Sinatra-ish 'Regrets? I've has a few.' Or do you come down on Edith Piaf's side, regretting rien?"

Qunetin Crisp: "Dear boy, you can only regret things if you turned down alternatives. Why did I marry such an awful woman when I had the chance of this one or that? Why did I stay so long in this dreary job instead of taking the offer of that one? ...No alternatives, and so nothing to regret."
Edith Piaf

Are you Sinatra or Piaf?

Rouge Coco

2011-07-04T06:50:00.007+01:00

So, to get ready for Paris in July it feels as if one should look right.

'I strolled through a grove of dress material and found myself at a counter piled with jars of face creams and lipsticks. ...I caught sight of my own face, colourless and worried-looking, the eyes large and rather frightened, the lips too pale. I did not feel that I could ever acquire a smooth apricot complexion but I could at least buy a new lipstick, I thought...' Barbara Pym Excellent Women

And of course it has to be Chanel

Paris in July

2011-07-01T07:49:00.001+01:00

Hurrah another annual blogging event. Paris in July hosted by Book Bath and Thyme for Tea.

I so enjoyed it last year and look forward to this year. I shall be reading Colette and finding some more French themed quotes.
we heart it

Will you be travelling to France this July?

The Month of June

2011-06-30T16:45:00.008+01:00

Started beautifully, well I was on half term....
Meeting Ma and Pops in town. A sunny lunch in Embankment Gradens, off to a matinee of Flarepath, with Sienna Miller no less. Amazed as Ma tried to order tea for the interval and then preceded to say "When one used to order tea at matinees intervals it was brought to you on a tray at your seat." Followed by Early Supper at Gilbert and Scott. The restautarant at St. Pancras hotel. My it's an amazing place. All in all it felt as if I should be wearing a neat hat with a small veil, a clip close handbag, and perfect red lipstick.
A sunny supper on The Southbank... So sunny that I merrily walked to London bridge rather than tubing it.

Birthday Days....
Warmth had the day off. We bought my iphone yippeee!!
A very small birthday gathering this year. Drinks at The Gherkin and then supper at Rocket City.
Continuing with Twin, Blessings and parents on the Saturday at The Red House. A glorious picnic in glorious gardens. The sun shone.
Such lovely gifts. My first Barbara Pym (Excellent Women) in the Orla Kiely edition, a much needed gardening book for when we finally have a garden, a Macaron cookbook and a box of delicious Yauatcha macarons. Cath Kidston disposable picnic set - I'd admired from afar. Twin knows me well.Some Katherine Mansfield short stories and Deborah Mitford Wait for me! Very fitting as I'm reading Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire at the moment.

Supper and drinks in town with friends - a repeat visit to The Wine Wharf.
Enjoying going to The Summer Exhibition on a very soggy Sunday with Warmth. More tempted by a cup of tea than a glass of Pimms.
Rain, rain and more rain...
Meeting a dear friend for supper we hurried to the nearest restaurant and thankfully it was good.
Exploring Marylebone Summer Fair - on a dry day....
Discovering a Mulberry bag I'd been idly coveting in the sale and now affordable. Reader, I bought it.
A walk along The Southbank with Warmth.
Exploring more of St. Pancras this time the Bookings Bar. Delicious rose, bar snacks, talking and laughing with a dear friend.
Attending the retirement party for a former head teacher, of a school I taught at. So lovely to see parents of children I taught there, former colleagues, relive memories and hear more of her memories since teaching there since 1972. In true British style it was planned to be outside and we continued for much of it under gazebos and umbrellas before finally taking refuge in the school hall.
Attending Mortlake Summer Fair with friends. Then sitting in a pub garden with view of the Thames, drinking Pimms, eating, wearing sunglasses and generally enjoying a lovely British Saturday in summer.
A beautiful sunday mooching along Lorship Lane and delicious tea and cake at Le Chandelier.
A summer supper in Angel. Sitting sipping a peach Bellini in Browns with the wide windows flung open. Then meandering along for a delicious turkish supper with lots to catch up on.

Baking Hummingbird Peanut Butter biscuits for our Birthday picnic. Baking cakes for work - Early Grey Tea Loaf, Hummingbird Bakery Banana Loaf and Nigella's Quadruple Chocolate Loaf. A repeat baking of the Peanut Butter (with added currants) Biscuits on a wet Sunday afternoon. After all that cake it was time for healthy eating.

Books read. Excellent Women by Barbara Pym. One Day by David Nicholls, read in one day. Reading it straight after Excellent Women I think Barbara Pym would have said Emma Morley was an Excellent Woman. Georgiana Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman.
On a technical note getting very frustrated with blogger. I can't do any editing in compose mode, only in Edit Html. This means no centering of words and makes it look a little unsightly and is also a bit if a faff. Do any of you lovely bloggers have the same experience or can offer any help on how to resolve it.
How was your June?

Celia, Celia

2011-06-29T07:33:00.002+01:00

Celia, Celia by Adrian Mitchell

When I am sad an weary,
When I think all hope has gone,
When I walk along High Holborn
I think of you with nothing on.

This poem has always made me smile. And then I stumbled across this picture on a newly discovered blog that's just my cup of tea, or champagne.

The Happiest Summer

2011-06-27T07:06:00.006+01:00

'...came the happiest summer Nanda had ever known. The weather was perfect. Every day dawned clear and soft and unfolded through hours of sunlight to long evenings smelling of hay and lime-trees. There was a kind of gaiety and relaxation in the air; hair hung more loosely and sleeves were rolled up unreproved over browning arms. Even the bells sounded less insistent; they chimed in a lazy, worldly voice like old stable clocks. It was good to come in, flushed from tennis, to the cool, sweet-smelling chapel; to sit in a weeping willow after supper surreptiously learning La Nuit de Mai; to find a chestnut flower against one's skin when undressed at night.' Antonia White Frost in May
summer
The weather this weekend has been true summer weather. Long may it last....

A glorious feeling of well-being

2011-06-24T07:33:00.000+01:00

'That's what's so wonderful about living out of England,' he said, pacing round the small kitchen, ' such a glorious feeling of well-being, sitting at a table in the sun with a bottle of what-ever it happens to be - there's nothing to equal that, is there?' Barbara Pym Excellent Women
I think Rocky probably meant something of the alcoholic variety but I found this image and loved it.
Not wanting to wish my life away but this current June weather has really made me want to be away and on holiday.
Where in the world would you like to be?

Soggy with champagne

2011-06-22T07:25:00.000+01:00

So far this week has been a little drier than last week. Last week I was soggy on many occasions. Oh to have been
'soggy with champagne' not rain....

Gabriel Garcia Marquez Love in the time of Cholera

Wimbledon

2011-06-20T07:08:00.005+01:00

'Ah, there he was! He had come into the centre court to play a single. He was pulling his sweater over his head. There were his arms and his neck...
Noel Yarde began to serve. Jane was astounded by his speed and strength... Her eyes darted after him wherever he went; she never looked at the other player.
Goodness, but he was beautiful! She had not known he was so beautiful as this; his lean hips, his long stretch of arm and leg, the way his head was set on his neck. How he played! His shirt hung wetly to his back. Was he winning? Jane hadn't an idea, and daren't ask. Her eyes followed him unceasingly.' Dorothy Whipple High Wages

Ralph Lauren

Who will be your Wimbledon heart throb this year?

Mimosa

2011-06-15T07:25:00.006+01:00

Twin I celebrated our birthday together by visiting 'The Red House'. Oh the gardens....
Whilst walking along one wonderful footpath the senses were awakened first by the most amazing scent and then the bright yellow of Mimosa.
I then read this passage in one of my birthday books.
'There was a barrow full of spring flowers just opposite.
'Oh, look, mimosa!' I exclaimed... 'I must have some.'
....
'I couldn't resist it,' I said. 'It makes one think....'
'Of Italy and the Riviera, of course.'
...'It's just that it seemed such a lovely day and I felt I wanted it.'
'Yes, that's a better reason.'Barbara Pym Excellent women

The coincidence of this, along with it being one of The colours this summer, loving the scent so much and having a lovely new phone I took a picture....

And then Rose posted about L'Artisan Parfumeur's scent Mimosa Pour Moi.

And so this post had to be written.

FlarePath

2011-06-13T07:17:00.004+01:00

Very early on whilst watching the play Flarepath last week a thought struck me...

Here was war written by a man, with men waiting to go to battle and all their thoughts and feelings. I reflected that most of the books I read tend to be about the women who are long term left behind by their husbands and their thoughts and feelings. I don't really read about the side of war that is portrayed in Flarepath. Visiting your husband, waiting for him to come back from the latest RAF mission. The tension. How the men cope with this day to day, every day.

It's an unfinished thought but did the men who were fighting write poetry - it's more immediate can be written on a scrap of paper. The women books - longer as they had longer to explore their feelings.
Please help me finish this thought - by sharing yours.

Sunshine & Campari

2011-06-10T16:12:00.000+01:00

Slightly summed up my birthday weekend...

"The thing is,' she said, high on sunshine and Campari,' Penelope Lively Consequences

sunshine
Hoping your weekend is full of sunshine and....

Peaches on the lawn

2011-06-08T07:08:00.000+01:00

I really enjoyed The Rector's Daughter and for a novel about people who live their lives somewhat frugallythere were two mentions of peaches...

'the year went round with its accustomed routine:... summer treats; garden- and tennis-parties,... the Clerical Book Club tea, with peaches on the lawn;

.......
There are some peaches in the tent. I always think the one point of a party is the peaches.' F.M. Mayor The Rector's Daughter

peaches

Iheartpeaches

Which fruit are you looking forward to eating most this summer?

Peonies

2011-06-06T07:13:00.000+01:00

I like Forest Hill but I shall never love it. There is not a decent florist. I have not been able to buy a single peony this summer.
So to make up for it lots of gratuitous images of peonies.
whitevase

simplytied

bythebucket

bythebucket

The Counting of Years

2011-06-03T07:11:00.003+01:00

One of the fun things about blogging is, like The Queen, one can celebrate two birthdays a year. Blog Birthday and Real Rirthday.
Today is Real Birthday.

'But what did the counting of years mean if he felt himself young in his soul, as he had been twenty years ago? Was it not youth, the feeling he experienced now, when, coming out to the edge of the wood again from the other side, he saw in the bright light of the sun's slanting rays Varenka's graceful figure, in a yellow dress and with her basket , walking with a light step past the trunk of an old birch...' Leo Tolstoy Anna Karenina
birthdayballoons

Paris In July

2011-06-02T09:54:00.002+01:00

Tamara and Karen are organising Paris in July once more. Today's post is in response to this post .
Here's the link to last year on Flowers and Stripes
This year I shall be reading Collette Ripening Seed, picked up in a charity shop hoping Paris in July would happen again.
I may re read That Mad Ache by Francoise Sagan as I so loved it last year.
Having discovered Julia Childs this year maybe a cook from her book, and it feels along time since my taste buds tingled with a Laduree macarons so I may just have to...

parisinjuly

The Month of May

2011-05-31T17:25:00.009+01:00

Waking up with a hangover from a wonderful wedding the day before....
Exploring Greenwich in the bank holiday sunshine and then a 'phone call from mum about granny....

A train ride through the Kentish countryside to see mum and dad. Sun shining, green green fields, oast houses and a great book made it less sad. Coffee and shopping at The Goods Shed, eating lunch outside in the garden, a walk along the river, seeing ducklings and ending with walking through a field of cows.
Drinks at The Phoenix.
Discovering the maxi skirt that suits me, having wanted one since last summer but discovering that maxi dresses don't suit me - a straight jersey maxi skirt is for me.
A great Friday evening shop. A favourite Whistles top - I may buy it in white too. Getting to grips with eye lash curlers and discovering that Lancome Hypnose is truly a great waterproof mascara.
Mooching around the Forest Hill Open Studios.
Meeting up with dear friends at a Eurovision party.
Finally receiving notification of our mortgage. We shall be moving.... An initial visit to Criterion Auctioneers to see how it operates for when we're ready.
Meeting dear friends, who were previously friends and colleagues, for supper at The National Portrait Gallery Restaurant. Delicious food, gorgeous company and the views of London sky line - superb.
Discovering the perfect summer red nail varnish - Essie 5th Avenue.
A dear friend was over from New York so it meant the chance to meet up with a lovely group of friends. We met at Bam Bou I've been to the bar before, and this time the cocktails were just as divine but we ate - and the food was absolutely delicious.
Sunday lunch with my aunt followed by boules in the garden.
I would love to tell you all about the christening we attended in a field for Rogation Sunday but alas due to the most horrific accident we spent that time sitting on the A3. The party afterwards was glorious and we spent the Monday recovering from over eating and drinking.
Oh no I've just realised that May started and finished with a hangover...

Cakes baked. Real Cookie Girl's Strawberries and Cream cupcakes for Eurovison (they shall be baked again). Hummingbird Lemon Bars, Lady Grey Tea loaf and a disastrous Ballymaloe apple cake for Granny's funeral.
Books read - High Wages - my first Whipple. I am so glad I saved it perfect for this time. I loved it - strong woman, friendship, clothes, shopping and day dreaming - what could not be more perfect for me? Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford. The hand that first held mine by Maggie O'Farrell, The Rector's Daughter by F.M. Mayor.

Privacy of rain

2011-05-27T07:43:00.001+01:00

And finally the rain came....

Privacy of rain

Rain, A plump splash
on tense, bare skin.
Rain. All the May leaves
run upward, shaking.

....

I love the privacy of rain,
the way it makes things happen
on verandahs, under canopies
or in the shelter of trees
as a door slams and a girl runs out
into the black-wet leaves.
By the brick wall an iris
sucks up the rain
like intricate food, its tongue
sherbetty, furred.

Rain. All the May leaves
run upward, shaking.
On the street, bud-silt
covers the windscreens.

Helen Dunmore

rain

Oh to have been snuggled indoors with cake and a good film, but alas I was at work. Here's hoping for a dry Bank Holiday. What are your plans?

The colour of happiness

2011-05-25T07:55:00.002+01:00

One of our memories of Granny is the colour lilac. It suited her eyes, her grey hair, her whole being.

.... 'Her [Galuzina] favourite colour was a violet-mauve, the colour of church vestments on certain solemn days, the colour of lilac in bud, the colour of her best velvet dress and of her set of crystal goblets. It was the colour of happiness and of her memories, and Russia, too, in her virginity before the revolution, seemed to her to her to have been the colour of lilac.' Boris Pasternak Dr. Zhivago

image - so sorry the credit was lost when blogger had it's upset in May.

Do you have a colour associated to a precious person in your life?

That first cup of tea

2011-05-23T07:08:00.002+01:00

Thank you to everyone who has blogged so eloquently and passionately about Dorothy Whipple. I absolutely loved High Wages. It was a perfect book to sink into just after Granny died as a travelled by train through Kentish fields.

"Oh, the comfort of that first cup of tea! The warmth and life it put into you! They held their hands round the cups to warm them and their eyes looked less heavily on the bleak kitchen.
'What do we do now?' asked Jane
'We have another cup of tea' said Maggie
Dorothy Whipple High Wages

a beautiful world

Where do you have your first cup of tea?

I count it happiness

2011-05-19T07:42:00.002+01:00

One of the readings Granny had asked to be read at her funeral.

I count it happiness-

Ere we go so quickly where we came

To gaze ungrieving on these majesties.

The world wide sun, the stars, water and clouds

And Fire. Live Parmeno, a hundred years

Or a few months, these you will always see

And never, never any greater things.

Think of this lifetime as a festival

Or visit to a strange city, full of noise

Buying and selling, theiving, dicing stalls and joy parks.

If you leave it early friends,

Why, think you have gone to find a better Inn.

You have paid your fare and leave no enemies.

Menander b.342 BC Athens

oh, those lilac bushes!

2011-05-16T07:58:00.005+01:00

16th May - Elizabeth and her German Garden

'-oh, those lilac bushes! They are all out to-day, and the garden is drenched with scent. I have bought in armfuls, the picking is such a delight, and every pot and bowl and tub in the house is filled with purple glory... I go from room to room gazing at the sweetness, and the windows are all flung open so as to join the scent within to the scent without;' Elizabeth von Arnim

wedding flowers

Which scent without would you like to join you within?

Exploding like popcorn

2011-05-10T07:11:00.005+01:00

I've found another blossom quote!

'A kind of brilliant green film suddenly broke over the hills - orchids, spiking the dust, rocks crowned with anemones, almond blossom exploding like popcorn.' Laurie Lee As I walked out one midsummer's morning.

we heart blossom

White Blossom

2011-05-07T07:56:00.008+01:00

Elizabeth and her German Garden begins on the 7th May and within this day we have this quote. No wonder I have so many quotes from this book.

'There are so many bird-cherries round me, great trees with branches sweeping the grass, and they are so wreathed just now with white blossoms the tenderest green that the garden looks like a wedding.' Elizabeth von Arnim Elizabeth and her German Garden

And then I found these beautiful wedding images on Once Wed

In these hours

2011-05-05T20:51:00.004+01:00

Darling , Dearest Granny died today.

'In these hours when the silence, unfilled by any ceremony, was made almost tangibly oppressive by a sense of absence, only the flowers took the place of the singing and psalms.
They did more than blossom and smell sweet. In unison, like a choir, ... they unstintingly poured out their fragrance and, imparting something of their scented strength in everyone, seemed to be accomplishing a ritual.
The kingdom of plants can easily be thought of as the nearest neighbour of the kingdom of death. Perhaps the mysteries of transformation and enigmas of life which so torment us are concentrated on the green of the earth, among the trees in graveyards and the flowering shoots springing from their beds.' Boris Pasternak Dr. Zhivago

31st July 1918 - 5th May 2011

May

2011-05-03T21:32:00.002+01:00

Dear Friends,

Blog posting will be very light, and somewhat irregular in May for dull reasons (thirty school reports to write) and sad reasons (Granny is very very frail). I hope to keep reading your posts though.

Tweeting will also be light due to my terrible 'phone - but when I get my new one there'll be no stopping me.

x