Orange and Green

The things that caught my eye on a recent visit to Petersham Nurseries all seemed to be orangey-yellow or green - even the cake!

Festival of Quilts

"To see quilts?" asked the puzzled taxi driver taking me to the station so that I could catch a train to the NEC Birmingham.


Neither my explanation of what I was off to see nor the photos I've returned with do it justice!


It was a tiring day ........


... of stroking gorgeous fabrics, peering at intricate stitch-work on beautiful quilts, dreaming of having the time to commit to sewing and gawping at Amy Butler's diamond rings.


Somehow, I trekked all the way to Birmingham yet ended up only buying fabric from two exhibitors whose shops I visit regularly anyway!


The Robert Kaufman icecream print "Confections"and the mushroom print "My Happy Garden" by Cloud 9 Fabrics were both from The Eternal Maker and the pink flowers from Fabric Galore . All are destined to become nightwear of some sort, providing that time dream comes true.

Someone At A Distance

The Church, Lanhydrock House

We've recently returned from a week long holiday in Cornwall. It rained. A lot.

At least it gave me a chance to read the latest book being discussed on the Persephone Forum - Someone At A Distance by Dorothy Whipple.

Never too old

After sampling a couple of the dishes from the Junior Masterchef magazine, made by my niece, I decided I had to have a copy of my own! The recipes, as well as tasting delicious, are, of course, easy to follow and don't have too many ingredients - so just about my level. The first dish I tried myself was an easypeasy gnocchi with tomato, red pepper and mozzarella and which was made in a trice - perfect!

Decisions, Decisions

Honeycomb or Clotted Cream or Strawberries and Clotted Cream .......???

Wow!

I've never seen, heard or smelt anything like it!

After reading about MimiMouse's visit to the Mayfield Lavender field, I had to go there too.

What a sight! We glimpsed the purple glow through the trees as we drove up the road and could smell the perfume too. What I hadn't expected was all the noise! The bushes were teeming, alive with buzzing bees and chirping crickets.

Whatever next

I've broken my reading mould! Rather than reading a Ruth Rendell crime or novels set in the early twentieth century, where women buy hats, worry about servants and eat boiled eggs for supper, I've just devoured two books written by men, set in the Noughties AND one was about American football!!

After watching the TV Book Club on Channel 4, I visited my local library to borrow those featured. It had a stand dedicated to the programme but the only books on display were those from the previous series. So, I took out The Silver Linings Play Book by Matthew Quick and Juliet, Naked by Nick Hornby and really enjoyed both of them. Whatever next?!.......

from Juliet, Naked

"It was OK, Duncan thought, that he and Annie had never been in love. Theirs had been an arranged marriage, and it had functioned perfectly well: friends had matched up their interests and temperaments carefully, and they'd got it right. He had never once felt itchy, in the way that two connecting pieces of a jigsaw never felt itchy, as far as one could tell. If one were to imagine, for the sake of argument, that jigsaw pieces had thoughts and feelings, then it was possible to imagine them saying to themselves, 'I'm going to stay here. Where else would I go?' And if another jigsaw piece came along, offering its tabs and blanks enticingly in an attempt to lure one of the pieces away, it would be easy to resist temptation. 'Look,' the object of the seducer's admiration would say. 'You're a bit of telephone box, and I'm the face of Mary, Queen of Scots. We just wouldn't look right together.' And that would be that."