Doing my patriotic duty for Britain

Do you know what I found out today? One hundred and sixty five million cups of tea are consumed in Britain every day!!! And, I had five of those myself. :)This morning I had my tea in one of my sweet little bird mugs hand painted by the artists at Aston Pottery.And this afternoon I made myself a cup of Earl Grey in the second of my very old Victorian tea cups.(the first one is here)I love these old cups. I love the wonkiness of the saucer, and the pits and imperfections of the crockery and painted design. This is also one of the "drink it from the saucer cups." I suppose these cups were every day, made for the plebs. They are some sort of crockery but not porcelain and were probably used a whole lot because it was every Englishman's patriotic duty to drink tea rather than alcohol or coffee because tea supported British trade, the colonial plantations and the Empire. Amazing that they are not chipped or cracked. Obviously they were well loved.The best treatie to have with Earl Grey tea while doing my patriotic duty are Jaffa cakes. Do you know Jaffa cakes? Almost 100 yrs in production, they are the loveliest blend of cake, marmalade and chocolate. Oh, I have a funny story to tell you. When Chloe was about 9 yr old, she decided she didn't like the taste of marmalade and ate the biscuit and chocolate part all the way around the marmalade centre and then, somehow, it became de rigueur to stick the left-over marmalade circle on your forehead and look very pathetic ever since. :D I know! No idea what that's all about.Actually Jaffa cakes are really easy to make. I'll find you a nice recipe.  And while I'm at it, I'm linking with Terri and Martha and Sandi. :)Here is BBC chef Simon Rimmer’s recipe:IngredientsFor the cakes• 2 free-range eggs• 50g/2oz caster sugar• 50g/2oz plain flour, sievedFor the filling• 1 x 135g/4¾oz packet orange jelly, chopped• 1 tbsp orange marmalade• 125ml/4½fl oz boiling water• 200g/7oz good quality dark chocolate, minimum 70 per cent cocoa solids, broken into piecesPreparation method1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.2. For the cakes, bring a little water to the boil in a pan, then reduce the heat until the water is simmering. Suspend a heatproof bowl over the water (do not allow the base of the bowl to touch the water). Add the eggs and sugar to the bowl and beat continuously for 4-5 minutes, or until the mixture is pale, fluffy and well combined.3. Add the flour, beating continuously, until a thick, smooth batter forms.4. Half-fill each well in a 12-hole muffin tin with the cake batter. Transfer the tin to the oven and bake the cakes for 8-10 minutes, or until pale golden-brown and cooked through (the cakes are cooked through when a skewer inserted into the centre of the cakes comes out clean.) Remove from the oven and set the cakes aside, still in their tray, until cool.5. Meanwhile, for the filling, in a bowl, mix together the jelly, marmalade and boiling water until the jelly has dissolved and the mixture is smooth. Pour the filling mixture into a shallow-sided baking tray or large dish to form a 1cm/½in layer of jelly. Set aside until completely cooled, then chill in the fridge until set.6. When the jelly has set and the cakes have cooled, cut small discs from the layer of jelly, equal in diameter to the cakes. Sit one jelly disc on top of each cake.7. Bring a little water to the boil in a pan, then reduce the heat until the water is simmering. Suspend a heatproof bowl over the water (do not allow the base of the bowl to touch the water). Add the chocolate and stir until melted, smooth and glossy, then pour over the cakes. Set aside until the melted chocolate has cooled and set.

Settling into the rhythm

I started drawing today.Like so many of us I feel the pressure of all these projects which I want to finish as we rush on into the last month of the year; already starting to think of deadlines for 2014. I can feel the calm draining away. But these days, all I want to do is wear my comfy sweaters and sit beside the fire.How are you all doing at staying calm and gentle during the season?I've been taking walks out into the fields but haven't made it to the Thames yet. (It's five field and a copse away) I've generally only been going thru the first three fields and turning around at the fourth. The reason is that mostly the times I've found to walk are at twilight...or...well, near twilight because twilight is happening at 4pm these days. But it's the best time to spot the animals. R tells me he saw a few badgers in the "hawk" field. I saw several pheasants today, including one who scared the daylights out of me. (they wait till you get close enough and freak out and whirl straight up in a frantic beating of wings) I hope I see the badgers too. This summer, my friend Jackie told me the best times for her are at dawn. She said she has gone out into the fields and sat very quietly and suddenly all the bunnies and hares and birds came out into full view. Maybe I'll give that a try.We also went to the Christmas barn in the neighbouring village of Appleton to get our Christmas tree. Isn't Appleton a lovely name for a village? You just know it's filled with gentle people, don't you? You have to smile to say it. Try saying it frowning. I'll wait.... :D see?Picked up my pencils for about 30 minutes this evening and started a little study of a nuthatch on one of the old dictionary pages that I've been using for printing on. It has the word "play" on it.I realised that I'd left the map which I started drawing a red-tailed kite on here on my art desk and I'm so glad I did because now I can keep working on it. The kite is in a dive over the city and I think maybe dandelion seeds will be floating past him.I've also finally had time to read a sweet little letter form a new friend. It came to Vancouver on the day I was leaving and so I stuck it into my purse and meant to read it on the flight and then completely zoned because it stayed forgotten till tonight. I'm so glad she decided to write to me and I'm excited to write back. :)But not now. Now it's evening here and I'm hoping for a good night's sleep. (Last night was the third and that's always the worst for jet-lag)Linking with Mary for Mosaic Monday and looking forward to catching up with everyone after a few hours.

It only seems right

It's nice to be back home in England, at West Cottage. That's the name of our house, West Cottage. Here houses tend to have names rather than numbers and the Royal Mail is amazing because the mailmen tend to deliver to the correct house mostly all the time. Which is not easy when you have five Rose Cottages, three The Poplars and several Brook...something. Brook Farm, Brook House, Brook Lodge, Meadow Brook, you get the picture, in the same village. And, changing the name of your house when you move in is routine. I'm telling you, the mailmen deserve a lot of credit.You know what's so fantastic about Robert? He leaves some things right where I left them till I get back. He leaves these things for me on my return and for himself as a memory of me being here. I must confess I do the same thing in the Vancouver house, where the receipt for his last flight into Van is still on the side of the fridge right where he stuck it. (Don't ask me about our spaghetti noodle tag game...lol...the noodles get stuck everywhere)But some things are different. Theo the wonder cat has a new spot. R calls it "his plinth" and it's actually a velvet cushion on top of some pillows on top of the radiator. Theo loves being there and warming his old bones. We love having him with us. Earlier today he ran outside and came back with a fat field mouse. He tried to drag it inside but got intercepted and told to take it outside. He loves to hunt but would rather eat his mice inside.Today was the last village market before Christmas. I really wanted to go to catch up with our friends and also get some of the local mistletoe. We were lucky because most of our village friends were there and big hugs were shared all round.I got my mistletoe, some homemade minced pies, a book from my friend Elaine who runs the charity book sales, and a commemorative plate made by Aston Pottery to commemorate the 750th anniversary of the village church. I also got some potted bulbs to bloom in the bleak mid-winter.So simple and so lovely, don't you think? I'm lucky that Lisa was selling them in these beautiful vintage pots. I bought a hyacinth and several daffodils.I also hung up some bird feeders for our hungry cottage friends. Don't you love the suet and seed coconut halves? This afternoon we had our first two birds inspecting them. Earlier I saw a woodpecker around and I hope he'll be back and find the peanuts.Also this afternoon, jet-lag is kicking in something rotten. R has built a fire in the fireplace and the cottage is nice and cozy but my eyes feel heavy. One more day and I should be just fine.

I keep having to ask what day it is

That cross Atlantic flight is a bit of a slog.Yesterday Vancouver was cold and I took my gloves off to take this photo of this red sky morning and my hands froze.Then the airport and security and duty free shopping and then on the plane and five or so movies: Man of Steel, wonderful to the max. Loved it. Now You See Me, wonderful even the second time around. The Lone Ranger, WWZ, The Heat...absolute pants! (British way of saying, "don't bother, it's so not worth it!") I spun thru one of those three movies WWZ just to see the ending. Totally different story from the book.Then we shortened the night. I love that. Taking off in the pitch black evening, watching the lights of Vancouver below me. Then darkness till we met the sunrise at about 1am.Flew over London with Big Ben and the Tower Bridge on my side, followed the Thames down into Heathrow.And then, there was Robbie waiting for me at arrivals with his huge grin on his face. :DTravel's tough, but in the end of the day there's that huge reward.And then I slept for 14 hours.And now there's the two of us together again.And I don't have to make decisions on my own for a while.

gingerbread and tea

A couple of days ago it snowed.It was completely expected because the temperature was down to below something ridiculous for Vancouver and the upcoming snow was all anyone was talking about. It was on the news, on the radio, people were taking about it at the stores, neighbours, Chloe, my mother...snow plows were beign deployed, salt was being spread at an alarming rate, everyone was up in arms about the upcoming snow. Believe me, snow in town is a special thing because, after all I live on the West Wet Coast. And then it happened. I woke up to a centimetre of crystaly powdering over the garden and streets. It was so pretty. It was so perfect. It was as if overnight Christo and Martha Stewart got together and said, "Come on, you and me, let's do this!" :)Yesterday I drove down the hill to pick up C from her work and to run a few errands and then, drove back up the hill again. It was only about 4:30pm but by that time the ground began to freeze and pulling my heavy 4runner up the steep grade made the front wheels dance like crazy from the pushing of the back wheels. Robert said that perhaps I should have engaged the four wheel drive and I said it wasn't that bad. He said, "what do you consider 'that bad'?" I said, "when it scares me...this was fun...a challenge." He said, "what are you like?" :D (By the time I got home mom had already called 17 times because she was convinced I had spun off the road and was dead in some ditch in Richmond. I'm telling you, we Vancouverites take our snow seriously.)But mainly Vancouverites know better and tend to stay off the roads till everything melts, which is usually the very next day, so C and I decided to stay at home this afternoon and have tea and decorate the gingerbread cookies we baked.Don't you love the smell of gingerbread?We had our tea in these very special cups C bought recently. They are designed by Parisian artist Florence Balducci. She fell in love with them at Anthropologie and, when they were in the sale section, and it was Black Friday, and she just happened to be there to have supper with her father...well, what do you call it when everything comes together? The Bermuda triangle. But don't you love them as much as gingerbread? There are birds on the cup. There's a pheasant, a magpie and a woodpecker and an owl on the inside saying "me too", and a fox wraps herself around the bottom of the cup from the plate.So we sat and drank some tea and watched this insane video of crazy winter driving, and decorated snowflakes and snowmen and raindeer and moose and gingerbread men and candles and Christmas trees and maples leaves, and sprinkled sugar and dragee balls and coconut flakes on our cookies, and now we have plenty of beautiful, fragrant cookies for everyone on our lists.It's a good thing too because I'm off to England tomorrow. C is staying here though :( but we will speak every day. (Shh...Please don't tell C that she's 21 and actually doesn't HAVE to call me every day; she hasn't figured that out yet.) Also, because it's so much work to get the Vancouver house arranged before I leave and to get everything sorted for my flight, I might not be able to visit my tea lovelies for a couple of days...but I'll try to do my best.Linking with Terri and Martha and Sandi and Bernideen and Kathy and also Kathe with an e :)

Market Christmas

It's freezing out there! It's a humdinger of a winter day today! Minus 8 in the morning and up to -6 and that's it. I stopped by the ocean just before sunrise to take some photos but my hands wouldn't work!Do you know what I do? Each time I visit someplace I add that city weather into my iPhone app, and so I can tell you that while it was -6 here, it was -26 in Calgary and only 11 in San Francisco. Bet everyone from East to South is shivering in their boots! It's that darn Jet Stream. Back up North with you! So in the meantime, we went shopping and looking around for some Christmas inspiration.Do you like market shopping?We do. We love it. Farmer's markets, craft markets, public markets...off the beaten path flea markets...any other market you can think of. Lately Chloe and I have been browsing around some of our favourite markets.Come see the cool things that we discovered. :)It's a lemon! Buddha's hand lemon. Incredibly fragrant and also makes the best candied lemon peel, I understand, because it's not bitter.Look what else we found: These incredible figurines. Don't you love the beaded whiskers and the little jewels in their ears?Doesn't it look like markets might be places where you can find something for everyone on your list? I think so. I love places where so many different makers, from craftspeople to farmers to importers come together under one roof. Who else likes to go into hat shops and try on hats? We just can't help ourselves. :)C and I spent a little extra time in one of our favourite shop, Paper Ya.It's beautiful and full of Christmas whimsy plus the most incredible journals, papers, and every kind of writing supplies you can imagine.And some thing you probably can't imagine...lolSomething new we discovered today: this Good Soap. We love the coconut scent; it's absolutely delicious, (although if coconut's not your thing then it also comes in about 8 different scents) and we love that it's a Fairtrade certified product.So now to make that list and check it twice. Tell if you found a favourite thing at your market. Inspiration is always the best thing.

It's beginning

The stress of the last few months has lifted today! Chloe wrote her last exam first thing this morning and handed in her last essay directly after and, as of 11am, she's free as a bird. She is also half way thru her fourth and final year of her bachelor's degree! Hooray for the clover!To celebrate we decided to make some gingerbread cookie dough and chill it till tomorrow. Tomorrow we'll bake and ice the cookies. Anyway, it's December, which means "bring on the cookies" in any language, so gingerbread today and tomorrow, followed by shortbread and several types of traditional Czech cookies.I always use the same Martha Stewart recipe. A tried and true sort of thing, I suppose. Do you do that? Stick with one recipe for years and years? I do. The way I figure, there are probably millions of gingerbread recipes out there with some sort of variation, like less ginger, more cinnamon, one egg, two eggs, no eggs...gluten free...eeek... but how much difference can there really be?The dough in this recipe needs to chill and so C and I decided to do some Christmas decorating round here.C climbed into the loft above the garage to retrieve the Christmas boxes and the artificial tree. Our rule for Christmas trees is, if Christmas is in Vancouver, it's a huge Norway spruce; all fragrant and shimmery, but if Christmas is in England then our artificial tree comes down and does us wonderful service. Along with the tree came five boxes of glass ornaments, (yes I'm addicted) and my aunts beautiful painting of the Sistine Madonna.It's such a thrill to open the boxes and remember all the beautiful ornaments; the treasures of trips back to Prague, vintage finds, special place/time commemorations...special ornaments, some of which were from my childhood. And along with them one huge living room mess.The tree is almost done. The Sistine Madonna still provisionally propped up on top of the carved desk. I'm not sure where to hang the painting yet and C's been walking around the house holding it up against the walls for me to decide.Maybe in the dining room.

Special, true moments

I was thinking that the last year of my father's life we drove to his cabin on as many weekends as we could. He loved it there.Up there on East Twin Lake, six hours out of the city, up there with the loons, the morning moose, the northern lights and the millions of stars making up the milky way, up there he was at peace.One time we left Vancouver quite late and got there after dark. I remember driving along the dirt road and the headlights illuminating the bone-white birch trees on either side and I remember seeing a cameo reflection of those birch trees in a puddle in the pitted path. It may have been the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, and, combined with the harsh winter settling in, and not knowing if my father would be able to visit again, I captured that image in my memory.This painting was born from that memory. I like it here, in the hallway outside my bedroom. I haven't hung it on the wall because I like the way the lamp light puddles the image. I'm not sure I'll ever hang it up.Do you have a visual memory of a special, extraordinary moment? I don't really know why, but seeds from the garden always remind me of my grandfather.I suppose that, growing up in Europe where things are treasured and shared more than they are here in the North American built-in obsolescence consumerism culture, I remember my grandfather folding little paper envelopes to store his garden seeds in.I remember doing that with him while he wrote the botanical names of the plants on the outside of the paper. That's something I'm always compelled to do...to collect and store the seeds form the garden flowers, (and paint puddle paintings...lol) But what does one do with millions of white Japanese anemone seedlings, or a grove of maples?Mind you, as I was carrying the trumpet vine seed heads thru the house, seven seeds fell to the floor and I scooped them up in my hand. I put them on the mantle. I think they'll stay there for a while.Snow puddle painting: Oil on canvasFox: Oil on the cut-off end of last year's Christmas tree

Morning, afternoon and evening round here

It's amazing how much I can get done if I'm just around to get those things done! Today work was put aside because of the weather.Well, I say weather, but actually, the coming weather is the worry. It's supposed to be lovely and sunny but the temperature is supposed to drop below freezing. I know...in Vancouver? It won't last of course, but there were these 40 tulips and at least 20 daffodils left over form the massive early October planting, (I'm a sucker for saving the Wal-Mart plants...can't help myself), and they were whispering, "plant us, plant us" each time I walked past them.So C and I had a little Sbux morning treat and got to work.Do you see that snout beside C? It belongs to a young malamute of such beautiful proportions that he was impossible to photograph. (actually he was too jumpy and young) But such a beauty. And, his owner, on hearing that we have only ever had malamutes, told C to go check out the Alaska Malamute Rescue Society web site. Oh god...she already stalks the SPCA web site! Thanks a lot lady! I said that we really weren't in a position to have a dog, that we travel too much and it'll take a couple more years for life to settle down. And Chloe volunteered that we have the two cats...and she said, "it's ok, we have two kittens too, they all get along just fine." (groan)So guess what C did over lunch...thank goodness there weren't any young puppy-type malamutes on that web site!But the garden (and those bulbs) kept calling, and C didn't feel like studying on this lovely afternoon, so we went outside and raked up leaves, dug in bulbs, dug up weeds and snipped the grape vines.Last year I made that fantastic wreath from some willow branches from the willow in our village in England, and I was looking at the long and lovely grape vines and thinking, "hmm, how hard can it be?" and before you knew it, C and I wove five wreaths.Since the willow wreath is in my bedroom, C decided to make a wreath for her bedroom too, and the others we hung on the little "Wrong Place" Katsura, (thanks previous owners)We came in about 5pm and I put a chicken to roast into the oven and build a fire in the fireplace.Oh, one more bit of good news...well, relatively speaking...the Louds (not their real name) next door have moved away!!! I went out to the back lane to bring the trash bins in and they were just packing the rest of the garage up and said they gave possession to the new owners today. So I said good bye and good luck and, (hopefully they don't read this blog) did a happy little jig back in the privacy of my garden...behind the closed gate. They were ok as neighbours, but ever so loud! Radio always on in the garage and tuned to horrible soft rock, Mrs Loud yelling ad Mr Loud over the lawn mower until he heard...that sort of thing. But now the new owners are a construction crew. (sigh) can't win 'em all. But eventually there will be a sparkly new duplex selling at one million plus per side and we'll have new neighbours.Leaving you with this last evening image: I finally figure out what to do with the little lamp shade I bought at a posh decorating store in England a few years ago but never found the right lamp for. :)

Hello from Sunday night (I didn't think I had THIS much to share)

I've seen a fair few 4am mornings these days courtesy of Milo who has an alarm clock in his little cat brain. It's fine by me. I love the mornings and relish the still, quiet time. Reflective time. Chloe, on the other hand, is turning into quite the night owl. She's having a hard time falling asleep and then sleeps till 10-ish...unless she has a morning class. What's that all about? I wonder what evolutionary reason there might be for being a morning or a night person? Did the morning people run out and hunt and gather food for the night people who stayed awake watching and guarding against predators? Maybe...I'll go reread my Bill Brysons and see if I can find out. :)I've ordered a couple of books from Amazon and they came in a box. Naturally Morgan thought the box and papers were for her.Lately I've started a new art project for the helluvit. I did some mixed media on card stock. At first I chose four pieces of card and started tearing and gluing papers together but then the four were done too fast and so I did six more. And also had to find a congratulations card for a friend's daughter who has graduated law. Do you know how hard it is to find a nice congratulations card at Christmas time? I'm telling you...very!Saturday evening C and I had tixs to the opera. Now I love opera, but C...not so much, but she loves listening to the pure voices. So I washed the paint and glue off my hands and we dressed and put our lipstick on and off we went to the Queen Elizabeth Theatre.There was a police situation in Vancouver and the worst case scenario happened and both the bridges, the only way for me to get downtown, were closed almost all afternoon. That meant monster traffic...in the rain. So I left early to make sure we got there in plenty of time. It turns out that by 6pm the traffic wasn't so terrible and we made it with plenty of time to relax, grab a drink and have some fun people watching. The lobby of the theatre began to fill with all sorts of interesting people.The opera was a modern opera called Albert Herring by Benjamin Britten. Fun production, brilliant acting, beautiful voices...not a single melody in sight...(sigh). We enjoyed it but also didn't enjoy it...you know what I mean? I promised C a good Puccini or Wagner next.Sunday morning dawned much brighter. Morgan wasn't having any of it though.C came and cuddled up in my bed and we talked philosophy. No...seriously...we talked out the ethics and morals of Woody Allen's Crimes and Misdemeanours. Does anyone like that movie? Imaginative, wasn't it? C had to write a 400 word forum post saying whether she agreed with or disagreed with Rabbi Ben's Divine Command Theory outlook on morals. But since she's never been raised with any kind of dogma, and doesn't even know the first thing about God, Christ...etc...it was a bit of a brain twister for her...but she got it done.Sunday bad-for-you lunch: home made french fries. I know...but it's only once in a while.Then I got back to work on my ten cards.I had so much fun over these past three days making these cards that now I want to make more. I painted little surprises into each one, like birds or a cat, or villages and flowers. And I stamped each one with a special little VR stamp instead of signing them. Now I don't know what to do with them, although my friend Dawn does a brilliant card exchange which might be fun to take part in.Morgan still wasn't having any of it. :)Now that I've carried on for a mile and a half and if you've stuck with me then you're my brave loves... :) It's Sunday evening now and I'm sitting in the living room beside a fire and thinking that, with all the turmoils and ups and downs and heartaches, this life isn't so bad after all. Hope your weekend was lovely too. I'm about to go stalk all of you who I usually stalk and then some more of you and then anyone I can think of and, If I haven't found you, if you leave me a comment, I'll come see you too. :)Linking with Mary for Mosaic Monday.