Enjoy Life - It's Delicious

Today was kitchen clean up day - such a good feeling to have everything bright and shiny - until the next greasy, splattering pots boil over!! The 'frig looks great too now that all those leftover veggies have gone to the compost bin.

Even kitchen walls can display the written word - my love of lettering is omnipresent in my home.

I love Emma Bridgewater's "Nursery Ware" crockery. The words remind me of my childhood in an English kitchen.................and TOAST & MARMALADE still is, and always will be my most favorite breakfast!!
Umm....................can you smell the most delicious Italian risotto cooking on the stove? Best ever was in the little cellar restaurant under my hotel in Cortona, Italy - so loaded with black truffles and Parmigiano Reggiano I thought I'd died and gone to heaven! Cortona, home of Frances Mayes of "Under the Tuscan Sun" fame, is a beautiful hill town - well worth a stop on the way from Rome to Florence.

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I recently made this container for my arborio rice - was really pleased with the result.

Kitchen is closed................back in the morning, perhaps for porridge with brown sugar and cream, next best thing to the toast & marmalade!!!

Sunday Teatime

At exactly four o'clock this afternoon dear hubby and I stopped our respective busy work inside the house - we're getting ready for family visiting from Arizona this week - made a lovely pot of tea, and took it with a plate of chocolate biscuits to the gazebo. Temperature had reached 75 and it was beautiful outside. Great to relax for half an hour, watch the robins and woodpeckers who seemed the busiest birds around today, the daffodils dancing in the light breeze, and just enjoy the total feeling of Spring in the garden.

Two of my favorite teapots. The pretty blossom painted one above I use often for afternoon tea parties. Below is the very special delicate pot for one with matching cup and saucer, tiny side plate and bowl, which belonged at first to my Grandmother, and was then acquired by me from my dear Mother's estate. This coming Thursday will be four years since her death................I will make myself a special cup of English tea in the little pot that afternoon before calling my brother in France to talk about "our Mum". How special she was................how much we miss her.

First tulips appeared this weekend - tiny ones tucked among the pansies in a pot!

Sending each of you a breath of Spring.

Let There Be Lights!

Remember I mentioned English lampshades? Here are some of my creations. This photo was taken for a business promotion some years ago when I was designing and sewing custom shades, and selling them for money!! No longer, too hard to market and do all the actual work........and fingers are not so nimble now! I was taught by my Mother who made them in England - found a custom frame maker in California, started hunting for beautiful silks and trimmings, then pulled, pinned, and stitched until my fingers were like pin cushions! All this while still holding a full time job. Most of the shades around the house I've made. Drawers and boxes of leftover fabrics, braids, tassels, trims, now await new and less intensive projects.

If only the days were longer and time went by slower, right?

This is a little "angel shade" I had fun with - made from organza and sporting a silky tassel.

Dining room chandelier shades made from embossed silk bridal fabric - have left the holiday garland up because it looks so pretty and quite appropriate for Spring too!

Hope your life is full of light.

Lemons and Cottages

Trying all the lemon remedies I can get my hands on - drinking them with honey, sucking on them in lozenges, just looking at them and wishing this cold away. I've kept this page from a magazine on my 'frig all Winter. After pears, lemons are my favorite fruit for shape, color, and cooking..........how clean they smell. My Mother told me she craved lemons when pregnant with me - would suck on them despite their acidity. Could this be why I love them so?

The village of Cockington is a quick walk along a narrow country lane from my childhood home in Devon. It's where I spent many a Summer's day playing. The thatched cottages are amazing and although some are now gift shops and tea rooms, the 14th century forge is there and the farrier still shoes the local farmers' horses. The church, just visible behind the Manor House in the small picture, is 12th century and I attended an aunt's wedding there. This special village was first mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086.
Lovely old books with peeling spines - what tales do they hide? Golden daffodils are very pretty - creamy narcissi full of perfume are extremely gorgeous. For those of us who are into altered books, these aged ones are much too fragile to play with, but if you are lucky enough to have some this is a lovely way to display them for Spring.

"...............................there are five ploughs and fourteen serfs and six cottagers (occupiers of smallholdings not exceeding 5 acres). There are 15 acres of meadow, 50 acres of pasture, and 50 acres of wood........worth 50 shillings"..............Domesday Book of 1086.

Now that was true "cottage living".

One of those days

Well the cottage cleaning went much slower than planned yesterday.........the sore throat of three days developed into a miserable cold which has slowed me down! Today, besides picking dh up from the airport later, I plan to doctor myself with warm lemon drinks, hot milk and brandy, and lie low - cleaning can wait, it's just too much of a chore when one is sick!

Some living room (which in England would be "sitting room") vignettes - they did get dusted thank goodness - show some of my quirky ideas. I do love the cottage style but am always ready to throw in some baroque or Bohemian bits and pieces. Also love to bring the outside in by giving some of my garden treasures time indoors. Guess that makes my style eclectic.

Garden books including my set of three, much beloved, illustrated "Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady" volumes by Edith Holden - who died tragically by drowning in the River Thames while collecting nature items to draw and paint.
Love this china jardiniere on the bottom shelf - has the French word "JARDIN" (Garden) on a green toile de jouy background - best buy ever at Ross a couple of years ago.
As mentioned earlier, I love anything with the written word - this little ROSEBUDS pot is a favorite.
I love this idea for old frames found while treasure hunting the local flea markets. If you don't have anything to fit it but still want to hang, put another already framed picture in the chosen spot and hang the empty frame around it. My English style handmade silk shades will be the subject of another story I'll save for later.

I woke before the morning, I was happy all the day, I never said an ugly word, but smiled and stuck to play.............................Robert Louis Stevenson

Cottage Cleaning

News just in, read all about it..........family company coming from Arizona next week to celebrate St. Patrick's Day. My husband's Grandparents were from County Kerry. So, will spend today doing some much needed sprucing up around the house! We enjoy our fireplace so much on chilly nights and burn good oak wood - makes a lot of dust though!

I do enjoy collecting soup tureens - usually white or cream. Love making soup, especially from recipes from the old British "Cranks" vegetarian restaurant in London which has been around since the sixties! A couple of good hot soups, crusty bread, and a beautiful salad, make a quick Winter evening party...................especially with a good bottle of wine or some hearty ale along side. Always finish up with a rich classic English dessert - sherry trifle is our favorite!

Hibernian Pub will be just the place after the downtown parade on March 17 - quite authentic with beautiful old wood bar imported from Ireland, handsome Irish bartenders.............and really scrumptious "fish 'n chips". Come on by, would love to meet you there, raise a glass, and wish you the Luck of the Irish!

Must leave you for now - don't you just hate having to put creative endeavors aside to do housework, sigh!

A COTTAGE IS...........................................

................a little bit of heaven on earth.

If someone asked you "what's your definition of a cottage?" how would you answer? Many of us who read these wonderful "cottage blogs" really do embrace the idea of turning our homes into cottages even though we are living in the American version! Sometimes the outside of our house almost resembles a cottage style, though probably without a thatched roof! We paint in country colors, build garden structures, plant pots of cottage garden flowers, grow peas, beans, and oh so British Brussels sprouts, get hollyhocks to make a Summer fence, linger on teak benches by goldfish ponds, and serve tea in Summer houses and conservatories. Meanwhile inside - we plan, design, paint, sew, arrange, and then rearrange furniture, burn wood fires, hunt flea markets and yard sales for treasures, all in hopes of eventually living the cottage life...................and revelling in that comfy, warm, snug, country inspired feeling, the true feeling of home.
(Some years ago there was a British thatcher living here in North Carolina and I wanted so much to have him thatch my potting shed - alas I waited too long and he upped and moved to France to cook as he was also a trained chef).


My home in Devon, England is well known for tiny villages and hamlets tucked away in the river valleys and rolling countryside. Dairy farming has been a way of life since Anglo-Saxon times - and of course Devonshire Cream teas are always announced on a rustic, handprinted sign on the farmhouse gate.

Do tell me about your cottage dreams. Why do you like this style of living? With so many huge homes now being built here, why have you decided a smaller, cozy cottage is more your style? Have you ever been to the British Isles and visited authentic cottages.......in villages or at the seaside perhaps?