Cornflower

Deco-rating

     A chance find in the Oxfam bookshop the other day, The Twenties in "Vogue"looks at that stylish decade through the pages of its most influential magazine. Reproduced are all sorts of curiosities from an article by Nancy Mitford on "The Shooting Party", to glimpses of nursery life: "Only the perambulators pushed by nurses serving peeresses are allowed to promenade [on a certain walk in Hyde Park]", and a piece on Christmas by Aldous Huxley.

Here's an entry from Vogue's diary pages: "I dashed to Gordon Place to end the evening in a Bloomsbury attic with a few best friends. The  Bloomsburyites know that houses get better towards the top - lighter, brighter and cheaper. Supper was in a charming room hung with newspapers of all nations....varnished over with a pleasant mellow tint. Food and drink were just right; cup in an inexhaustible brown 'cruse', pears and cream, foie gras, hot toast and chipped potatoes....While peppermints were consumed we argued about The Green Hat [see below].Then....our generous host let us all choose books to borrow".

In "New books for your morning room table", Virginia Woolf gets the thumbs up for "To the Lighthouse": "VW is the revolution. She writes as naturally as she breathes..." while Agatha Christie's "The Mystery of the Blue Train" comes in for some criticism: "This is a pretty fair detective story. The author cheats rather carelessly and never bothers to justify or explain a number of things...". Thomas Mann's "Death in Venice" is described as "...not unworthy of him", and Evelyn Waugh's "Decline and Fall" "...has a steadily tonic quality".

Michael Arlen's The Green Hat was the bestseller of the decade, and Simon's reading the new edition of this tale of the high life on the Riviera.

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Later: Thanks to Peter (see comments) for the link to Vogue's Cover Archives - worth visiting!

Diorissimo

     What a lovely little book this is! Paul Gallico's Flowers for Mrs. Harris is the delightful tale of a London charlady's yearning for a Dior dress, how she sets about getting one and what happens to her and to those she meets along the way, all of whom benefit from their encounter with this unlikely fairy godmother.

     My Penguin copy says: "Paul Gallico possesses a unique talent for presenting fairy tales in modern dress. A reader must have grown old and crusty if he has closed his mind to so much charm", and as one whose mind is very much open to such things and who retains the capacity to be entranced and uplifted by books, I can thoroughly recommend it.

    We meet Mrs. Ada Harris on a flight to Paris - a day trip with the sole purpose of buying a dress from the House of Dior. How she has the means to fund this extravagant purchase I shan't reveal, nor shall I say what happens to her when she reaches her destination, but here's a snippet from the couturier's grey-carpeted interior:

"She found herself in a curtained-off cubicle.....Each cubicle held a woman like a queen bee in a cell, and through the corridors rushed the worker bees with the honey - armfuls of frilly, frothy garments in colours of plum, raspberry, tamarind, and peach, gentian-flower, cowslip, damask rose and orchid.....Here was indeed woman's secret world ... the battlefield where the struggle against the ravages of age was carried on with the weapons of the dressmaker's art and where fortunes were spent in a single afternoon".

    From one charming book to others, I hope: can anyone recommend other "fairy tales in modern dress", or books which just make you feel better for reading them? And thanks again to Justine for writing about Mrs. Harris the other day - I hadn't heard of it before I read her post.

Lady in lavender

     Inspired by Tessa Evelegh's gorgeous Lavender: A Heritage Book of Creative Ideas I'm making lavender bags.

A dip into my box of ribbons and embroidery threads produced the raw materials in the perfect colours.

The book gives instructions for simple closed sachets made from pieces of silk, decorated with velvet ribbon and pretty buttons (pictured second from the left at the top of the cover - above), but I've gone for plain white cotton with the top left open (secured by a ribbon) so that the lavender can be refilled or freshened with a drop of essential oil.

It's so long since I did any embroidery that I'm very rusty (and even began yesterday without a hoop) but with the right tools for the job this morning I'm making progress. Bag number one is sitting on my desk as I type and the fragrance is wonderful!

Later:

The second one is now finished. In answer to Lisa's question (in the comments), I made up the designs - if you can call anything as basic as these, 'designs' - as I went along.

Local heroes

     I'm sticking to home ground today, mentioning some Edinburgh businesses which I like, so here in no particular order are local links worth following:

Jane Raven is an artist working in glass and stone; she's a member of the Scottish Lettercutters Association and makes pieces to commission. We have a couple of her pebbles (one of them is pictured here) and I covet more of her beautiful work which is occasionally exhibited close in our part of town.

Jonathan Lassen is a master craftsman with wood. A talented furniture designer, he made our wall of bookshelves ( visible here ) and he is an extremely nice person!

Many of the knitters reading this will already be familiar with Ysolda's designs which are very fresh and innovative. If you don't know her work, pop over and have a look at her website.

The Yarn Yard has been in my list of links over there on the right pretty much from the beginning of this blog, and I'm delighted to say that Natalie is going from strength to strength, producing hand-dyed yarns in marvellous colours, and fibre, too (enough to make me want to take up spinning). Natalie runs her business from just outside Edinburgh, she provides a very fast, friendly service and her regular shop updates are worth waiting for. The Keep Soldiering On Scarf, the Gardening in the Rain Socks and the recent Cranford Mitts were all made with her yarn.

Another permanent member of the links list is Fidra Books, run by Vanessa and Malcolm, and specialising in bringing back into print children's books which should never have gone out of it. I've mentioned their books before (here  and here) and their shop here, and long may both sides of their business flourish!

Known not just locally but internationally now, Valvona and Crolla is an Edinburgh institution. It's the most wonderful delicatessen, wine merchant and cafe, and is worth visiting for the sights, sounds and smells alone!

Friday flowers

     A few days of warm weather has brought everything on all of a sudden, though the wisteria and lilac - which we think of as May flowers - have a good bit to go yet up here in the north.

This tulip is Recreado. Some of its fellows must have been affected by a virus as this year and last they've been sporting white markings on their ribena-stain petals:

Below is the even darker Queen of the Night,

a lovely satiny damson colour.

The cherry blossom brings to mind a handkerchief-hem chiffon dress!

    

Flowery books

     Just arrived in the mail, two 'flowery books'. The first looks delectable: Tessa Evelegh's Lavender: A Heritage Book of Creative Ideas is full of inspiring projects from needlework to cakes, all using this beautiful and versatile plant. I'll be trying out a few as soon as I can.

     That's one of our lavender bushes behind Mollie, not in flower yet, of course (I've just spotted a nettle lurking under it!!), but the scent of the foliage alone is lovely. I'm a great believer in the therapeutic powers of lavender and I always keep a bottle of the essential oil to hand. It goes on pillows to help sleep, in baths for relaxation, gets rubbed on temples for headaches, is dabbed on sunburn, insect bites, cuts and grazes. I use it on the dogs too.

      

      I read about Paul Gallico's Flowers for Mrs.Harris on Justine's blog recently and felt I must get a copy. It looks like a lovely treat of a read and the perfect contrast to the ongoing travails of Voss!

Matters literary

     Our good friend Peter the Flautist ("Dark Puss"), regular visitor to and commenter on this site, tells me of a bookish conversation he had this morning with a very well known lady novelist. The Lady Novelist suggested that writers today have much less to say than those of the past but are much better at saying it.

    I'll let Peter elaborate on this if he has a moment to do so, but before throwing it open to anyone who has a view, I would refer you to something Simon Schama will be talking on soon - he'll be comparing Carlyle and Ruskin (click for details) whose style, he says, "seemed to violate every canon of decent lucidity in the Anglo-Victorian book".

    So is the Lady Novelist right, or can we argue the case both ways? Who are the best prose stylists today and in earlier times, and do we have "less to say" now?

Country Life asks....

I'd say yes,

but then I'm biased!

De-cluttering

      I am de-cluttering my computer. There is probably a technical name for the process but I'll call it 'having a clear out'.  The poor old machine is struggling to function under the weight of the information stored in it, so to avoid spontaneous combustion (I'm not joking - it's getting very hot!), I am tossing all the duff pictures and old documents into the recycle bin and shifting the ones I want to keep to a stack of CDs (that's the mystery object pictured below). When I've freed up enough space I shall be defragmenting, and then there'll be no stopping me!

     However, it's not just the computer which needs to be cleared - there are areas of my house in which things have magically multiplied (or so it seems) and the excess needs to go. I shall have to invoke William Morris and make a start. I read "Clutter accumulates when energy stagnates [I can divine your sceptical expression from here, Lindsay...] and likewise energy stagnates when clutter accumulates". One category of clutter I've discovered is "Anything Unfinished" - all you knitters out there, just how many w.i.p.s do you have?

    So, lots to do - better get on with it - but if anyone has any de-cluttering anecdotes which might inspire me, do please tell !

The way through the woods

     Our walk to the beach yesterday took us down an avenue of cherries and beech trees

to this turf-roofed log cabin - I read that it (or perhaps its predecessor) was built for Queen Victoria to take tea in when she visited Tyninghame.

The cabin looks out to sea (the Bass Rock is just visible).

We spotted primroses, forget-me-not, violets,

saw the curious flowers of the ash,

uncurling bracken,

and masses of coconut-scented gorse.

Glass works

     To respond to Peter's comment on the previous post, what about the esteemed Philip Glass, who writes for films and is a 'serious' composer - mentioned in The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century! If you have a look at his website (and you can hear some of his music there) you'll see his work described as "Sonic weather that twists, turns, surrounds, develops: extended reiteration of brief, elegant melodic fragments that [weave] in and out of an aural tapestry" - a lovely description of compelling music. His score for The Hours was perfect.

And we haven't even mentioned Michael Nyman yet!

Barry, Bond and beyond

     A drive down to the coast this morning gave an opportunity to listen to a CD I hadn't heard for a while: John Barry: The Beyondness of Things (if you follow that link you can hear excerpts of the tracks).

      Barry is best known as a composer of film scores and as such his music is easily recognised, but that shouldn't cloud the fact that he writes wonderfully good tunes.

      Does anyone remember this programme for instance? Or how about Out of Africa and Midnight Cowboy. He's best known for his Bond scores, of which these are a few of the less obvious ones: Moonraker (sung by Shirley Bassey), Thunderball (Tom Jones !) and, in a very different mood, Louis Armstrong singing All the time in the world.

     (The beach was this one, by the way, and the morning as perfect as it looks in the pictures).

Heat and dust

     

     I'm deep in the Australian outback with Voss, and if you are reading along and finding the book - like the expedition - a touch slow going, it does pick up! In terms of atmosphere it has something of Joan Lindsay's Picnic at Hanging Rock about it, and it has reminded me that I've had another Australian book, Eucalyptus by Murray Bail, waiting on my wishlist for a while.

    When it comes to Books and cakes for "Voss", a few things have already suggested themselves. Damper bread, anyone?

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The picture is Native village in the northern interior of South Australia, c. 1846, by Samuel Thomas Gill.

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Re. Peter's comment, I rather liked the sound of Lembas, myself! Or perhaps I should consult Ray Mears Goes Walkabout?

To think of, if not to do...

     I've pinched today's title from Lindsay who used the line here, and very neat and apt it is. I asked Mr. C. if he had any brilliant ideas for subject-matter for today's post and he was swift and pointed in his reply: "Why you should be shopping". Waitrose beckons, you see, I hear its siren-call, or perhaps that's the rumbling tummies of my family: "The cupboard's bare, Mummy!" they cry, but the thought of planning the meals, making the list and then doing the rounds with the trolley does not appeal today.

     What I need are a few of Simon's feline excuses (dogs, by the way, don't go in for such devices - they are usually so eager to please that they'll obey and if they do do something naughty they'll own up rather than trying to shirk responsibility: "I admit I've been digging and I've trailed mud onto your clean floors, but I'm sorry and I love you really..." - that's the canine style). For my part, I don't think "I've got to a good bit in my book and I can't possibly leave it now" would wash, somehow.

     Contemplating shopping brings to mind a collection of hazards for the unwary or the unwitting. In our supermarket there are often hordes of boarders from the nearby school who effectively clutter the place as they supplement their meagre rations with basket loads of extra tuck. Then there are the men-of-a-certain-age left 'parked' (usually in the middle of the aisles) while their wives bustle off in search of some forgotten item; the "inconveniently shaped women" who get in the way (to quote the writer's father in this book), the people too involved in their mobile phone conversations to realise they are about to run you over with their trolley, the women who deliberate too long and too hard over which bar of chocolate to buy, effectively preventing all other access to the confectionery shelves the while. The list goes on. Naturally I don't fall into any of these categories, being decisive, unobtrusive and purposeful at all times (not to mention conveniently shaped) ... 

Pick up a Penguin

     My thanks to Ros for alerting me to the latest batch of Penguin Classics which are being given away. Visit Blog a Penguin Classic, register, and they'll send you a free book, chosen at random. You then have six weeks to read it and write a review for their site.

     Ros mentioned that while she's getting some Nietzsche, a friend is being sent "The Wind in the Willows"! Have I drawn the short straw here by being allocated Samuel Richardson's Pamela: Or, Virtue Rewarded? We shall see....

    If you sign up, do come back and tell us what you've got.

Snickerdoodles

     Here are the Snickerdoodles I mentioned yesterday, this batch baked by Alice to Nigella's recipe from How to Be a Domestic Goddess: Baking and the Art of Comfort Cooking (I've given the title in full as "comfort cooking" is such an appealing concept!)