Curtain making.

Curtain making is not my most favourite thing, but this was a simple task, just a door curtain.

The hall door has a glass insert which lets a lot of light in in the evenings from a streetlight nearby.

I remembered this fabric which I bought in France about 10 years ago, and hoarded!

It is just perfect with the green and white striped wallpaper.

I still have the hem to do, but right now it is pinned up and I'm doing what my mother used to advise....'just hang it up and let the hem drop'.

Which , translated, means 'I'll get round to it soon'

(Not being a professional photographer I hadn't realised that a glimpse of my untidy computer desk in an adjacent room was part of the photo...........)

A bit of Truro.

Many years ago, Truro was full of family businesses.

I remember going with my grandmother into shops where a chair would be offered to her as she chose her groceries. The butcher knew everyone by name.

We have lost, over the latter years, a family jewellers, caring , reliable, there to serve their customers.

We have lost a beautiful china shop run by a family.

An antique shop has gone the way of many others.

Clothes shops , non-chain, but run by families, have gone.

But this remains.

Once known as Malletts, and run by the Mallett family for over 125 years, the shop is now Home Hardware. But strangely enough, apart from the (non)presence of Mr Mallett, it has changed very little. 

We were there this morning. 

There are two floors and a steep staircase, which is impossible for my husband.

Asking for a temperature gauge, he was told that it was on the other floor. But noticing my husband's stick, the lady on the counter said, in  a lovely Cornish accent " You wait there, m'dear, and I'll go and get un for you"

She told us she had been with the company for 23 years. She has certainly kept up the old traditions.

A poem for Lent.

The trees are coming into leaf
Like something almost being said;
The recent buds relax and spread,
Their greenness is a kind of grief.

Is it that they are born again
And we grow old? No, they die too.
Their yearly trick of looking new
Is written down in rings of grain.

Yet still the unresting castles thresh
In fullgrown thickness every May.
Last year is dead, they seem to say,
Begin afresh, afresh, afresh.

Philip Larkin

Banana split?

Lately we have heard some horror stories here in the UK, about unwanted animal items in salad bags, insects in food packaging etc.

It came home with a vengeance when our son in law was bitten by a spider in a bag of organic bananas.

These are apparently put in to cold storage for shipping/flying. It only takes two days for fruit to fly over from Puerto Rico, Singapore , Africa amongst others. So spider has a quiet sleep, and as soon as he gets unpacked he is dying for a meal. 

Which is often the nearest human.

My son in law went off to the hospital, with the dead spider , which fortunately he had caught, and it was identified as a foreign one. The bite that he had was very unpleasant,and  left him with a swollen and blackened hand. He is now on very strong antibiotics.

The store have to be visited by Health and Safety officials.

We have actually seen the young staff opening bags of bananas on the store floor, thereby letting who knows what loose.

The manager told my son in law that it shouldn't happen as 'all imported  fruit is irradiated'.

I don't want to eat irradiated fruit so I think I'll stay with locally grown produce.

Memo...check what you buy if it is bagged, and wash everything.

Washing line.

Blue sky.

Very strong wind.

Table cloth fast taking flight.

No, that's not a  nightshirt. It's a costume for the school assembly.

To be worn by an Egyptian.

I think.

So grateful for a sunny, windy day when washing dries on the line.

New hallway.

I said that I would show you the hallway now that it is finished.

We chose a Honey Maple wood flooring, and somehow it has lifted the whole area.

I no longer feel that the hall is "elderly"!

You can click to enlarge the photo to give a better idea.

I love the way our carpenter laid the planks on the return and I do like the little trim he has incorporated..

I'd really like to do the whole house........

Another step forward!

Flowers in Lent?

When we went to the evening service at the tiny church by the water, I was very surprised to see that there was a beautiful flower arrangement of flowers by the altar.

Normally we don't have flowers in Lent. It's the season of putting aside decoration, looking at the sparse and simple way of life during the time.

But our sweet churchwarden said that an elderly lady, whose turn it was to do the flowers had not realised it was Lent.

He said 'I am sure that God won't mind.

I'm sure he is right.

(sharing Lent thoughts with Floss and others)

Hallway happenings

This is how my hallway looked yesterday, complete with greeny/gray carpet which didn't add anything to the look. It seemed to be made of man made fibres and was very difficult to get really clean.

This is how it looks today after the carpet has been removed and a plywood layer put down.

As we have to wait for it to dry, I can't show you any more until tomorrow.

I hope it will look better than it does today.

Camellia day.

Emerging from the mist into a beautifully sunny day.

It's amazing what it does for the morale.

(when in France this was one of the anxious queries whenever health was discussed..... 'But how is the morale?)

I have a line of washing blowing in the breeze.

I saw a Long tailed Tit on the feeder, rare here.

I have won an Ebay auction for my daughter.

And on my run to the surgery to pick up prescriptions I saw Camellias, opening in a flush of gorgeous pinks.

Camellias are a particular feature in Cornish gardens and all the NT properties have many fine and rare examples. But the ones I saw today were just in front gardens.

Ours in the garden are not yet fully open.

How lovely it would be to have a sheltered walled garden to grow them in.

(source, BBC )

Today I shall be out in our little garden, cutting back a rogue clematis and generally tidying up.

Happy weekend!

Very thick mist.

Brain in low gear (very).

I want to write , but I can't think of what I want to say.

It sounds a bit like...

mumble mumble

blahblahblah

Um

Tra la la

Erm...

It's a bit like being lost in a thick mist.

I keep wandering in to a room and thinking 'What did I come here for?'

I do know, and it is comforting, that at last one other blogger found herself in this position recently.

Does it take long for the words to form shapes again, Tina?

Valentines

The Valentine cards produced many years ago (when I was young) were so pretty. They were beautifully designed, often with lacy bits, gentle colours and the odd angel or three. 

I always bought one for my mother who valiantly pretended she hadn't a clue who it was from.

Now the cards are bright, brash, often funny, but with the essential message of love.

St Valentine , who was a Roman, lived in the third century, believed in Christian marriage

and was eventually martyred for his faith.

Although it is a happy day, let's just remember that there will be many people who won't be receiving cards. Anne at 'Wildflowers and Tea' suggests that it would be nice to take a little card or a gift to the lonely ones on that day. I think that's a thoughtful idea.

Pancake day!

Taken from the Lakeland website.

Are you making pancakes today?

Shrove Tuesday is the day, known in France as Mardi Gras, when the tradition is to eat up all the rich foods before the time of fasting as Lent begins. Mardi Gras translates as Fat Tuesday.

Crepes, the French version of our pancakes, are eaten throughout the year, and we have spent many a happy day choosing a filling for a hot crepe eaten straight from the paper while wandering around the market.

Sugar, apricot jam, chocolate?

We will be having them with a sprinkle of sugar and a dash of fresh lemon juice.

Dear Daughter...do you remember how clever your older brother was at tossing pancakes?

Are you having the English version today?

Horse and Carriage.

This is to be a new project for Truro.

The Lizard Stallions, George and Ringo (great names!) are pulling a 100 year old omnibus, apparently one of a kind in England.

The omnibus once plied its trade at Southampton docks, and was rescued by the couple who have set up this business. 1000 hours of renovation were needed.

The city council are considering the application for the omnibus to work in Truro on two days of the week, market days.

I think our Summer tourists would love a ride in this historical transport. The council, practical as ever, are worried about what they term as 'the manure'.

I'm sure they could employ a street sweeper as of old?

Nostalgia...

We've been watching Monty Don on his tour of French Gardens tonight.

It's  beautiful series of programmes. Monty doesn't just visit gardens, he considers the relationship between what is grown and how it is enjoyed as food.

From North to South, his visits include Monastery gardens, chateaux, vineyards, and simple allotments. He meets the growers, talks with them, tastes delicious plates of vegetables, munches strawberries in the market...

A place that we loved was the Chateau of Villandry, where the gardens are laid out in a geometric fashion and the beds are filled with vegetables, grown solely for decoration. I could have stayed for a week in this garden, which we visited in 2007.

Just for a moment or two I wanted to be back, in the Asparagus village in the warm South, tasting peaches from the roadside stall, choosing strawberries in the market, gazing at stalls laden with peppers, auberginess and courgettes. 

Somehow British cabbages haven't got quite the mystique!

Fabric buys

I've been having  little hunt around Ebay recently, just to top up my fabric collection. Somehow it had decreased in size, and I thought it was time for some new additions.

I've been pleasantly surprised at the variety of designs and colours available, and at reasonable prices too. If I buy at auction I set myself a figure that I will not go above. Sometimes I lose, sometimes I win.

This is my latest buy, 6 pieces of cotton in very pretty designs.

Now I need to bend my mind to some serious sewing!

Open the Book

Our church group are taking fortnightly assemblies at the local school, where I used to teach.

We use a series called 'Open the Book' based around the Lion Storyteller Bible.

Here we are poised behind the Burning Bush, with Moses wearing a very fetching beard.

Today was the story of the passage through the Red Sea, and you can see the children getting ready. The 'children of God' had packed their belongings ready to leave Egypt (note the suitcase!)

Head dresses were being fixed and the sea was in place!

It is all a very simplified version, but the children love the productions and can't wait for the next episode.

Daffodils

Picked from my garden yesterday.

Spring isn't yet here, but these cheer me.

There are lots of hopeful looking green spears in the garden, so I'm waiting to see what comes up. 

Mini-daffodils are the prettiest of Spring flowers.

Mr Selfridge

I wonder if anyone else is enjoying the Television series called 'Mr Selfridge'?

It tells the story of the opening of the first department store in London, at a time when true ladies, the aristocracy , did not go  to a shop for clothing, but had their own personal dressmaker. Mr Selfridge is portrayed in the series as a man with a driving ambition, to have the most talked about store in Town.

I have fond memories of my first visit to the store, when I was about fourteen years old. It was a huge excitement being up in London with my mother, but this store was truly amazing.

It is galleried, so that you can see up to the top floors, rather like Galeries Lafayette in Paris. For me it was such a special occasion, as I was allowed to choose one item of clothing, and my dream was to have a Circular Skirt, totally in fashion at that time. I wore that skirt for years!

I'm not sure how true to life the TV series is, with all its twists and turns, but it is fascinating to watch, and I do love the gorgeous costumes worn by all the ladies. Even the shop assistants manage to look elegant.

I still have, so many years later, one tiny piece of china that my mother bought that day. 

Priceless, to me.