Scent trail

Nigel Slater's list of favourite scents:

moss

snow

dim sum

beeswax

old books

cardamom

warm flapjacks

a roasting chicken

a freshly snapped runner bean

cress seeds sprouting on wet blotting paper

a whiff of white narcissi on a freezing winter's day

Mine:

apple wood smoke
lily of the valley

wet nasturtiums
privet flowers
garam masala
lime blossom
wallflowers
new carpet
lemon zest
new bread
bluebells
cut grass

creosote
mimosa
saffron
vanilla
WD40

gorse

Yours?

Getting things into perspective

 One of the things I learned the hard way was 

that it doesn’t pay to get discouraged. 

Keeping busy and making optimism a way of life 

can restore your faith in yourself.

 Lucille Ball

Snap it up

while you can.

Summer was doing its best to fulfill its obligations.

Or as Son the Younger less forgivingly put it:

"Uh, hi, I'd like to return this summer please. It appears to be faulty."

Sunrise, sunset

Fifties Find

I've been looking for some curtain material.

I had an idea I wanted splashy yellow roses 

on a grey background.

I could picture it, but I couldn't find it.

All the usual avenues having been exhausted

and prices per metre being shockingly high

for anything I quite liked,

I turned to a well known auction site.

And sitting there on the haberdasher's counter

 was a bolt of 7 yards 16 inches of unused

1950s Bevis fabric made for Simpson and Godlee.

Priced at £1 6s 11d per yard when new,

this would have cost me the equivalent of almost £200.

There was one other customer, eyeing it speculatively.

I turned out my purse for sixpences, threepenny bits,

florins and half crowns.

I opened my wallet for blue fivers, brown ten bob notes

 and green pounds.

I thought I might have enough.

The auction ended this afternoon.

Mine for £25. Happy me.

I'll have it sent. It's quite heavy.

But will I dare cut into it?

Gathered together

 We've had a holiday

which took in

a smiling lamb,

 English bluebells,

Wood anemones,

 unfurling hazel leaves,

 goldfish in a moat,

the hall window at Lamb's House,

home to Henry James and E.F. Benson,

graffiti in the mill at Bateman's,

Rudyard Kipling's home,

Japonica on a quiet afternoon at Sissinghurst,

opalescent magnolia in the White Garden,

(the better for not being seen in strong sunshine),

swans in reeds,

swans in fields,

an urn to remember, planted with clematis,

and Great Dixter

with a surprising sight, 

not photographed out of compassion;

a pot of well past it hyacinths in its front of porch display.

Strangely comforting to remember

when one returns to ones less than perfect abode.

Discontinued

Scotney Castle in Kent, an English country house

with this ruined medieval moated manor house in its garden.

What did I like best ?

This wallpaper
by Colefax and Fowler.

Digging for treasure

in the garden.

Beautiful intact glass and stoneware bottles.

Better than gold coins, in my book.

Wrong number

Ring ring, ring ring, ring ring.

Me to indistinct voice replying:

Hello is that xyz estate agents?

Indistinct voice now sounding rather startled:

Actually no, this is The Bank of England.

Oh the rejoinders I have come up with since hanging up.

What I actually said:

Ah. Sorry about that.

What would you have said?

Ain't no stopping us now