A lemon on a plate

A new plate made by Nao Nakayama.

A lemon on the new plate.

We have been outside fighting the weeds

and decommissioning the three defunct ponds.

I went on a little longer than was wise.

I was hungry but too enervated to do more than squeeze a lemon

and stir it into olive oil and grated Parmesan.

A sauce for a bowl of tagliatelle.

Fragments

During the course of works at the Retirement Home

I have unearthed many shards

of blue and white china.

Cathy has a few pieces missing from her collection
of willow pattern china.

Can I complete the jigsaw?

Cat and mouse

peaceably basking in the slanting sunlight,

lately returned to the sitting room mantlepiece.

Last seen in The Gift

and

The Cats are back in Town

Spoil from the soil

Three bottles were excavated intact

during the digging of the foundations.

It was the best fun I've had finding a free gift 
since I last rummaged around in a cornflakes box
for a giveaway plastic parachutist.


It was always a plastic parachutist wasn't it?

Digging in drawers

I ran out of wrapping paper.

This is lining paper 

and some old Christmas ink stamps

which I found in the art drawer 

 in a huge oak plan chest which now serves as

a base for a spare mattress.

It's full of reminders of past projects -

lino cutting, collage, scrapbooks,

watercolours, charcoal drawing,

stencils, reams of coloured tissue paper,

hand made papers, acrylic paints,

calligraphy equipment, badge making,

wallets of glossy photographs, origami papers,

picture frames, sugar paper, mounting boards.

Like my kitchen drawer,

it is as revealing as an archaeological dig.

Speaking of which. 

We received planning permission for a small extension,

but it must be carried out under a watching brief

from archaeologists while the ground work takes place

in order to record any items of historical interest.

This is simultaneously rather exciting,

(visions of Time Team digging

exploratory trenches, bring in geo phys equipment

and whisking me into a helicopter to survey the emerging

Iron Age settlement)

and bloody annoying because this spells extra expense

and further delay.

I once worked on a rescue dig in what is now Milton Keynes.

We scraped very, very slowly with our tiny trowels,

and washed and bagged up countless shards of pottery

before the diggers were allowed to tear the ground up.

Runaway colour

Unstoppable, riotous colour

all weekend.

Downsizing

Where am I going to put all my

The Persimmon bowl

I have taken this from a folder labelled 

'a warm November day'.

I like this bowl.

It has splashy leaves and flowers on it,

clumsily and quirkily painted 
in a slightly oriental style.

 Something about it makes me think of 

Quentin Blake's drawings.

His website is well worth a root around,

especially for the videos about the way he works

and the interactive children's page.

Shameless toadying

My walnut whip cake.

Using my mother's walnut cake recipe

with a chocolate ganache icing.

(For Mr M.)

My Carlton ware lustre garlic bowl.

(For Mrs M.)

A foray at the V & A

What a wonderful labrynthine treasure trove

the Victoria and Albert Museum is.

I spent a while familiarising myself

with the floor plan.

And then set off in search of James Leman

and his influences -

specifically tulips.

Might he have seen this bottle?

or this dish with tulips and roses from 1575?

Might he have admired these tiles from 

the mosque of Piyale Pasha north of Istanbul?

I saw so many beautiful things,

but sadly the camera didn't cope well with the low light levels

so I can't show you the Ottoman hanging

with silk embroidered flowers and serrated leaves,

or the Turkey kemha silk with gold tulips and pomegranates 

on a green ground

scattered with red and blue rosebuds .

There were chintzes from the coast of Coromandel

(where lived the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bo)

and pull out frames of medieval tapestries and

William Morris's own take on 

Tulips in 1875.

I reached the Prints and Drawings Study Room

just too late to request sight of the fifty or so boxes

of James Leman's designs,

but they are mine for the asking next time.

By then

I was ready to assume the horizontal

and rather envied these folks

their cool marble bed.