Cornflower

Mothers' day

Pictured here is the beautiful orchid my children gave me this morning for Mothers' Day. In the event it was only one child who handed it over as one was still in bed and another out on his paper round, but they'd all signed a lovely card and even if the provider of breakfast in bed was my husband, rather than my children, it's the thought that counts and a general sense of appreciation coming my way.

Being a mother is one of the hardest - and yet the most rewarding - of occupations. Consider the investment of time, effort and emotional energy in a lifelong 'career' with no training but for common sense and learning through experience, no pay except for the unquantifiable satisfaction of seeing little tots turn into nice young people, no time off (even for good behaviour) and no pensioned retirement because the job never ends.

But, we do it for love, and that reason transcends everything, so we put up with the hard times (and there are many) and enjoy the better moments and the days when we feel that we must be doing something right, and though we worry, fret, agonise, cajole, encourage, praise, and care endlessly,

had we known just how tough it can be to be a parent, we'd still have done it and would do it all over again.

As someone in the thick of motherhood (two teenagers and an eleven-year-old who aspires to the freedoms her siblings enjoy), I can yet appreciate how you never put down the mantle though your children grow up, and so I'd like to very publicly thank my own mother for all she has done and continues to do for me and my family.

And those sentiments are more lasting than flowers and chocolates!

Turning the corner

I hope I never grow so jaded or sophisticated that I no longer get excited about little things. A childlike enthusiasm and a healthy interest in different subjects is a must for keeping the spirit fresh, don't you think? So it is with knitting. As my experience broadens and my skills develop, I can't help feeling a small sense of achievement and a "wow, this actually works!" amazement.

Taking my lead from a Knitter of Distinction, I'm having a go at the world famous Elizabeth Zimmermann Ribwarmer Vest. This garment is simplicity itself yet it is ingeniously constructed from two identical U-shaped strips of garter sitch fabric (one of which is reversed to form a mirror-image - are you with me so far?), with the 'corners' created by the short row method. A few months ago I'd barely have understood a word of that description, but I'm learning every day and loving the discoveries I'm making.

As I head up the home straight on the first half, I can admire the theory behind this, even if the execution leaves something to be desired - I hope it will neaten up when it's been blocked and sewn, but we'll see when it's finished.

The yarn is a teal blue Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk, the colour of which comes out when seen in contrast to the hand-dyed mixture I'm using for a second Branching Out Scarf

No matter whether it's corners or leaves I'm making, chunky waistcoats or silky drapery, I'm having fun.

I can, Kant I?

Pretentious? Moi? Well maybe just a bit. It is many years since I had to use my head for the purposes of paid employment but I hope the grey matter hasn't quite reached the mush stage and can deal with the abstract as well as the purely practical, and when I don't know something I do try to find out. One of the advantages of being married to someone with the nickname "Two Brains" is that his encyclopaedic knowledge is there to be consulted when I need to look anything up, and yesterday when I wondered about the 'frame' as philosophical construct, he naturally had the answer.

A browse in the "Very Dusty Books" section of our collection (see above) produced some impenetrable texts, but luckily The Doc. was on hand to clear the fog. "Kant," he said as he helped me make the bed this morning, "'The Critique of Pure Reason', the bit about the dove." So just to show that a so-called "Domestic Arts Blog" (a hint of pretension, there, perhaps?) can yet include a reference to matters cerebral, here comes the quote in question, and make of it what you will. As to illustrations, where do you find light doves when you need them? As there isn't even as much as a wood pigeon in the garden this morning,  I've photographed the flying creatures my daughters made in Design Technology lessons - I'm sure Kant could have made the leap from dove to horse to dog, couldn't he?

"The light dove cleaving in free flight the thin air, whose resistance it feels, might imagine that her movements would be far more free and rapid in airless space. Just in the same way did Plato...venture upon the wings of ideas..into the void space of pure intellect."

Up, up and away!

In the frame

Taking so many pictures for this site over the last few months has given me a greater understanding of the importance of a frame for an image. What surrounds something can set it off - enhance it - or not, as the case may be.

The home is full of frames: doors, windows, alcoves, shelves, all focusing the eye on an object or a 'view'. An old house such as ours has panelling and moulding and fanlights and interior windows, all of which contribute to the frame effect where perhaps a more minimalist modern place might not.

As I walk around the house, I find I can't help seeing it in picture form, bordered by these architectural frames, some of which are only fleeting reflections, disappearing with the sun, but which I notice nonetheless.

Just as in music it is the gaps between the notes which point up the sound,

and in writing (or acting) it is timing and beat and delivery which frame the actual words to good effect,

so what surrounds something influences it significantly.

There is probably some deep philosophical theory here I'm not aware of but which might be worth a ponder in terms of the 'frames' in life.....

.....or perhaps I should just shut up and stick to baking cakes and knitting socks!

A host of golden daffodils

I first read Dorothy Wordsworth's The Grasmere and Alfoxden Journals on holiday in the Lake District where a visit to Dove Cottage is a must. Here is part of Dorothy's entry for Thursday 15th. April, 1802:

"When we were in the woods beyond Gowbarrow Park we saw a few daffodils close to the water side. We fancied that the lake had floated the seeds ashore and that the little colony had so sprung up.

But as we went along there were more and yet more and at last under the boughs of the trees, we saw that there was a long belt of them along the shore, about the breadth of a country turnpike road.

I never saw daffodils so beautiful they grew among the mossy stones about and about them,

some rested their heads upon these stones as on a pillow for weariness

and the rest tossed and reeled and danced and seemed as if they verily laughed with the wind that blew upon them over the lake,

they looked so gay ever glancing ever changing.

There was here and there a little knot and a few stragglers a few yards higher up

but they were so few as not to disturb the simplicity and unity and life of that one busy highway.

We rested again and again."

It was not until 1804 that William Wordsworth wrote "I wandered lonely as a cloud", having kept in mind the golden images from a blustery day's walk all that time.

Stuck

I admit it: it's a two-chocolate-biscuit morning. I feel stuck. I still remember those pencil-chewing moments at primary school when I was supposed to write a story and I hadn't a clue where to begin. They must have been a teacher's handy fill-in for a dull half hour or so, rather than a proper creative writing lesson, because no prompts or guidelines were given, so it was just me versus the exercise book, or blank mind meets blank page.

The challenge of posting here daily is a bit like those old school efforts, except that no-one is making me do it. I could legitimately play truant if I wanted to, but actually I don't. I love finding things to write about or photograph, putting ideas together, making something out of almost nothing, and then having lovely people comment or share a tip or an experience. It is hugely satisfying and rewarding.

In my early days of learning German my vocabulary was necessarily limited, so every piece of prose I had to write would feature characters called Hans and Klaus who went for a walk in the forest while the birds twittered in the air - the handy fill-in, again. I try to avoid such padding with my posts here, but some days the old mind goes a touch blank and I look around for inspiration, and the clock ticks and I can just see the dust motes in the sunlight from the high classroom windows, and feel the serge tunic under my bare legs, and think "I'm stuck".

Whatever the Cornflower equivalent of the adventures of Hans and Klaus is, I must try to extend my vocabulary and come up with something innovative, fresh, exciting and inspired! Sorry chaps, not today, as it's one of those mornings when making a cup of coffee is about all I'm good for.

Having a hybrid blog - one which is neither fish nor fowl - means I have a variety of categories to choose from each day, but I want to avoid becoming 'samey' and predictable, or having a focus that is too diffuse. I try to keep a rough balance between wordy posts and pictorial ones, and not concentrate too much on any one subject, but I recognise that I can't please all the people all the time, so this site is a bit of a 'lucky bag'. Does anyone remember lucky bags? I used to buy them sometimes at the old-fashioned sweet shop near my school.

Guess which one is me.......

Sea fret

Following on  from last week's maritime pictures, I've been re-reading Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea. This collection of essays was written in the 1950s and must have been way ahead of its time, as the writer speaks as eloquently for and to the modern woman as she did for an earlier generation.

Using shells from her beach-combing as the inspiration for meditations on a woman's life, she contemplates the need for and the routes to an existence of balance and harmony. This is simple and sparing prose, beautifully poised writing, and reading it is like taking a long draught of clear, cold water to slake a thirst.

Examining and orienting the 'compass points' of a woman's life: home, family, relationships, work, one's place in the world and oneself, she compares - for example - the oyster shell to the middle years of marriage: "It is untidy, spread out in all directions, heavily encrusted with accumulations and....firmly embedded on its rock." She goes on to discuss creative solitude, the natural balance achieved through stillness, and "the desire to be seen as an individual, not as a collection of functions." She observes that it is misguided to seek constancy, as all life is ebb and flow and intermittency. In other words, it is as well to swim with the tide. There is a lot of wisdom in this beautiful little book.

                                  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

My restorative dip in Mrs. Lindbergh's ocean makes me want to read more, so I'm looking forward to seeing how Return to the Sea: Reflections on Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Gift from the Sea measures up to the original.

We are the champions

They may not be Best in Show, but we love them!

Ranunculus

                    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ranunculus is from the Latin for 'little frog', I learned today. However, the name always reminds me of Roald Dahl's Big Friendly Giant, or BFG, who described things as "ridunculous". There is a superb audio version of The BFG read by the incomparable Geoffrey Palmer whose impersonation of Her Majesty The Queen is utterly wonderful!

Seeing the light

I don't think of myself, particularly, as a bandwagon-jumper. I don't feel the need to read the latest most-talked-about books, the prizewinners, the big advance-garnerers, I just read what comes along, or what I've had for a while on the shelves, or what I've been given, so the fact that Jennifer Donnelly's A Gathering Light won the Carnegie Medal and was a Richard and Judy choice (I don't watch them and know little of their judging criteria)didn't sway me at all.

Three or four years since publication, and the chatter about this book has died down, so I read it without pre-conceptions and with only a brief glance at some of the many reviews on the cover, and I found it to be a cracking tale. That said, the major plot 'hook' which is the linking of the engaging heroine, Mattie, with a true murder story seemed almost irrelevant to me, and far less compelling than Mattie's own story, but it could be argued that it gives the book another dimension and provides the impetus for a crucial decision which forms the ending.

"When Mamma was alive, she could make breakfast for seven people, hear our lessons, patch Pa's trousers, pack our dinner pails, start the milk to clabbering, and roll out a piecrust. All at the same time and without ever raising her voice". As the eldest daughter of the family, Mattie has to take on her mother's role, but is forced to choose between loyalty to her family and her own dreams and ambitions, facing the inevitable compromise between what she wants and what she can actually get.

Set in the Adirondacks in 1905/6, it demonstrates excellent research and could happily be pigeon-holed alongside "To Kill a Mockingbird", "The Yearling" and "Little Women" - impressive company. It is a satisfying read, beautifully constructed and full of detail, and now I see what all the fuss was about!

(Note: The book is published in the US as "A Northern Light", and the author's website is here).

The sea

More themed pictures, all beach-combed from our own flotsam and jetsam.

Striking a chord

Please pardon the pun, but yesterday's post seemed to strike a chord with people. What is it about music lessons, more than any other childhood attempts to learn something, that causes so much regret, unfulfilled longings, diasppointment at lack of opportunity or desire to try (again) in later life? Is it that the ability to sing or to play an instrument gives pleasure, and as music is an 'immediate' art form, it has a unique ability to entertain? If you can make music in some way, you have a creative and interpretative outlet, and because music's energy is so emotionally powerful, it connects with people to a degree that writing or art cannot - as easily - do.

This is a vast subject which can't be explored in a paragraph or two, but thinking about it reminded me of a simply lovely book I read a couple of years ago.

The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: The Hidden World of a Paris Atelier by T.E.Carhart, describes an American in Paris and his discovery of a gem of a piano shop. I learned more about pianos from this book than I ever knew there was to know, and although the technicalities are given, they are presented in such a way as to make this a fascinating and enchanting story.

Carhart writes of his own musical education, beginning with Madame Gaillard in Paris as a young child when his father was stationed there, continuing in Virginia with Miss Pemberton at whose recital evenings he had to perform, an experience like "holding my breath and swimming under water until I reached the other side". Then moving on to lessons with his Parisian teacher, Anna, having at last bought an instrument of his own. "Re-entering the world of the piano as an adult gradually brought me a series of revelations about the practice of self-discipline.."

Carhart's immense knowledge and touching enthusiasm for his subject are communicated effortlessly and in a way which should 'sound true' to any musician or music-lover. It is a delight, and whether you favour a Steinway over a Fazioli, a Pleyel or an Erard (or have yet to form an opinion on the subject) in the words of the book's final sentence, you come away with the distinct impression that "you can never have too many dream pianos". It made me see my own in a new light.

Black and white

Les, our piano tuner, is paying us a visit today. Given that I've had to dust the keyboard this morning you may get an idea of the frequency with which the piano is played just now, and it is not high. But having said that, I did sit down and had a go at mangling a perfectly decent piece of

a composer I used to know quite well.

Like many a child, I was sent to piano lessons from the age of seven or so. Every Saturday morning I was dropped off at Miss C.'s house and taken down a dark passageway to a brown-painted room at the back, lit by a single (feeble) bare bulb. Here I hammered out scales and exercises on an uninspiring upright while Miss C went elsewhere, though always within earshot, and if I played a wrong note it would be met by a piercing shriek of "E flat!!", or the like.

This was one of my early books, full of jolly little tunes on a farming theme such as "The Lost Lamb" and "Going to the Hayfield". I graduated to easy classics, sat an exam and took part in nervewracking competitions, but despite occasionally being allowed into Miss C's sunny drawing room to play her grand piano, my heart wasn't in it, and when we moved house - too far to attend lessons - I quit for good.

I did, however, promise my mother that I would keep playing, and I kept my part of the bargain so she wasn't obliged to find me another teacher. Fed up with the 'baby pieces', I moved on to meatier stuff, somehow deciphering the code and managing to grasp what I really wanted to master.

I can't claim any particular competence at all (and certainly not nowadays when I am so rusty), but a love of music can get you a long way and when I do play and it sounds half decent, it gives me enormous pleasure. Those forced to overhear may not have quite the same experience.

As to the children, both girls had piano lessons and have given up, though Will, who opted for brass rather than the keyboard, is still playing the horn, and is the natural musician of the three.

Perhaps I should make a concerted effort to recover whatever degree of fluency I used to have, so that when Les makes his six-monthly visits they won't be in vain. But even then I doubt I'd ever be able to tackle the Prokofiev Sonata I heard on the car radio the other day - the performance was so stunning I almost took my hands off the wheel to clap.

 

Leaves

Over at Bluestalking Reader, Lisa is posting some great pictures; quirky, funny, or just plain beautiful, they are worth looking at. Thanks to Ann, a regular visitor to this site, I have discovered another visually inspiring blog: 3191, compiled by two girls with a great eye for the ordinary as extraordinary. Meanwhile at Happy Things, Amy's "Year of Colour" shots focus on - yes - colour. Looking at all these images gave me the idea to take a few photographs here in the house, linked by a theme. So today I've begun with "leaves" in different forms:

Filling a gap

When breakfast feels like a distant memory and lunch is still a long way off, something has to intervene. The mid-morning snack ought to be treated with respect and made more of. Of course, the biscuit tin often has to suffice, if that's all that is available, but surely the very necessary pause for breath in a busy morning becomes more worthwhile, and of greater benefit as a battery-charger, when there is a treat to eat and a few minutes in which to savour it.

This morning I filled a gap by filling a gap: making a batch of Thumbprint Cookies whose little depressions were rounded out with hazelnut and chocolate spread.

The recipe is yet again from the much-used "Green and Black's" book, and given how much my children like the spread in question,

(they have their own named pots to avoid accusations of Nutella-nabbing), I think these should go down well post-school this afternoon, when I hear the familiar cry "How long 'til supper?".