Cornflower

Scottish misapprehensions

 

     Here's an amusing passage from Ysenda Maxtone Graham's book The Real Mrs Miniver: The Life of Jan Struther, her biography of her grandmother.

 It's an anecdote told by Jan's husband Tony about his father, Jim:
     "When my father was a young man, he was at a dinner party in Perthshire, a grand affair, all the men in their kilts and doublets. He sat next to one particularly attractive girl, and he reckoned he was doing rather well with her when he felt her hand on his knee. He thought he was in for an exciting evening. That was during the soup. During the fish she gave his knee a comforting pat from time to time. But I'm afraid that when the joint was served, all that happened was that his hairy knee was offered a morsel from the fair lady's plate."

   The book is an extremely interesting read, by the way, though not at all what you might expect to be the life story of the creator of Mrs. Miniver.

Do something different day

     I've been feeling terribly stuck in a rut lately. It's a perfectly comfortable rut, and routine is all very well and things do get done, but I'm aware of how very same-y my days are and I feel that a little variety would do me good. So I thought I'd make this 'do something different - or differently - day'. When I've pressed the button to publish this small statement of intent, I'm off to try something new (clue in this post) - which I may report on later!
    Does anyone feel like joining me (you don't have to tell us what you do!) ?

White hyacinths

 

I always feel I'm short-changing the people who drop by here if posts are pictures and little text, but I loved these white hyacinths and wanted to show them, and really, what is there to say?

(Words, today, can be found here).

Gone to seed

 Poppy seed muffins.
The paper cases were improvised, the recipe is over at Nan's, the results are delicious!

Monogrammatical

    Writing about the fabulous linen cupboard in Queen Mary's Dolls' House the other day led me to think about my own rather shamefully worn out collection of household linens. But amongst all the everyday items are things such as this small guest towel, not so easily found in the likes of John Lewis. The towel belonged to my grandmother, and below is some of her cutlery, monogrammed "EA" and given on her marriage in the 1930s.

    The age these things represent is significant. Much more formal, prescribed and precise, here was a time when people dressed for dinner and entertaining was done at tables appointed with silver and elaborate dinner services; grape scissors, fruit spoons, candelabra and epergnes might be used, all manner of things which in our much more casual era are rarely seen outside grand homes.
    Think of the bedlinen - underblanket, sheets and prettily embroidered pillowcases, blankets, quilt, counterpane (I remember Granny's glazed chintz one) - compared to the thrown over duvet of today. Our simpler lives save labour, of course, but while you can still have your silver engraved or your bedinen monogrammed for you, what was once commonplace is now so much more rare.    

Reading and knitting

    It's good to co-ordinate the two activities!
    (More on the scarf here, and on the book here).

 

In sunny mood

   
     Aren't these cheering?

Farly good

     Breakfast this morning was Cheddar and mustard soda farls. Some were eaten plain as they come, others were warmed through, split and filled with grilled bacon and tomatoes. Am I making you hungry?
You can find the recipe here, and the only change I made was to replace a quarter of the plain flour with wholemeal.

Waiting

"Have you seen the size of this TBR pile, Mollie?"
"And that's only half of it, Bess."
"She's never going to take us for a walk at this rate...."

Later:

"We thought we'd better tell you that we have had our walk, but also that the pile's got even bigger!"

Below stairs

     Over at Cornflower Books today you can see pictures from the library of Queen Mary's Dolls' House, built in the early 1920s and on permanent exhibition at Windsor Castle. On this site I thought I'd go below stairs, as it were, and mention the Linen Room which houses monogrammed kitchen linen, tablecloths, bathroom towels, sheets, pillowcases, etc. all stored in vast cupboards.

    The book Queen Mary's Dolls' House is a fascinating record of a remarkable creation and shows every aspect of the house from grand rooms to functional ones, together with their period furnishings and contents. Here's a look at the more utilitarian, working side of the house, and with a scale of 1 to 12, here is the housekeeper's treadle sewing machine,

an electric iron - a modern invention at the time the house was built,

 

and the sewing kit necesary to keep the linen in good repair.

 

The linen inventory includes everything from "Servants' pillow cases - 16 only" to "Turkish bath sheets (large) - 1 dozen" and "12 pairs Royal sheets (large and small)". Sounds much like my own airing cupboard....

Hand in glove

   

 

     To help a fellow Cornflower reader with research for an article, does anyone happen to know of any books on the history of manufacture of gloves, or even gloves as fashion accessories?

     Margaret already has Gloves by Alison Cumming, but would be glad of any other suggestions - please just leave a comment on this post.

You can't go wrong with a Labrador

.....or even better, with two!

Mr. C. is, in a manner of speaking, holding my arm behind my back, reminding me to abide by my resolution not to post on both blogs every day (I have failed spectacularly to keep to this so far), so just for him I'm letting this blog go to the dogs today!

Bess and Mollie haven't appeared here for a while, but they're both on good form (though extremely difficult to photograph well).

 

Mood food

                                                                                  

   

      I'm reading James Scudamore's novel Heliopolis, and a passage early on caught my eye. The narrator is telling how, indirectly, it was his mother's skill as a cook which took them out of terrible poverty:

"Food had saved her and food became her mode of expression. Her hatred and determination, her relief and joy, were beaten into souffles, stirred into risottos and baked into pies. I could gauge her mood through what she was making; something simple but soothing, like pao de queijo, cheese bread fresh from the oven, meant contentment, equanimity; richer treats, such as brigadeiros, tiny chocolate bombs with payloads of condensed milk, signified something closer to happiness. If she was frustrated or angry, the conflict would emerge in bold clashes of spice and sugar: clove and orange, chilli and ginger, coconut and saffron. When these exotic pasties and sweetmeats came my way, I kept quiet, loving the sparks they generated on my tastebuds even as I knew they meant I should keep a low profile."

    We are familiar with the idea of food providing comfort when we need it (e.g. mashed potato, or mushroom soup for me), but expressing other emotions through our cooking - I'm not aware I do it, but perhaps I do. I wonder, though, whether if you have to plan most of your meals in advance and shop for them say once or twice a week rather than daily, there is less opportunity for such very personal - and visceral - spontaneity. I do believe you shouldn't season food with anger as it is an obtrusive condiment and can spoil the dish, but Ludo's mother (above) seems to have got round that one!

     Any foods for particular moods among the Cornflower readership? (I'm off to have a plain, ordinary, everyday sandwich - I wonder what that says about me.)

Snowy

Appropriate pictures to illustrate January, according to "The Twelve Months" by George Ellis (Sir George Gander 1753-1815):

"Snowy, Flowy, Blowy,
Showery, Flowery, Bowery,
Hoppy, Croppy, Droppy,
Breezy, Sneezy, Freezy."

 

Out of the undergrowth

 
    This scarf-in-progress may be familiar to long-time readers with good memories: it first appeared here eleven months ago! It's perfect 'pick up and put down' knitting - no complicated stitch patterns, no counting rows - so as it requires little concentration I tend to do a bit when I'm watching television.
If it's so simple, why isn't it finished after nearly a year? Well, it's laceweight yarn so progress is slow, and I'm such an infrequent viewer of tv or DVDs that it spends most of its time tucked in the basket.

 

    Though the light today wasn't great for photographs so the colours of the scarf in the pictures don't sing quite as they really do, you can see from our Christmas wreath made from garden cuttings just how apt the yarn's name 'Undergrowth' is (for details follow the link above).

I shall have to get a move on if I'm to finally emerge from the undergrowth within a twelvemonth of venturing into it!