Cornflower

And relax ...

    It's not obvious from the pictures, but each of these hexagons comprises two pieces of fabric stitched together and filled with dried lavender. The kilo hasn't gone down by much yet, but partly because of the scent from the open bag, making them (they are handsewn) is a most relaxing pastime.

Blueberry yogurt cake

    Recipe courtesy of Nan, for which many thanks as it's delicious and perfect with coffee. (I think this would work well with blackberries, too.)

Navy blue

    Sweet Pea 'Lord Nelson', (and here's 'the sweet pea story').

Time to change

    I have a book to give away over on the other site today, and to put your name in the hat I'm asking you to tell us what you'd change if you had a magic wand or three wishes. I'm hoping we'll get some very interesting responses so please do enter the draw.

Supplies

    A little Liberty,

and a lot* of lavender.

Sachets and bags are in the offing when I have a moment to begin making them.

 

*There's a whole kilo sitting beside me just now - I wish I could transmit the scent to you.

Royal purples

    The first of the sweet peas! Just one stem of 'Matucana' but a lot of scent.

More purples contributed by Viola 'Blue Blotch', an unknown lavender and the bells of cerinthe.

A royal salute

 

    We are all delighted at the news of the royal birth - as Simon says, yesterday was a thrilling and momentous day.

 

    Today I shall be looking out especially for the gun salute by the King's Troop Royal Horse Artillery to mark the birth. Our resident equestrian spent last week with the Troop on a riding course. He says this was the most marvellous experience which involved all aspects of horse care - including working in the forge - and developed his riding skills considerably. As to the horses themselves, they are no docile hacks but big powerful animals used to pulling gun carriages at the gallop, however our man proved up to the challenge, got a great deal out of the opportunity and admires the men and women whose job it is to tend and ride them, whether in daily training or as today on a full ceremonial occasion.

Worth visiting

    -    Freda - whose posts are always beautiful/interesting/thought-provoking, has some lovely flowers on her table today.

    -    Over at The History Girls, Imogen Robertson's post caught my attention for several reasons, but I especially love what she says about the Russian custom of sitting in silence for a moment before you leave your house.

    -    Chestnut's 'summer loves'. (Re. number 7 on her list and just by the way, Mr. C. was at Lord's yesterday - he had a very good day, thank you - and with a few free moments before the start of play, he popped into the graveyard of St. John's Wood Church where he happened upon the resting place of John Sell Cotman with its very simple headstone.)

Roses round the (cellar) door

    While replying, just now, to Freda's comment on yesterday's post, I was reminded of a passage on the beauty of words which appears in Humphrey Carpenter's J. R. R. Tolkien: A Biography:

    When the undergraduate Tolkien, on the advice of his tutor (the awe-inspiring Joe Wright), took up the study of medieval Welsh, "he was not disappointed; indeed he was confirmed in all his expectations of beauty. Beauty: that was what pleased him in Welsh; the appearance and sound of the words almost irrespective of their meaning. He once said: 'Most English-speaking people, for instance, will admit that cellar door is "beautiful", especially if dissociated from its sense (and its spelling). More beautiful than, say, sky, and far more beautiful than beautiful. Well then, in Welsh for me cellar doors are extraordinarily frequent."

    Beyond the rose in yesterday's picture, and again shown above is our cellar door; thanks to Tolkien's words I now see it in a new light ....

Footfalls echo in the memory ...

 

    .... Down the passage which we did not take
    Towards the door we never opened
    Into the rose-garden."

    Burnt Norton from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets.

    Read about Burnt Norton in a different guise here.

The quiet garden

    "Picture postcard gardens are lovely to look at - for a while, but most uninteresting to work in, and most exhausting to live in! All the jangle and scream of colour, the jumping red, the unquiet blue, the noisy yellow, tossed together like a skein of ravelled silks, to get that 'riot of colour' which is the Mecca of so many gardeners...

    Give me the quiet garden, with a glimpse of water; the soft colours of evergreens, flowers that are part, not the whole of a scheme.

    Give me, in short, a quiet garden, and you may take your bazaar of flowers."

    From Gardener's Nightcap by Muriel Stuart.

Books and food

    Among today's selection from the 'recent arrivals' bookshelf is a Japanese novel, and that prompts me to give a brief restaurant recommendation for anyone in Edinburgh who likes Japanese food - visit Kanpai in Grindlay Street by the Usher Hall. We dined there a few nights ago thanks to a kind friend and had a wonderful meal of sushi, tempura, various vegetarian dishes, and teriyaki accompanied by much Japanese tea (click here to see the sort of dishes they serve).

    On the subject of books and food, have a look at this collection of photographs of famous literary food scenes. I don't think Proust/Swann would have had milk in his linden blossom tisane, but the Moby Dick chowder looks good, as does the Heidi cheese on toast, and it's all fun and a bit more elaborate than our 'books and cakes'.

Looking and listening

    I'm reading Charlie Lovett's novel The Bookman's Tale just now, and there's an early scene in it in which a character tells of stealing an eleventh century illuminated psalter from the tomb of William of Wykeham in Winchester Cathedral.



    That reference to the bishop's chantry chapel reminded me that I had one or two shots of the choir and the ceiling which are worth sharing.



   I spent longer in the choir than I'd intended because while I was examining misericords (and how's that for excitement?), the organist began playing. His practice lasted some time, and I couldn't identify the piece he was rehearsing, but he was giving it laldy and it was marvellous - I wish I could give you a link to it.

Pretty pictures and no mail

Click to enlarge

    I thought non-British readers especially might like to see these pictures taken in the pretty Hampshire village of Longstock where I was staying the other day. The thatched cottages - all with roses round the door - are straight from a chocolate box, telegrams - allegedly - can be sent from the phone box, as you'll see from the sign, and the church, although largely rebuilt in the 1880s, can trace its vicars back to the 1300s (and note the wonderful name William Warewolfe among them on the board there).

                                                    ~~~~~      

    Now to email woes, and specifically BT Yahoo/Mac Mail ones. I won't bore you with a lot of the technical ins and outs, but on being unable to access my mail I contacted the BT help desk who told me to be sure the account was set up using a POP server. I duly changed it from IMAP (I now know the difference) which allowed me back into my inbox but not to all my other folders where important messages are filed. When I reported this to BT they said they couldn't advise me and referred me to the 'tech experts' - I thought they were 'tech experts', but apparently not...

    After much exasperated deleting, re-installing, googling, reading comments of disgruntled people on forums, and fiddling about with settings, I have gone back to IMAP and seem to have everything - bar my sent items - where they should be, but it still doesn't 'feel' right, so apologies if you're waiting for a reply from me as I'm not 100% confident that it's working properly, and with having no service for a while there's a backlog of messages waiting to be answered. Perhaps I'd do better telegraphing from that phone box.

Movement and stillness

    On this very hot day, something cooling to look at:

the beautiful font at Salisbury Cathedral, designed by William Pye,

the water circulating constantly (video here).

    You may also like to look at William Pye's 'vocabulary of water'.