Cornflower

Cornflower Blues 2013 - the books of the year, part 2

   

    While most of the 'Cornflower Blues' are over on the books site, there's one book of the year for which this is the more appropriate home, and that is Virginia Woolf's Garden: The Story of the Garden at Monk's House by Caroline Zoob with photography by Caroline Arber.

 

    As beautiful and useful - for it contains planting plans - as it is fascinating, it's a perceptive account of the creation of the Woolfs' garden at Rodmell in Sussex and of its importance as both sanctuary and source of inspiration to Virginia, and for Leonard, the driving-force behind the making and tending of the "enchanted domain" (as his nephew Cecil describes it in his Foreword), a place of absorption and retreat.

 

    The book draws extensively on Virginia's letters and diaries, but also on its author's intimate knowledge of the place, for as tenants of the National Trust, Caroline Zoob and her husband lived at Monk's House for more than a decade, and they looked after the garden, developing it with respect to the spirit in which it was created. Herself an embroiderer, Caroline has stitched plans of the garden's various rooms, and these complement archival photographs and Caroline Arber's atmospheric images of the garden in all seasons and at all times of the day.

 

    Leonard Woolf is quoted in the book's introduction:

'... what has the deepest and most permanent effect upon oneself and one's way of living is the house in which one lives. The house determines the day-to-day, hour-to-hour, minute-to-minute quality, colour, atmosphere, pace of one's life; it is the framework of what one does, of what one can do, and of one's relations with people.'

 

    Caroline Zoob's sensitive portrait of house, garden and occupants illustrates Leonard's point in fine fashion.

Tanglewood

    In the garden: bare but beautiful.

Scottish Colourists cards - the winners

    The random number generator has done its work and we have winners in the draws for the sets of Colourists cards: Rhonda will get the little postcard book of 30 works by Cadell, Peploe, Fergusson and Hunter, while Jane S. will have the six Fergusson cards.

    Many thanks to everyone who entered and named a favourite artist, painting or colour, and especial thanks to those who provided a link to their choice.

Ghostly viewing

       Our latest hit from Lovefilm (you may remember this post which featured a few, and this one on the wonderful The Bishop's Wife) is The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, a charming romantic fantasy in black and white, starring Gene Tierney as a headstrong young widow who rents a cottage on the south coast of England only to find it is haunted by the ghost of its former owner, a sea captain, played by Rex Harrison. It was shot entirely in California, the English accents of most of the cast leave something to be desired, but nevertheless it's lovely and we enjoyed it greatly. You can see the trailer here.

The festive table

    Inspired by Sarah Raven to make napkin rings of cranberries and white hyacinths (hyacinths for the ladies, cranberries for the men), I used the same theme for the table centrepiece:

an ashet covered with pine branches and ivy leaves, strewn with cranberries and 'snow', with three hyacinths in individual vases to add a little height and fragrance. Small white bowls of snowy cranberries carried on the colour scheme, as did the place card holders.

    The napkin rings themselves took no time to make - though as the florist's wire I had was very fine, I used a thickish needle to pierce the berries first - but the hyacinths offered no resistance of course. I made them all on Christmas Eve and they are still looking as good as new today. Sarah Raven says in her video that in summer she uses cornflowers in the same way as they also last very well out of water, so that's an idea I must remember.

    I ought to say here, by way of explanation, acknowledgement and appreciation, that with the exception of some canapés, Mr. C. does all the cooking of the Christmas lunch, and a grand job he makes of it, and that is why I am free to fiddle around with the frou-frou.

Happy Christmas!

     Considerable Falls of Snow by Eric Ravilious from The Writings of Gilbert White of Selbourne (1938) to wish all who visit Cornflower a very happy Christmas!

Really, there's nothing to see ...

    "Nothing ... Only this: a great lawn where flowerbeds bloomed; a towering fir-tree, and thick, beetle-browed yews that humped their shapes down two sides of the lawn; on the third side, to the right, a greenhouse almost the size of a real house; from each corner of the lawn, a path twisted away to some other depths of garden, with other trees.

    Tom had stepped forward instinctively, catching his breath in surprise; now he let his breath out in a deep sigh. He would steal out here tomorrow, by daylight ... He would run full tilt over the grass, leaping the flower-beds; he would peer through the glittering panes of the greenhouse - perhaps open the door and go in; he would visit each alcove and archway clipped in the yew-trees - he would climb the trees and make his way from one to another through thickly interlacing branches. When they came calling him, he would hide, silent and safe as a bird, among this richness of leaf and bough and tree-trunk."

    That passage is from the Cornflower Book Group's January book. Please join us to read and talk about it.

Making things

   

     "... Two Turtle Doves traces the intimate journey of how an idea is transformed from a fleeting thought into an exquisite piece of jewellery. It is about where we find our creativity, how we remember and why we make the things we do."

    I'm just beginning Alex Monroe's book, subtitled A Memoir of Making Things, and have high hopes for it. It includes hand-drawn maps, working sketches, and its epigraph is from Arthur Ransome's Swallowdale, "When a thing's done, it's done, and if it's not done right, do it differently next time."

    Also on the subject of making things, I love Lene's 'little helpers', Mary's embroidered and appliquéd Christmas card, and Annie's idea of making a fresh start with the lengthening days.

Observation of the day

    

    "And now Christmas is coming again, as if we hadn't enough to put up with."

    That's the lugubrious Philip Larkin in a letter to Barbara Pym (as quoted by Hazel Holt in her biography of Miss Pym).

 

 

    The picture is of one of Nature's own decorations: some rowan berries had fallen from their branch on to the rosemary beneath.

A lovely pudding

    Just a very quick post to rave about a really lovely pudding*.

    Everyone around the table this evening would like to have it again a.s.a.p.

 

*Having no desiccated coconut I crumbled some creamed coconut over the top before serving.

Scottish Colourists cards - a giveaway

    I promised a little giveaway related to the J.D. Fergusson exhibition, and here it is.

    There are two 'prizes'; one is a book containing 30 postcards of works by the four Scottish Colourist artists, i.e. Cadell, Peploe, Fergusson and Hunter, (some are shown below),

and the other is a group of six postcards of works by Fergusson, all of which are in the exhibition:-

     To enter, please leave a comment on this post giving the name of a favourite artist or painting, or simply a favourite colour, and if you have a preference for one set of cards over the other, just say "Colourists" or "Fergusson", otherwise I'll put your name in the hat for both. The draw is open to everyone, regardless of location, so please do have a go.

The Scottish Colourist Series - J.D. Fergusson

    Mary asked the other day whether the J.D. Fergusson exhibition at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art was worth the price of a plane ticket north.

    I've seen it now and I can say "Yes!", emphatically, "yes!"

    This is the third in the Gallery's Scottish Colourist series after Cadell and Peploe over the last two years. It looks as though we are not to get a Hunter show, so take this chance to see Fergusson - it's on until mid-June - and prepare to be impressed.

    I say that because I was less familiar with his work than with that of Cadell and Peploe, so perhaps was more susceptible to being bowled over by his range and the sheer energy of his pieces, but bowled over I was. There are around 100 works on show, sculptures as well as paintings, and they include still lifes, landscapes, portraits, nudes, and even pictures from his brief time as a war artist*. With virtually no formal training, Fergusson absorbed Impressionism, Fauvism and even Vorticism to startling effect, and in the course of a long life spent mostly in France or his native Scotland, produced work which " ... is a deep and pure expression of his immense love of life. Endowed with a rare plastic feeling, almost sculptural in its quality. He joined with it an exceptional sense of colour, outspoken, ringing colours, rich and splendid in their very substance."

    Click here to see some of the exhibition highlights (though those tiny images do not do justice to the real things), and here to see a short related film, then please come back tomorrow when I'll have a little something to give away.

 

*When reporting for duty he admitted that he really did not like khaki, and the interviewing colonel said - in all seriousness - "we can't do anything about that, but what about the Navy?" As blue was Fergusson's favourite colour (good man!), a succesful posting ensued.

Runic

    Lynne's post on Maeshowe has had me leafing through my books on English language this morning, taking me back to the days when I knew a bit about runes and their descendants in Old and Middle English. I was taught by this man, who in turn was taught by Tolkien, and so although it's all a bit hazy now, that heritage is special in itself.

    Anyway, the brooch in the picture happens to bear a runic inscription from Maeshowe: reflecting times past and present. It comes from the Orcadian jeweller Sheila Fleet, and it's worn on a Harris tweed jacket*, so when I go about I am in effect a cryptic advertisement for the arts and crafts of the Scottish islands and thus in keeping with the runes, you might say.

*It may look a bit wild here, but it's actually a sober, heathery green in the flesh.

Simply red

    ... or tomato tart version 3 (for 1 and 2 click here).

    Being short of tomatoes for this I used red pepper as well, and in addition to the cheese I put a few generous spoonfuls of roasted tomato sauce to deepen the flavour.

    The post-baking picture isn't up to much as I was rushing to get this on the table, but the tart tastes very good indeed and is so quick to make (I served it with rocket and black olives).

Rejoice with gladness evermore

    It's been ages since we had any music on the blog, but Poulenc's Gloria was on the radio at breakfast this morning, and as it's so spirit-raising I thought I'd offer you a recording of the first part. (You can find the whole work here.)

    Then at Magdalen recently the choir sang the anthem Holy is the True Light by William Harris. I can't find a Magdalen recording, but here it is sung as beautifully by Christ Church Cathedral Choir.

Edited to add: apologies for the videos not appearing - all looked fine in draft and preview, but when I published the post something went haywire and the embedded clips were not right at all! I'll try to get them back, but the links above should work for now.

Later: the embedding seems to be working now, but I'll leave in the links for good measure.