jane brocket

light at the end of the tunnel?

 

(photo taken at Hampton Court Palace last week)

After I crashed the car yesterday evening causing hundreds of pounds worth of damage, I reflected that this, together with the fast-fading tulips, was not the only cloud on the horizon during the last week. For the week has seen quite a few clouds:

:: The Jane Austen Book Club was too dire to watch all the way to the end

:: Engleby upset me too much and I couldn't finish that either

::  I made an over-cooked cheesecake and a batch of flapjacks that wouldn't come out of the tin

:: there are various dead creatures in the garden, but I really don't want to get too close

:: Simon has been away all week so valuable perspective (and dead creature removal) is missing

:: I have permanently itchy eyes from hayfever

:: and two children whose GCSE tension is high and rising

:: and another one who has been unwell for two weeks

BUT,

looking on the bright side:

:: the damage to the car impressed the children

:: no-one was hurt, just the side of the car and a large (and to my mind very badly placed) post

:: I have a wonderful Dorothy Whipple novel waiting to be read

:: and a great film to watch (The Women)

:: Green & Black's chocolate does not need to be baked before eating

:: Simon comes home today so the garden will be tidied up

:: we have a three-day weekend coming up, so valuable perspective will be regained

:: the exams will be over before you can say 'simultaneous equation' 

:: and the coughing will go away

So, yes, there is light at the end of the tunnel.

PS  None of this has stopped me laughing.

early late bloomer

This is 'Blue Parrot', a late-blooming tulip. It's usually the last tulip standing in our garden towards the end of May. So I am wondering why it's out and at its best even before the end of April. Not that I'm complaining; I have a vase of 'Blue Parrots' on my desk where I can examine the ir wavy bluish-violet flowers and the indigo-ink smudges at the base of every petal. But it makes me sad to think the tulip season is already almost over. It was beautiful, but all too brief this year.

pretty bright

Tulips from the garden. Nail varnish from OPI.

posh posset

 

Phoebe's latest cooking discovery is lemon posset. It's very creamy and very rich and a little goes a long way with some daisy-shaped shortbread (she uses this recipe which really would be enough for eight people). We decided to serve it some old tea cups and saucers as we couldn't find any small bowls, but next time we might have to use espresso cups. 

Posset is a very traditional dessert or drink (I give a recipe in Cherry Cake and Ginger Beer for a warming, nutmeggy, before-bed posset inspired by The Box of Delights) and Pepys is known to have been partial to it.

('Pepys was partial to posset' is also a very good tongue-twister, I have just discovered. And I was tempted to call this post 'posh peeps' posset' because I can never resist a pun.)

complete and utter gorgeousness

Today's pickings are richly peach and pink. This vaseful is a mix of two very tall and elegant tulips that both begin by being pale then gradually get darker and turn deep orange and coral. I can't tell you how much I love them. It's the first time I've mixed the two and now I am desperately trying to find out from my order what they are called so that I can do it again next year.

I am very, very busy at the moment with work and children and all sorts of things that need to be done. I am aware that this blog has become a little less fulsome than it used to be. But that's simply because I do not have enough hours in the day to do all I would like to do. Plus, much as I would like to let you know and see what I am doing with my hands and brain, it's just not possible to show the things I am making for books. And when I am not making, I am writing and I have a lot of words to write by June 15. In fact, I feel words are oozing out of me at the moment - just not in the direction of the blog.

But this is just to let you know that I still love coming to the blog when I can to post photos and a few words and, of course, to read your comments. Thank you for visiting and thank you for all your generous messages and general enthusiasm for many of the good things in life. Like completely and utterly gorgeous tulips.

same time, same place, next day

Everyone is talking about this wonderful, sweet spring we are having. The air is warm, the lilac is out already, the washing is on the line and the tulips are basking.

I got out early again today, still in my dressing-gown as I didn't have to drop children at bus-stops, and felt the dew seep into my shoes as I picked and picked.

Every year I worry that, come April, I may be blasé about tulips, but every year I fall in love with them all over again. They make the spring for me, even one that doesn't need any extra help.

7.45 am

After a brief day or two of thinking we'd planted all the 'wrong' tulips in December and were going to be without our favourite pick 'n' mix style tulip-patch full of different shapes and colours and habits, all has come good and the tulips are looking wonderful. I pick as early as possible before the flowers open in the sunshine (this double tulip, 'Carnaval de Nice', still has a drop of dew on it) and experience a few solitary moments of pure happiness.

  

the smartie effect

I helped to cater for forty hungry young rowers (as in boats, not arguments) one day last week. So I turned up at the boathouse ready to help cook vast cauldrons of chicken casserole and huge trays of potatoes with my wonderful cake-carriers full of Smartie-decorated vanilla butterfly cakes and chocolate butterfly cakes.

Then, when I was compiling a list of the fabrics used in the quilt I made last week, I saw they were of a similarly pretty, sweet hue with lots of pale colours and just a few brighter highlights. (I have to stress that this is me working deliberately to create a pale quilt and it is in fact the palest I could manage from the fabrics I own; anything paler and I would be yawning all through the sewing.) Of course, it's the little Smartie dots and details of deeper colour that keep the whole effect lively and  interesting.

Just think how pale and uninteresting the cakes would be without the Smarties and that's exactly how I feel about a purely pale quilt. Which leads me to conclude that the quilt that has resulted from these yummy fabrics most definitely benefits from the Smartie Effect (as, indeed, does life).

petals

  

The magnolias are truly magnificent at the moment at The Savill Garden. I was taking all the usual photos of the large, stately flowers (always described as 'waxy' which makes me think they should have wicks in the centre and be lit at night to create wonderful tree-lights) but when I looked down at the paths and areas underneath the trees, I saw a far more interesting picture. Large pale pink and ivory petals that are just beginning to turn brown with age lie thickly, creating a beautiful carpet which could inspire a lovely fabric design.

I also thought, once again, that 'petal' is a pretty term of affection (I use it a lot, especially in the form of 'petal-flower', something which never used to bother the children...). And that Petal would be a lovely name to go with Peach Blossom and Orange Pastel Tree. And then I found out that Jamie Oliver was thinking along the same lines with his new baby, Petal Blossom Rainbow (who has sisters with pretty interesting names, too).

my bin ii

  

New quilt, new waste paper basket arrangement. The more I peer into my basket, the more I see. Amazing how often I can look at it after throwing in more scraps and see new colour combinations and pattern details. Lovely.

 

And yippee! We have the first painted toe-nails of the season.

(Photo from Bridgeman Art Library)

When I have finished making fetching fabric mixes in the basket and return to writing the book, my study will go back to looking something like this...