jane brocket

provencal summer quilt

 

The wonderful sunshine and warmth of the weekend prompted me to photograph my 'Provencal Summer' quilt, the one I made last summer but which didn't look quite the same in the rain and grey weather of what was very much not a Provencal summer. It was inspired by the columns quilt in Kaffe Fassett's V&A Quilts and is filled wtih the reds and yellows you find in typical Provencal fabrics, but on a very different scale.

There is a column of bathing beauties by Alexander Henry and one of Philip Jacob's 'Tall Hollyhocks', plus lots and lots of flowers that would thrive in the sun. The back is a more authentic  Provencal-style design with small motifs on the ochre-yellow I associate with places like Arles and Nimes.

 

And I am very glad that I have at last seen the quilt in appropriate weather conditions.

good fences

Do 'good fences make good neighbors', as Robert Frost wrote in his poem 'Mending Wall'?

Or do good neighbours make good fences?

Our neighbour recently planted various climbing plants along the fence between us (the photos show the views of the clematis from our side of the fence) and somehow I think that we are getting the best of the flowers. Definitely a generous neighbour.

help yourself

Phoebe took a photo of the arrangement she made for her lunch to show me what she had eaten when I was out. Lemon and vanilla cheesecake (Nigel Slater recipe - fantastic) and brilliant red fruits.

I am pleased she knows how to look after herself so well. She has also recently put up her rates for working as my baking assistant (she helps me when I'm baking and testing recipes for books and I have a lovely project to work on with her in the half-term holiday later this month).  As a friend wrote in an email when I told her about this, 'You'll just have to cough up with Phoebe ... she talent and style and good self-worth - I admire that!' So do I.

favourite colours ii

Tingling lemon yellow with grey and white. As seen on the newly relaunched 'Grapes' fabric designed by Duncan Grant in 1932. Available now from Charleston Farmhouse Shop. Original curtains on view inside the house - but not so tinglingly lemon these days.

 

Shades of green as seen at dusk in the Charleston garden last week.

And more greens with vivid strawberry-red, ivory and lime amaryllis grown in pots outdoors, as seen outside the Charleston shop.

favourite colours

 

Pure lime against a soft blue sky on a warm May day.

golden oldies

Having written about card games recently in my new book (the one that comes out in July) you'd think I'd know the rules of various games. But, just as I can never remember jokes, so I am hopeless with cards. No matter how hard I try I have never managed to retain the rules of Rummy or Poker or Whist, not even when I was young and my brain more retentive.

It turns out, though, that it doesn't really matter. I had no idea how much teenagers could enjoy daft card games such as Cheat and Snap (the only two I can ever remember). We are having serious Cheat and Snap competitions in the evenings at the moment, with Phoebe the series winner at Cheat (so funny that she is the least deceptive of all of us, or so we thought...) while I have the upper hand at Snap.  Tom is doing his best to cheat and shout his way back into the competition, but so far all his ruses have been spotted.

We use old brewery cards for a touch of nostalgia (and the added excitement of a missing Jack of Hearts), but I don't think I'd cut the mustard in any pub with proper card-players, not even with my nifty Snap moves and demon cheating.

the art of biography

Although some critics seem to think that all biographers must adhere to a set of (arbitrary) rules and make themselves invisible in the process, I prefer to take every biography I read on its own merits whether or not it follows the 'rule book'. Far more important to me is the art of biography and that is something no-one can quantify because it's like a chemical reaction. Sometimes the mix of biographer and subject can produce a new, third substance plus explosions and sparks and flashes, and other times the experiment results in nothing more than a mix, a suspension or emulsion. 

The best biographies, I find, are the chemically interesting ones, the ones that not only tell me the details of a life, but also delve into and explain creative, unusual, significant personalities, lifestyles, achievements, processes. It is these that stay with me, having explained more than the chronology of a life. I've read plenty of biographies, but only a few have been outstanding: Matisse by Hilary Spurling, Eric Gill by Fiona MacCarthy, Vanessa Bell by Frances Spalding, Thomas Bewick by Jenny Uglow, Kathleen Scott by Louisa Young are the ones that spring to mind immediately (is it significant that they are all by women?).

And now there is a new biography to add to my list of significant, perception-altering, more-than-biography biographies. The Other Elizabeth Taylor by Nicola Beauman has just been published and not before time. I discovered Elizabeth Taylor relatively recently (about three years ago) but there are plenty of people who have been mystified for years by the lack of critical acclaim for her novels and superb short stories and who have been waiting a long time for this book. It's as all good biographies should be: surprising, sympathetic but not sycophantic, tremendously readable and yet it stops you in your tracks to make you think about how Elizabeth Taylor wrote.

this weekend

 

I will not be tidying up my quilt fabrics. I like them in open-air piles where I can see them.

I will be thinking about tidying my office. But I will not be promising to do it. (Can it wait five weeks? I think so.)

I will be doing my best to work out where the electrical sockets will go in the new kitchen. I will be trying not to think about the two months worth of disruption it will cause this summer.

I will be reading Homemade by Ros Badger (just look at that crocheted blanket) and Elspeth Thompson (just look at those plants). A truly lovely book with beautiful projects, photos and sentiments by two amazing women.

I will be listening to Bill Nighy playing Charles Paris and laughing out loud.

I will try not to snort like he does. 

I will be going to Topshop with Alice. I will do my best not to wish I could leave after five minutes. 

I will be doing the light gardening work tending my germinating seeds (basil, sunflowers, nasturtiums, runner beans, broad beans) and sowing more.

I will let Simon do the more strenuous garden work, because I'm generous like that.

I will not be dealing with denial. Not this weekend, anyway.

theatrical beauties

Alpine Houses are not usually on my list of places to visit. I have too many memories of the strange suburban rockeries that were once a feature of all self-respecting 60s and 70s gardens. I could never quite see the attraction of having a pile of rubble in a corner of the garden with a few low-growing plants stuck in the crevices. Of course, I hadn't read then of alpine specialists such as Valerie Finnis (who was also a wonderful photographer - as the book in the link shows) and knew nothing of real natural rockeries such as the Alps. 

 

But I have liked auriculas for a long, long time, and so has Simon. In fact, we once tried to create an auricula theatre but as we don't have a greenhouse and auriculas are difficult to grow anyway, we didn't get much further than a few pots with our favourite colour flowers which then died all too quickly. 

So if we hear of auriculas on show, we happily make a detour to see these lovely little flowers in the most incredible colours, looking like something a child might draw. I also like the powdery dusting you find on many - as though they have been putting on their make-up to go on stage and perform.

These theatrical beauties were seen at Wisley in a state-of-the-art greenhouse with a beautiful quality of light that made the auriculas stand out from all the other alpines. All very different to Stockport's finest vintage rockeries.  

yes!

Saturday's lemon tart

The splendidly large exclamation mark seen at Ancient Industries on 29 April (with a link to a great article) has emboldened me to use one here to emphasise the fact that I have baked not one but two lemon tarts this weekend without burning/ruining/curdling either.

Why two? Well, as we say here, 'if life gives you lemons, make lemon tarts'. And we had a ridiculous amount of lemons in the fridge. (Alice has observed that we also have stockpiles of Fairy Liquid, Hob Nobs, bacon, raspberry jam and frozen fish - enough for several nuclear wars. She is wondering just what happens to my brain when I go to the supermarket. I prefer not to delve too deep to find the answer.)