jane brocket

school colours

When we were at the NPG on Saturday I bought a card featuring this this 1919 photo by Bassano which appealed because of the fantastic sweaters the two women are wearing and with such style! My goodness, I wished we'd all looked like that when we took to the playing fields of Manchester; warm hand-knits would definitely have reduced the pain of having to pretend to play hockey in the freezing cold or feigning interest in netball in the pouring rain.

I think I would also have liked some interesting sports socks, because I was never going to win any proper sports 'colours' by being good at games, and they would have brightened many a long P.E. lesson spent staring into space and trying to guess the time. This is why I like the socks I am knitting at the moment so much. It's a Regia yarn from the fantastic Modern Knitting site which could revolutionise the whole world of school socks with its huge range of yarns with brilliant stripes and colour combinations. Just think of the fun you could have devising your own personal school socks and how vivid and cheerful the school playing fields and courts would be if everyone could wear their colours. Although I would have been tempted to lean against the goal-posts and knit while everyone else ran around bashing each other's ankles with sticks...and then I could have knitted during the detention that followed. A win-win situation for me - just not in the sporting way.

                                               

weekend window

'Window of opportunity' is not my favourite phrase. It conjures up visions of business executives solemnly checking diaries to see when they can squeeze five minutes out of their hectic schedules to meet in Starbucks to discuss strategy 'going forward' (another phrase that drives me nuts). Oh dear, what a cynic I am.

Nevertheless, I can't help but see our weekend as a window, a two-day peek into the world of cities, culture and civilised eating, books, gardens and galleries. My goodness, Simon and I certainly took full advantage of the freedom and opportunity to discover that we are still pretty good at entertaining ourselves.

We went to Ham House (above - family busts in your wall certainly beat family photos on the sideboard although I would be seriously tempted to dress them up according to the season) and admired the incredible seventeenth century interiors and the recreation of the period garden. Some of the scenes in The Young Victoria were filmed here, most notably on the staircase (I enjoyed the film and thought it better than the lukewarm reviews) and I felt like holding Simon's hand as we walked downstairs and doing a little jump before the last step.

And there was architecture-gazing on Long Acre near Covent Garden, Stanford's Travel Bookshop where we started planning a belated birthday getaway next spring, the thought-provoking Gay Icons exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery (fantastic photographic portraits, illuminating commentaries on each one), a belated birthday lunch (we have quite a few belated birthday celebrations to get through as we are very bad at them) at J Sheekey which was ultra-civilised and served ultra-good fish pie.

And a wander round Petersham Nurseries to ogle the lovely plants, flowers and fantasy lifestyle in which books are displayed with matching dahlias.

There was cake, of course, because this is the summer of cake-tasting before our new oven (and kitchen to go with it) is installed and we get back to making our own.

Plus my first reading of Cousin Phillis by Elizabeth Gaskell, one of my very favourite authors, our first viewing Victim, a powerful film which is more modern than its 1961 year-of-making suggests, and our first taste of  Pelorus 2005 which went perfectly with our first weekend window in many, many years.

while the mice are away...

 

...the cats are taking it easy.

big softie

I have a hank of Blue Sky Bulky left over from knitting a pink teddy bear (as you do) a while ago and I have been swatching with it in preparation for knitting something big and easy for the book. It's fantastic yarn - quite ridiculously thick and soft and cosy. If I were in charge of these things, I would have called this yarn 'The Big Easy' or 'Big Softie', but the latter probably springs to mind because I'm feeling like big softie today. Phoebe left this morning for a week in Wales with a friend and her family, and my nest is getting more and more quiet and empty. Still, there's one big one left (not for long though, as he is off to Canada for a fortnight on rugby tour soon) and, if I look on the bright side, I see lots of space that can be filled with soft knitting, books and the sound of the radio.

Mmm, on reflection, I think I might just manage to steel myself to a few days of low child count.

apron strings

I'm carrying yarn around with me in my mind wherever I go at the moment. It's like having very soft apron strings that keep me tied up with my plans for my knitting book. But having photographed this baby's-bottom-soft Cascade Baby Alpaca Chunky in the pocket of an apron, I've decided it might be quite nice to carry real yarn in a deep pocket, rather like the traditional Fair Isle knitters who had pockets for their many yarns. I love these pastel colours - they are pale but still interesting, and very snuggly buggly as we used to say when the children were little.

Speaking of which, I came across the just-washed apron when I was taking shots of the yarn and realised how appropriate it was to my thoughts today. Alice flew off to Italy this morning on her own to stay with a friend, and as I dropped her off at the airport I could feel that those apron strings are getting looser as she gets older - but they still tug hard when you say goodbye. That pull  of apron strings reminded me of all the hours I spent on the motorway driving to and from the hospital when I was having the IVF treatment that resulted in Tom and Alice; the 100 mile round trips were filled with the music of Everything but the Girl and I knew the lyrics to all the songs, including Apron Strings which came flooding back today. (And not without a tear, I have to admit).

cake thoughts

 

A couple of times recently I've wanted to bake for someone or for an occasion and have even started to plan what I would make before remembering with a sinking feeling (rather like a cake when you open the oven door or take it out too soon, in fact) that I don't have an oven. Someone asked me how I was finding being kitchenless and I started saying, 'oh, it's OK' before telling the truth and saying,'I hate it'. 

But we can still have cakey thoughts. Phoebe is already planning her birthday creations; she likes to start early - her birthday is at the end of October. She has also decided that when we stay for a week's holiday in a rented house (with an oven) next month she wants to bake her way through The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook rather like Julie Powell in Julie and Julia but on speed and with a lot more sugar. It will keep her busy and us happy on a week-long cake-high. (I saw the trailer for the film of the book and am looking forward to seeing it. I'll take Phoebe so she can see there is more to cookery books than cakes. Just so she knows.) 

(The cake above was cleverly decorated by my sister.)

a good cause

Yesterday morning I received an email from The Knitter telling me about the Macmillan Comfort Blanket Campaign which is a brilliant idea for an incredibly good cause.

Yesterday afternoon I learned that my brother's lifelong best friend had died in the morning at the age of 40. It was only on Saturday that Matthew was telling me how wonderful the Macmillan nurses had been during his friend's illness. I've been a long-time supporter of the charity anyway, but for once I am saying out loud that this really is a good cause and that the knitting campaign and the coffee mornings are marvellous ways of making a difference.

dog on the blog

 

A rare, if not altogether unprecedented, sight on the blog - that of a dog. This is my auntie's dog who is part apricot poodle which makes him sound like some sort of summer pudding; he was the star guest at a birthday party and completely unfazed by lots of big and little cousins all wanting to be his new best friend. He's also very photogenic.

Sitting lazily in my sister's garden all afternoon gave me plenty of opportunity to play with a Nikon D80 and I didn't even have to leave my seat to photograph her lemon yellow snapdragons. I can't decide if the second picture is an intriguing new departure or a complete mistake. Either way, I quite like it.

table-turning

 

I am inordinately delighted whenever someone offers me a slice of home-made cake, a fresh scone or a warm jam tart. Even though I bake on a regular basis and pass round platesful of rock buns and madeleines, I am never blasé about the pleasure of being on the receiving end.

The same goes for flowers. I grow tulips, daffodils, roses and dahlias, and am thrilled by self-sown marigolds, poppies and love-in-a-mist, and still the gift of beautiful flowers never fails to reduce me to speechlessness. Especially when they are as lovely as this.

 

They are from my publisher Hodder & Stoughton and they remind me just how much I like it when the tables are turned. 
 

rain or shine

 

I'm fed up with making the wrong decision every time I leave the house. Wrong shoes and my feet are soaking. No umbrella and all of me is soaking. Think the sun is out and I'll be warm enough in a light top? Think again. The weather is wearing out my predictive capablities and I'll soon be resorting to going out with whole changes of shoes and clothing and a few rain-mates tucked away in my handbag like the ladies of the 1960s who didn't want their lilac rinses washing out or perms going corkscrewy.

Or maybe I'll just stay in all summer?

But then I'd miss the nasturtiums that are appearing like bright spots against the rain-sodden ground. I mixed up all my packets of nasturtium seeds when I sowed them and now I don't know what is what. I think these lovely soft peachy apricot flowers are 'Peach Melba' but I might be wrong. I've put them in a jam jar and left them outside - at least the jam jar will be refilled with rain water on a regular basis. Unless I've got my predictions wrong again. (Odds on I have.)