Save As Draft

Available Now!

  My friend Cavanaugh Lee, has a new book coming out on February 1st.  I did a pre-order on Amazon and got a shipping notice on Friday - just can't wait to read it!   Cavanaugh was a former actress, turned lawyer (which is how I met her), turned author.  She's now got a new book coming out and I'm so excited about it.  My book club will be reading Save As Draft in March, and Cavanaugh will be calling in to join the discussion!   If you are interested in a similar arrangement, please let me know and I'll see if the author can join your book club too!   Meanwhile I hope you'll read the book and support my good friend in her writing debut! 

Another lamp rehab…

Lamp hospice.

And yep…from my fave thrift store.

It was most certainly a homemade job

in all of it’s 70’s glory

A big glass water jug

hecho en Mexico

filled to the everlovin’ brim with dried and plastic lovelies.

and moss…lots of glued on moss.

Ooooooh she’s a beaut isn’t she?

~cough~

Piece by piece…the decades old dried and dusty corpses were removed...

Through a handy dandy leather wrapped hole

go figure!

This saga will be continued as we find the perfect shade

not the one she came with…

Maybe a drum shade

What say you…any grand ideas for this… cough…find?

Hmmmm?

Going,Going,Gone!

My gardening week started on a slightly sad note but has ended on a high. I will do sad first. On Monday we visited the allotment for the first time this year. We went to shift some odds and ends as work was due to start on removing out current perimeter fencing and replacing it with a 1.8 metre high steel fence. This is not by choice ~  the local council have decided that all the plots on our site will have standard fencing onto communal pathways. The council are paying for materials and all the labour involved. Whilst I can understand the logic behind this decision and think that the plots will be more secure, I think that the site will lose in terms of individuality and character. Maybe it's just me but I like the higglety pigglety appearance that exists now. There are all sorts of wooden fences - both brand new and old, recycled from pallets and planks ~ they are different heights and thicknesses and different colours. Other folk including myself have chain - link fences. Many plots have hand crafted signs with their plot numbers or names including gems such as 'Backacres'. You can see one such example in the photo at the top of the page ~ this artwork was created by my lovely plot neighbours. There will be less scope for such charm once we are all fitted with the same fencing and there will be no more passing plants and seeds over the fence quite so easily.

In the garden the snowdrops have made great strides in the last week and just need a bit more warmth to open fully. Some perennials are showing signs of new growth which is always encouraging. Meanwhile it's a waiting game to see what's happening with the contents of the cold frame - its occupants having the misfortune to have chosen the wrong year to overwinter in pots. In the greenhouse there are still no signs of the January sown batch (replacement for November sown losses) of sweet peas germinating but the 'Solent White' garlic I planted in pots is now showing green tips.

Now for the good news. This morning I had fun taking part in the RSPB Big Birdwatch ~ most of the usual suspects turned up and a little goldcrest sneaked in an appearance at the very last minute. Then this afternoon I was delighted to discover that I was a prizewinner in the Irish Times Christmas Gardening quiz which I entered at the very last minute. I have won a year's subscription to 'The Irish Garden' magazine  - what a surprise. My thanks must go to Jane over at 'One Bean Row' - the brains behind a most enjoyable quiz. What a good way to end the week.

Pink Coat

I love Pink Saturdays but I've never linked up.  Generally I just visit blogs, enjoying all the pink.  Today I woke up thinking about a pale pink coat I saw on The Sartorialist (love this blog) and just can't stop thinking about it for a couple of reasons.  It reminds me that when I've visited Paris, I've been so impressed with the older women and their polished look.  My observation is that the Parisian older woman doesn't try to hide her age, she has taken very good care of herself (my sister kept trying to tell me to get more facials and use a good throat cream), is well put together, generally in a classic style and is out walking.  This picture that was featured in October was a perfect example. 

Photo from The Sartorialist

On this gorgeous WARM day, I'm heading to Viking Cooking School for a class in basic French cooking techniques.  Happy Pink Saturday!!! A bientot.

'Led By The Nose'

Long before I had a garden, I used to treat myself sometimes at this time of year to a little posy of snowdrops, from a local florist which was on the way home from work. They were tightly wrapped in a large deep green ivy leaves. When I bought my very first bunch home and placed then in a small jug, I was amazed to discover that these little flowers are quite highly scented. In the garden the scent of snowdrops can be elusive unless it is a particularly still, warm day or you can still perform the contortions needed to bring your nose to the flowers. Although I have my own garden now, I still pick a few snowdrops each winter to bring indoors so that I can  appreciate their scent at close quarters - to my nose it is a subtle but delicious honey scent. Some snowdrops are said to be more scented than others and exude their own distinct perfume e.g. galanthus 'Ginns' Imperati' smells of bitter almonds.

The title of this post was inspired by Jenny Joseph's (she also penned that well known poem 'Warning : When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple') book 'Led By The Nose' which takes you through the year in terms of the smells that you encounter in the garden, not only through plants but also through the various cyclical activities that go on in most gardens. There are various lists towards the end of the book including one of the twelve months and what you might be smelling in each. The list for January is thinner than many other months but there are still a surprising number of pleasures to be savoured.

This is my first entry for Blooming Friday over at Katarina's 'Roses and Stuff' blog - the theme this week is scents.

Book Winner!

Congratulations Sarah at Hyacinths For the Soul!!!   The Random Number Generator picked number 4 and you were number 4 linking up.  

I'll be emailing you offline to get your address so I can pre-order the book and get it shipped.  Meanwhile, THANK YOU to all the pie baking, partying participants!!!   I hope everyone had time to sit down with a good cup of coffee and a great piece  of pie. 

'Stairway To Heaven'

B IS FOR?

BLUE!

"Blue thou art, intensely blue; 
Flower, whence came thy dazzling hue?"
~ James Montgomery,1771 -1854

I think I could bore for England on the subject of blue flowers of which I seem to grow more of than any other colour but bear with me ~ I have just picked one for today's post. This is polemonium caeruleum or to give the plant its common name 'Jacob's Ladder'. The common name derives from the appearance of the the plant's paired ferny like leaflets in a ladder like appearance. The reference to Jacob relates to the the dream that Jacob had, which is told in Genesis 12 - 19 "And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth and the top of it reached to heaven"

This is one of the first perennials that I planted in our current garden, having grown it from seed via The Cottage Garden Society seed exchange. Little buttons of brilliant blue are evident in early May before they blithely come fully into flower later in the month. It seems to have no pests, sits tight, thrives in part shade and although it self seeds it is not bothersome in my garden.

Be off with you now over to ABC Wednesday where there is so much more to be found on the letter B!

Dare me?

Dreaming of a barn cottage

re-do

The scary before….

warning….worse than the pantry. Shield your eyes.

Maybe….With the help of a cottage goddess….

It could be a Cinderella story

maybe. kinda. sorta.

Thoughts??

Top pic: Jane Coslick

Other images: Canadian House and Home

Bottom four: The cold hard truth in our backyard

At The Starting Line

It's almost two years to the day when I posted here the first of what I hoped would be a regular diary type entry, enabling me to keep track of plannings, plantings and generally of goings on in the garden and at the allotment. Well I did quite well at first, then in the way of all previous diary attempts I slowly stuttered before finally fizzling out.
So I am going to have another crack at a hopefully a weekly or thereabouts diary type post. The weather has been on the cool frosty side with some frosts including a couple of rather murky foggy days - decidedly not fit for venturing out. As the third week of January came to an end I am almost all sorted in the seed buying stakes. My seed boxes had a ruthless cull over the Christmas season and I established that there was not much that I needed for the new season. One or two small orders have gone off and have been delivered. I was pleased to come across Mark Diacono's newly opened 'Otter Farm' internet shop on Friday. An order has been placed for a Japanese wineberry and an Egyptian walking onion. I only hope that they will settle into the Cheshire Plain without any great degree of homesickness.

I am not sure what is happening at the allotment but a trip there is on the cards in the next few days. Meanwhile in the garden the snowdrops are showing shimmers of white - just a few more days. Out of my diminished special snowdrops the early flowering 'Faringdon's Double' is in flower. Lots of promise on the hellebore front and pulmonaria rubra 'Redstart' is now showing colour - this usually flowers in late autumn but not this time around.

I made my first trip of the year to a garden centre  today -  two to be precise - they are within a mile or so of each other so you can't visit one and not the other - well that is what I tell himself. There seemed to be fewer winter interest plants on sale than there usually are - a result of the cold winter I wonder.  I was looking out for seed potatoes but was disappointed that the range available did not seem as varied as last year. I looked for 'Lady Christl','Belle De Fontenay' and 'Ratte' in vain but did come home with 'Pink Fir Apple'. A new ornamental pot also slipped into my basket along with a packet of pak choi 'Rubi'. One of the garden centres had a sale and I could not resist a half price cornus sanguinea 'MidWinter Fire'. This is to replace an old straggly red stemmed cornus, which I have not pruned as ruthlessly as I should have done over many years. I think that I should still be able to take some hardwood cuttings before I dispose of the old shrub. We stopped off at a well known DIY store on the way home and a couple of small deliciously scented sarcococca confusa firmly attached themselves to my personna. So my first garden related retail therapy session of the year ~ I dare say it will not be the last. Has anybody else been indulging so far this year? Do tell.

The 35mm f1.8 as a portrait lens

After my last post I decided to look through some previous work that I had done to see how the 35mm f1.8 performs as a portrait lens, and I have to say it's not too shabby at all! I would normally recommend a slightly longer focal length for closer portraits because of the problem with a "normal" prime to distort a little when closer in, however, as you can see from the pic below, it can do the job if needed!

The Nikon 35mm f1.8 is an el-cheapo wonder lens designed exclusively for Nikon's DX format cameras and has the same perspective as a non-existent 52mm prime on an FX camera. 52mm is close enough to qualify as a "standard" lens and has all the attributes one would expect from a good prime i.e. it's sharp and fast!

The photo below is the sort of small group or environmental portrait that I would normally recommend the 35mm focal length (on DX) be used for.

Both photos were taken with the excellent Nikon 35mm f1.8DX lens attached to a Nikon D90 and lighting was from a single Nikon SB600 flash shot through an umbrella.

And The Winner Is? ................

The gardening glove made its journey into the plant pot and emerged clutching ~ roll of drums ~ fanfare of trumpets ~ keeping you all in suspenders here ~ a piece of paper bearing the name of 'The Patient Gardener', who will soon find 'The Wonderful Weekend' winging its way to her. Thanks to all of you who entered. I only wish that there had been enough copies for all of you.

 I unitentionlly made it easier for you by giving you the answer to question number 25 when I set the quiz. Too much seasonal silliness going on methinks ~ was it all that snow or was it the sherry!  Hope you all have a good weekend and here are the answers ~

1) Wise old man ~ Sage
2) Without a dance partner ~ Wallflower
3) In perfect condition ~ Mint
4) Harlequin's sweetheart ~ Columbine
5) It's in the eye ~ Iris
6) Fictional hotel proprietor (first name) ~ Basil
7) Elizabeth has been active ~ Busy Lizzie
8) Wordsworth sung its praises ~ Daffodil
9) Prickly Christmas evergreen meets a German wine ~ Hollyhock
10)Did Chaucer's pilgrims hear these when they ended their journey? (plural) ~ Canterbury Bells
11) A company of animals or birds ~ Phlox
12) Romance bloomed in the foggy weather ~ Love - in - the -mist
13) A motionless insect usually busy ~ Astillbe
14) The girl would share your tandem if you sung to her ~ Daisy
15) The truth be told ~ Honesty
16) The Universe ~ Cosmos
17) Mother sprinted like this on sports day ~ Amaranthus
18) Amour, prone and haemorrhaging ~ Love - lies - bleeding
19) Head cover worn by monastery's inhabitants - Monkshood
20) A floral fiddle ~ Viola
21) It would smell as sweet by any other name ? ~ Rose
22) This girl has been in a fight ~ Black- Eyed Susan
23) Daughter of Zeus and Hera? ~ Hebe
24) Ms. Ledward may grow this in her garden ~ Daphne
25) Yogi's trousers ~ Bear's Breeches

The 50mm f1.8 as a portrait lens

On a crop sensor camera a 50mm lens gives a focal length of about 75mm for Nikon and 80mm for Canon. This gives a greater distance between camera and subject, and crops out part of the image from the lens, and therefore two things happen:
1.) Distortion from being too close with a 50mm lens is eliminated because you have to stand further back to get the same framing. This pushes it a little closer to being a standard "portrait" lens, especially on a Canon.
2.) The weakest part of the 50mm lens are the edges where fringing, aberrations etc. occur. Because the sensor is smaller these are effectively cropped out all together and we are left with only the best part of the image! Oh yeah!

At the ridiculously low price of a standard 50mm f1.8 lens this means that it makes perfect sense to invest a small bit of cash to get near "pro" results! To get the same quality from a zoom you will be spending a LOT more money, and it will be larger and heavier to boot.

More "pros" than will care to admit it carry the nifty fifty in their bags, just ask them for a peek in their bags, it will be there somewhere. Ask Chase Jarvis, he has one in his bag too.

And if you like the 50mm focal length because that was your favourite back when you still used a film camera (remember film?) then consider the Nikkor 35mm f1.8 for Nikon, and I hear good things about the Sigma 30mm f1.4 for most brands of crop sensor cameras. These two are good for environmental portraits and small group shots, giving superb performance for a low cost, although I think the Sigma might not be as cheap as the Nikkor.

So if you have examples of portraits with the "nifty fifty" then please post a link to them below for the benefit of us all!

El Muerto Pare El Santo

Got mine today! Look, see the ugly dude reading the photography book:

You can get your own copy if you go here: http://www.johnsevigny.com/ (Do it, you won't be sorry!)

Most people would give a book review at this point, but let me simply sum it up in these few words -
El Muerto Pare El Santo is all one would expect of John Sevigny, unconventional, a little dark, raw humanism mixed with a certain spirituality that pushes social norms into a corner while real life takes centre stage. I liked it!

If you haven't seen it yet, John's blog is here: Gone City
Tell him I say hi.

Today…

I believe I will head

to the Cote’ d’Azur...

Wanna come?

image: Marie Clair

Fungus at F2.8

So I posted this mushroom shot which was shot at F8 and a closer perspective and I think the result was quite pleasing with the fungus standing out from the background in sharp focus against the relatively out of focus background. Moving further away from the mushroom at the same f-stop would have caused the background to be less defocussed and the effect of highlighting the subject (mushroom) would have been lessened to a large degree. Here we have the power of a sharp prime coming to the fore because I dialled it open to f2.8 and instead increased the the out of focus character of the background and actually heightened the effect!

The Nikon f1.8 wins again! At R999 (directly converted to US $149 although they go for a mere $100 in reality) this is the bargain of a lifetime! If I had set it to f1.8 the result would have been an even thinner slice of focus but at the expense of a tiny bit of sharpness. The main problem is that very little of the subject (mushroom) would have been in focus and then the effect would have been ruined. So don't be afraid to experiment a bit until you find what works for you.

"The Magic Apple Tree"

A IS FOR?

APPLE!

What an adventure I've had participating in ABC Wednesday since January 2009 when I joined in on the letter B of round 4. This time round I am setting myself the challenge of trying to feature either a garden, plant, fruit or vegetable post in keeping with the theme of my blog.

So here we go with apples of which I had fun choosing three specimen trees last August. When the auspices are favourable these are eventually heading for my allotment. They should have been planted by now but I did not anticpate the arctic temperatures that arrived in late November and returned for a good part of advent. My trees materialised sooner than I had anticipated, simply because we were passing by an ornamental fruit nursery. Himself talked me to buying on the spot and with a camper van on hand for transport I could not resist.

Not long after I came across "The Apple Source Book" which I had read reviews of but had never discovered in any of the bookshops that I regularly visit. This book jumped out in me in our local TK Max shop, which is a unlikely but often good source for gardening titles at reduced prices. This book is jam packed with all things apple including recipes, a fascinating gazetteer of British apples (there are an amazing two and half thousand plus varieties of desert and culinary apples let alone hundreds of cider apples) as well as a wealth of information about apple related customs and events.

The above apples were happily fruiting in an orchard at Snowshill Manor in September 2009. Now I hope that you have the time to amble over to ABC Wednesday for more on the letter A.

The title of my post refers to Susan Hill's book of the same name ~ a celebration of a year in the country.

Traditional South African Farm House

At the Rietvlei Nature Reserve.

Gallivanting and marauding…

I recently won this darling little pair of vintage hand poured soy candles

from Small holdings Farm

They smell heavenly.

Check out their loot…they have some fun things!

I also galavanted over to my fave haunt

yep…habitat home store…

in search of some windows and doors for a little barn re-do I are contemplating…

more on that little tid bit later

But…

I came home with this piece of art instead.

yeah yeah…I know it may not be everyone’s cup of tea…

But I love the colors

in these marauding lobsters.

and just the maraudingness of it all.

20 clams. Oil.

It’s going in the barn/cottage.

yep.

It's a Pie Party!

It's time for the all-American treat....PIE!

Link up and join the party!

My husband's birthday is Monday so we decided on a Banana Cream Pie for his special day.   The recipe is pieced together from two different recipes - parts can be credited to Emeril and other parts are from Ron Silver's Bubby's Homemade Pies.

Here's the recipe with pictures.  Enjoy and Pie-Party On!!!

Nut Pastry Dough:

1/2 cup finely chopped, raw, unsalted walnuts

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1½ tablespoons cold unsalted butter, diced

1 large egg, lightly beaten

Make dough and bake ahead.  It will need to cool down before adding bananas, cream filling, whipped cream and chocolate sauce. 

Vanilla Pudding

2 cups heavy cream

1 1/2 cups whole milk

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 vanilla bean, split in half lengthwise and seeds scraped

3 large egg yolks

2 large eggs

1/2 cup cornstarch

Combine 2 cups of the cream, the milk, 1/2 cup of the sugar, the vanilla bean, and the vanilla seeds in a large heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a gentle boil, whisking to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat. Combine the egg yolks, eggs, cornstarch, and 1 cup of the sugar in a medium bowl, and whisk pale yellow in color. Set aside.Whisk 1 cup of the hot cream mixture into the egg yolks. Gradually add the egg mixture to the hot cream, whisking constantly. Bring to a simmer, stirring constantly with a large wooden spoon to cook out the cornstarch and the mixture thickens, about 5 minutes. (The mixture may separate slightly. If so, remove from the heat and beat with an electric mixer until thick and smooth.) Strain through a fine mesh strainer into a clean bowl. Cover with plastic wrap, pressing down against the surface to prevent a skin from forming. Chill in the refrigerator for about 4 hours.

Chocolate Sauce

3/4 cup half-and-half

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1/2 pound semisweet chocolate chips

1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Scald the half-and-half and butter in a small, heavy saucepan over medium heat. Remove from the heat.

Place the chocolate and vanilla in a medium, heat-proof bowl. Add the hot half-and-half and let sit for 2 minutes, then whisk until smooth. 

 

To assemble the pie spoon some of the vanilla pudding into the pie crust. Add, 1 1/2 cups sliced bananas covering the pudding. Cover the bananas with remaining pudding.  Top with whipped cream and drizzle with chocolate sauce.  Use extra chocolate sauce to decorate each serving dish. 

 My husband is so excited about his birthday pie.  

Everyone participating in the pie party will be entered in a drawing to win a copy of the Country Living The Little Book of Pies & Tarts: 50 Easy Homemade Favorites to Bake & Share that will be released in April!!!

Horses in Pyjamas!

Free To A Good Home!

I have a spare copy of the late Elspeth Thompson's 'The Wonderful Weekend Book' on my hands to give away as not surprisingly entries for my recent 'Some Seasonal Silliness' quiz were thin on the ground. Well truth be told they were not existent ~ perhaps the festive season was bad timing on my part. So what I will do dear readers is pick a recipient out of a plant pot or the ilk, from anybody who leaves a comment here by the end of the weekend i.e. midnight on Sunday.

I treated myself to this book in December 2008 as a Christmas present to myself and you can read more about it, by either clicking at the link at the top of the page or visiting here. As well as being a regular gardening columnist for a Sunday national newspaper, Elspeth was also the author of several books. Although this is not a gardening book there are quite a few garden related snippets and I am sure that it would appeal to many of you. It is best summed up by its subtitle ~ ' Reclaim Life's Simple Pleasures". I will post the name of the winner towards the end of next week ~ in the meantime I hope that you have a wonderful weekend!

The Storm Cometh!

A sunset giving some golden light and an approaching storm... what more could a photographer ask for!?!

Ok…Did you see this yet?

Sweet Joan from for the love of a house

does kitchens well!!

Dayum.

Go visit. Check out the rest of her home. You won’t wanna come back

promise.