Blissful Weekend

Two utterly sparkling bits of treasure this weekend! And one dull, tarnished piece.

First sparkle; I was wandering home from town on Good Friday with dear Carl. We happened past a certain charity shop that I do love, but is slightly out of the way of my normal route home, and is usually closed by the time I get there. Not today, however! And there in the window was the most glorious thing- a fat red book, with ‘Better Homemaking’ stamped on the cover. I asked if I could please have a look at it, and when I peeped inside I knew I had to have it! The introduction says that we may live in very different homes in very different places, but that we all have one thing in common- the ability to welcome a new friend into our lives, and to make this book that friend! Published in the fifties, it has sections on every subject you can think of- from laying out furniture in the rooms, to cooking to beauty routines to knitting patterns to tea-leaf reading for your coffee mornings! I happily parted with my £3 for it and am working my way through it now. Surprising really, how much is still relevant today, although I think I will be declining the bleach facial mask!

Second treasure- it happened that Easter Sunday is also the birthday of Carl’s sister. We went out for the day with his family, and if you were in Dedham that day and heard splashing and giggling, then you would have spotted me rowing about on the river! It was so delightful- we took two boats, and all had a go at rowing! When I was at the oars, I had to pull them in tight, as there was a mother duck with a flotilla of little fluffy ducklings behind her- some striped like humbugs and others like yellow cotton wool. I didn’t want to poke them with my oar, and neither did I want to create ripples that would have been like waves to them! The weather was glorious, and after we had quite exhausted ourselves rowing, we went to the Boathouse Restaurant for lunch which was utterly delicious. I have not had so much trouble choosing from a menu in a long time! In the end we all shared warm bread with oil and vinegar for a starter, and then I had pigeon breast with caramelized red cabbage, and a decadently rich chocolate pot for dessert. While we were enjoying this, there was a live singer in the background, who reminded me of Lionel Richie. I had to say to Vicki that I felt quite bad that I was getting so much enjoyment out of her birthday!

And the dull piece….I don’t know how things are done in your family, or how they were when you were little, but I saw something in the supermarket that I just didn’t like. What I saw several times were Mums who were obviously stressed (which I can understand, I find the supermarket frazzles me without have children with me) standing in the Easter Egg aisle roaring at their children to ‘just choose one NOW or you aint having any!’ and then when the child chose ‘no not THAT one! It’s too much money! Just have that one!’ and then the child started crying…. When I was little, we always knew that we would have an Easter Egg, and we might be allowed to drop hints as to what we might especially like (to this day, give me a buttons egg with the crackly cellophane and I am a happy, happy girl!) but that was it. I didn’t really know Easter Eggs even came from the supermarket until I was older. I am not really sure where I thought they did come from….but they were lovely things, a surprise, not a thing to be grabbed at before you got smacked! Carl and I are very much planning to have babies after we are married…not straight away you understand, but soon enough that I like to day dream in quiet moments with a cup of rose tea and a chocolate bunny of the Easter Egg Hunts I will arrange for our children…how we will have boiled eggs for breakfast, and the toast cut out with biscuit cutters into little bunny or chick shapes…

Please don’t misunderstand me though…I know that lots of people would like to faff around making bunny toasts and doing easter egg hunts- I know that children are hard work and exhausting. I don’t want to sound like I know it all or that I don’t realise. It’s just that these are things that are really important to me, to give to my children a little of what was given to me as a child. Perhaps I should not be so defensive, but I have visited other blogs recently where the blogger has made a post and there has been a veritable flood of comments either berating the blogger, or berating the berater! So let it just be left that these are just my hopes and dreams for the future!