Not Enough Words For Spring

I love spring..it seems such a time of hope and promise and joyfullness. As I walked home from work yesterday, I couldn't help but smile the whole way...it was warm enough to not need a coat, but the breeze was cool. Lots of branches are just bursting out into their first froth of blossom, and everywhere I looked, there were daffodils swaying gently in the breeze.

There really aren't enough words for spring though, in my opinion. This kind of spring is very different to the early spring where the crocuses are just starting to show as pin pricks, and then beautiful splashes of white and purple and yellow. It is a different kind of spring to when the daffodils will be over, and it will almost be summer. I love how the seasons melt into each other, but really, just having one word for each seems so inadequate.

I have a beautiful bunch of bridal crown narcissi perfuming the air at home, and also a big bumch of overblown creamy lemon curd yellow daffodils with trumpets just a shade or two brighter. The daffodils in particular make me think that if they were flower fairies, they would be dancers in frothy, frothy skirts. Which made me think of Spring as a kind of ballet. The opening act, with the little baby dancers being the snowdrops, who really belong more to the last act of Winter, but open the dance for us. The aconites, who are to me cousins of summer buttercups are next, but their dance is very short- blink and they are gone! The crocuses come next to the stage, and they start all crouched down, then as the music starts, they open up. First the yellow, then the purple, then the white. The next act is of course the daffodils, and they have quite a long dance. Then on comes the Easter bunny to throw foil wrapped chocolate eggs into the audience!

I seem to remember that in one of the old books for ladies that I have, or perhaps it was a vintage magazine, there was a section on fancy dress outfits. They weren't like we have them now, dressing up as characters from films or plays or books, but more abstract themes. One was 'twilight' and was a dusky blue dress with purple overskirts, studded with silver stars, with a sash of silver too. I would love to see what kind of outfit they would have designed for spring!

It seems, from reading some of your comments, that some of us share our birthday month - and in one case, the actual day! I think March is a wonderful time for a birthday. It is far enough away from Christmas to be its own special day, and sometimes, if you are very very lucky, it falls on the same day as Easter! March weather being what it is, you can never be sure if you birthday will dawn with torrential rain, gales, snow, or the hottest sunshine...I like that we can cheerfully expect such variety! If you are celebrating a birthday this month, buy yourself the most beautiful bunch of daffodils you can find, and a tiny treat just for you too. I am going to have a few tiny truffles from the florists in the town where I grew up, and got my wedding flowers from. Happy birthday to you all, and happy spring to everyone else!

Love
Mimi
xxx

Spring is Springing!

Yesterday afernoon, in my little library on top of the hill, the door kept blowing open with a gust of icy wind. The window panes were spattered with rain, and the sky was brooding and dark all day. So many of my customers mentioned the good forecast for today, and we all expressed doubt in it.

And yet, today, we have woken up to the most glorious day, a very early foretaste of spring. It was warm enough to wear a spring frock and cardigan into town, and leave my coat at home for the first time this year! The air is warm, the sky is blue, and everyone seems to be feeling really lighthearted. What bliss!

It is a day off today, and I took a long slow walk around the town. I didn't have much on my list, mainly ingredients for this evening, but I got to really enjoy picking them out. We have a friend who comes to dinner once a fortnight or so, and I love cooking for him. He is what my Gran would have called 'a good eater' and it is so good to see men sitting down and really eating! Tonight I am going to make a little mezze style starter, with hoummous and greek salad, falafel and toasted pitta bread strips, then I am making Pide pizzas, and finishing with orange pots de chocolat and orange segments with mint.

I was quite sure I had posted about Pide pizzas before, but the search facility suggests not. I have not made them very often, but they are just amazing! They are a turkish pizza, and are almost boat shaped. The filling is lamb mince and onion and feta and raisins and cinnamon, cumin and mint. Then you break an egg over the top and bake it. Not at all delicate to eat, but luscious!

I have a new bunch of daffodils to brighten up the living room, and I have every window in our little flat open to let in the spring. Who knows what it will be like tomorrow? I am determined to enjoy today while I can!

Wherever you are, I hope spring is springing, even if it is just for today!

Love
Mimi
xxx

Spring Beauty From 1934

A few months ago, I visited a new vintage shop that has opened up in town. I like that the shop has a nice mix of actual vintage goods and vintage inspired goods, and even a few handmade things sprinkled in, but I must be honest and say that the customer care and whole experience isn't up to much (you get a far friendlier welcome at Truly Madly Vintage the other side of town.

Anyway, just down a little alley is the shop, and in the shop I discovered a lovely book, Home Management from 1934, published by the Daily Express. As well as countless articles on running the home, cooking for your family and hobbies, there is a beauty section. I love vintage beauty tips! Here for your enjoyment, are the recommendations for Spring Beauty:

Everyones skin suffers during the winter months. Smoke from cosy fires, fog, and a heavier diet are all enemies to the perfect complexion. Open-air exercies isn't so easy, and oru skins are bound to suffer; blackheads flourish, too, in hot, stuffy rooms.

A Good Spring Clean

Give your face a spring-clean. Get an ounce of fuller's earth, and mix it to a soft paste with a little boiling milk, then before the mixutre has had time to cool, rub it well into the skin with the finger-tips - be very thorough over the cleanisng of your chin and nose, where the skin is thicker and impurities lie deeper in the pores. Rub until the face is quite dry, then rinse the face in warm water.

Keep Your Skin Spick And Span

Once you have got your complexion perfectly clean, you must keep it so. Wash frequently with soap and water. A change of make-up is often a good thing in the spring months, when the light is stronger, and cold winds often whip more colour up into the cheeks. If you have been using a light 'naturelle' powder, try a 'Rachel No 2' it gives the skin a lovely creamy tone.

Care For Your Hair

It is excellent for the hair to go hatless in the country or on the golf links, but if you want it to look its best, it needs a little special treatment at this time of year. Nourish the roots with almond oil. This is an excellent preventative of greyness. Almond oil is best applied warm. Be quite lavish with it, and massage the whole scalp until it glows and tingles. Then rub off the excess of oil with a Turkish towel, and brush your locks until they are smooth and shining. Don't shampoo immediately, but allow the skin on the head time to absorb the oil - three days is generally sufficient for this.

Now I must confess that I am not so very keen on walking round with oily hair for 3 days, but a good deep face scrub and a deep condition sound just the thing to me. The new issue of Making Magazine has a recipe for facial scrub in it that I might just whip up later - it has oatmeal, yoghurt and evening primrose oil in it and a few other things too i believe, which is just perfect as I have all of those things!

Now the daffodils are dancing about, even though it is still very chilly and blowy out, it makes me want to spring clean myself a bit...go through my wardrobe, find a new shade of red lipstick to try. I am also thinking about a hair cut...nothing too drastic as I have spent ages growing it long, but I fancy something like the picture at the top of this post...what do you think?

What will you be doing to get yourself ready for spring?

When Your Heart Says Spring But The Breeze Says Winter!

It looks so beautiful outside...the sun is bright which makes the light brittle somehow. There are spring flowers peeping out of the greenery everywhere I look - the last of the shy pale snowdrops here, the proud jaunty daffodils standing proudly over the duckling-like crocuses. And yet, when you open the window to let the spring come pouring in, or venture outside, the icy chill of the air reminds you that Winter is definitely not behind us yet! When I was walking home last night, the pavements were starting to sparkle lightly, with a hint of frost.

It is hard to know what to eat in this weather...after what feels like months and months of winter, I am starting to crave lighter food, and yet where it is still chilly, I want something more comforting than salad. Last night I made my new favourite soup, spinach with a poached egg floating in it. Tonight I have made a dinner mainly out of what I had in my storecupboards and freezer - the only addition I bought in were two giant yellow peppers! It is still in the oven so I cannot yet vouch for the flavour, but what I made was:

A Light But Warming Supper Dish For Chilly Spring Days

2 yellow peppers (or any colour you prefer; the larger side is better)
1 box tomato and chilli spelt mix (or you could substitute risotto rice or mix)
handful cherry tomatoes
1 salmon fillet
mature cheddar cheese (a good grating)
handful of pine nuts (optional)
drizzle of olive oil

1) Make the spelt or risotto recipe as directed on the box, or use your favourite recipe, or some left over risotto.

2) Meanwhile, cut each pepper in half, retaining the stalk if you can - it looks pretty - and deseed.

3) Halve the cherry tomatoes and divide evenly between the peppers.

4) Lightly poach the salmon, flake and stir into the spelt or risotto.

5) Use this to fill the peppers.

6) Sprinkle with cheese and pine nuts, drizzle with oil.

7) Bake in a gentle oven for 45 minutes or so, until the peppers are soft and almost collapsing.

If you have some to hand, a splash of balsamic vinegar would be delicious to go with it!

Spring Is In The Air

Time seems to be swirling around me at the moment, as though I am a pebble in a stream, and the hours and minutes eddie and flow about me, bubbling and flowing. I want to talk about the glorious day that was last Tuesday, but somehow it feels years away already...and today, it seems to have skipped by in the blink of an eye, but I have got so much done! Sometimes it feels as though I live at work, and yet today, on my first day of a rare two-days-together-off, it seems as though work was a lifetime away. Edison explained relativity as 'when a man sits with a pretty girl for an hour, it seems like a minute. But let him sit on a hot stove for a minute and it's longer than any hour. That's relativity!' I know of course that time is a constant, but there does seem to be a strong sprinkling of relativity going on these days!

Now, back to last Tuesday. I can't even begin to tell you what a glorious day it was. Not for any unusual happening or special event, just because when I opened the curtains, the sun was shining! The birds were singing! My hair sat just so, and my new (from the thrift shop) cardigan was the perfect match for the silk flower in my hair. I had the whole day at my little library on the hill, and as I got off the bus, I noticed that in the grass bank opposite the library, there were tiny pin-pricks of gold. On closer inspection, the crocuses are not yet out, but are definitely on their way! I think that the cold weather we have had this year has delayed the spring flowers, because I have not seen daffodil shoots yet. The air was fresh and sweet, and the breeze almost warm. When it got to lunch time, I walked across the grass by the duckpond to the tea shop, and did not need a coat! I know it is February, and it is entirely possible that we may still have snow, but I feel as though I have just seen the smallest peek of her petticoats, and those petticoats are spring!

The beautiful weather had brought out a great many people from the village, so there was nearly no room for me to have my lunch. Happily a pair of ladies let me share their table, and I sat with my pot of tea, pate and toast, and read another Patricia Wentworth novel for a happy hour.

When I got back home that evening, I felt slightly tired, as I often do from my day up on the hill, but also as though all my cobwebs have been blown away. I feel like I can face the rest of the cold, dark days, now I have had a reminder that spring is on her way!

(And true to form, dearest readers, the very next morning when I opened my windows, it was to the pitter patter of rain drops!)

Sybaritic Spring Afternoon

One of my favourite books is The Gentle Art of Domesticity by the lovely Jane Brocket, who you can read over at www.yarnstorm.blogs.com In one of the chapters of this scrumptious book is a memory of an essay written as a student, and teacher's comment 'what a sybarite!' if only you take 'addicted' out of the definition, being a sybarite seems a lovely thing to be. I am going to alter the definition for the way I think of it, as being 'a coinoisseur of luxury and pleasures of the senses' for however lovely the subject of the addiction may be, the nature of addiction itself, is not.

Which is a roundabout musing on the nature of luxury and the pleasures of the senses, and the way I am spending my afternoon. It is a wonderful spring day, which seems all the more of a gift as it was born wreathed in chilly mist this morning. I have every window in our little flat open to let in the Spring, but I have the bedroom door closed and the curtains pulled. I am sitting in bed, with a mound of feather pillows at my back, a cup of tea in my favourite floral mug at my side, and a pile of books and magazines next to me. I have had a nap, been texting with a dear friend, and am going to do a little cutting out of magazine pictures for one of my scrapbooks. The books I have include 'Knitting' by Sarah Dallas that the library ordered in for me, so I am also daydreaming of yarn and needles.

It feels really decadent to be in bed in the afternoon, with Radio 4 in the background, and not to be ill! You see, I had such a busy day yesterday- I worked until 6:00pm, caught the bus back into town and then worked in my other library until 10:15pm as we had the author Xinran speaking....and then had to be in work for 8:30am this morning! I was feeling so sleepy this morning that I was really glad that I had 'time off in lieu' or 'toil' this afternoon- they gave me back the extra hours that I worked last night. The thing that kept me going this morning was the thought of an afternoon nap, and sybaritic pleasures!

I feel the cool breeze blowing through the curtains, but am pleasantly warm as I am wrapped in my soft dressing gown, and have on my feet the slippers that I crocheted for myself. At my back is a fluffy cloud of feather pillows.

I can hear the gentle murmer of Radio 4, and a garden full of birds singing so beautifully to me. I love to hear 'the beeps' on Radio 4 marking the passing hours.

I can taste hot fragrant tea, and crumbly shortbread, just the thing for a light snack where the aim is to tempt the taste buds rather than fill the stomach!

I can see a tempting pile of books and magazines, my favourite mug, and the new avon catalogue waiting for my attention, along with one of my scrapbooks. I have one scrapbook for pictures of clothes/styles/makeup that I like, and another for inspirational, beautiful pictures from magazines such as Country Living. I really want to start another with articles that I want to read, and to start a box folder like my Mum has, labelled 'ideas to try'. It is so intriguing, I am going to beg her for a peep one day!

I can smell the shortbread next to me, and there is an echo on the air of the Past Times Lavender Room Fragrance that I sprayed just before I got into bed. I love room pefumes, but would never touch an aerosol or an air freshener! So not only a sybarite, but a snob, too!

Recently, when I come here to share little things about my day, I will mostly have a few ideas for things that I want to include, but it tends to come straight from my heart onto the page, with a few tweakings for clarity. Occasionally though, I have a post that brews for a little while, like percolating coffee. I have one in my mind just now. Spring flowers are perhaps not the most original thing to write on, but they are my favourite of all flowers, and I have seen so many beauties on my walk to work each day, that I really want to give them a post of my own. Just this morning, there were daffodils of every kind, tete-a-tete, narcissi, hyacinths, crocuses,violets, even some tulips...I feel like nature is somehow emptying her jewellery box and scattering it over the earth for us to enjoy.

I really hope that at least one person who visits here and reads this will plan themselves an afternoon of sybaritic pleasures, and really savour them.

Catching Up

I have been reading a beautiful post over at Brocante Home, in which the lovely Alison comments that through blogging she has become more aware of the cyclical nature of her life and emotions, and blogging. She says that in March she disappears, and without meaning to, I have as well. I have had a really busy few weeks, lots going on at work, lots going on at home, and lots going on in my mind. Just as spring seems to be finally springing (although the weatherman assures me it will be chilly again by the weekend), I feel like I am germinating somehow. I have been burrowing about for all kinds of information, having long email conversations with a dear friend in which we end up in discussions about live, love, the universe, and everything inbetween. I feel a strong sense of renewal, of the daffodils bursting forth into flower, of throwing windows open and spring cleaning.

I have been reading a lot as well, and have decided that I really, really must start copying down quotes from books the very moment I read them, as far too often I get swept along in the story, and then forget whereabouts the quote was…and I read a lovely piece the other day, about how perhaps there are certain books that we are destined to read, that seek us out, call to us until we find them. I am almost certain that the book was the wonderful The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. I loved this book so much that when I finished it, I did not want to return it to the library. I did, because I knew there was a waiting list, but I felt that if I kept it near, somehow I would not have finished it. The library catalogue record, which sparked my interest, had this to say about it: It's January, 1946, and writer Juliet Ashton sits at her desk, vainly seeking a subject for her next book. Out of the blue, she receives a letter from one Dawsey Adams of Guernsey - by chance, he's acquired a secondhand book that once belonged to Juliet - and, spurred on by their mutual love of Charles Lamb, they begin a correspondence. But it is so much more than that. Desperately sad in places, yet overall wonderfully uplifting; it gently stretches and educates you without you realising it. It is one of those books that slips down easily, yet gives you much to think about.

I would love to have had the opportunity to read more by Mary Ann Shaffer, but alas her health declined and she needed the help of her niece to finish the book, and died shortly thereafter. I feel sad that there are many other books she might have written, but never will now. It makes me wonder, what things are there that we could be marvellously good at, if only we found time to try our hands? I know that writing a book is not something that you just wake up and do, you have to work at it, of course, but Mary Ann found that time, and oh, how she (and we!) were rewarded. Perhaps like me, there are so many little things you would like to find time for, one day. One of my things is that I would love to make a patchwork quilt, and I do long to write books too. I cannot help but think how awful to try making a quilt, find that I love it, and perhaps have a talent for it, but for it to be my only one because I have run out of time. This is not meant to be as melancholy as it sounds, but more a call to arms! If all of us carved out just a little time to try the thing we long to do, imagine how many hidden talents we might unearth! You don’t crochet now, but in a few weeks or so, you could be well on your way to finishing the first in a series of cushions that will be handed down and snuggled upon by generations to come. You can’t cross stitch yet but the spring sunshine will light the sampler that will hang on the wall. You buy your croissants today but by next weekend you could be removing your first batch from the oven…they don’t have to be big things…but how much sweeter our lives will be, when we give ourselves time to try!

Lifted Spirits

SIsn't it amazing and wonderful, the effect that a day of lovely sunshine can have on the spirits? Even having to work yesterday, the sun streamed in through one particular window by the counter, and was warm on my back. Although the library was quieter than usual, because people were out enjoying the sun, it was still a lovely place to be. It is peaceful in my little library, and it smells of books; there is a real community spirit there, and everyone knows each other and chats as they return their books.

Nice as it is to work there, I must confess to having one eye on the window for much of the day, just to look out and see the sunshine! And at lunch time, I had a special treat in store. You see, years and years ago, when I was a little girl, there used to be a jumble sale and book sale at the village hall a few doors down on a Saturday afternoon, and after we had been there, we used to go to the library to choose some books. Imagine how excited I was to see that there was going to be one held that very day, and my late lunch meant I could pop in for a few minutes.

It shows how long it has been since I have been to a jumble sale, and I must admit that from reading scrumptious books like India Knight's Thrift, I had this lovely vision of picking up crocheted blankets and flowery tea cups, perhaps finding a lovely vintage book or two....well there was a queue right back to the duck pond to get in, and when I got it, wow! It was a heaving mass of people, elbows out, scurry, hurry, squish! Perhaps I got special treatment as a child, because I do not remember being buffeted about like I was!

I don't especially like crowds, so I was rather pleased to escape, but not before I had been swept round the stalls by the crowd...and emerged with a set of four beautiful glass storage jars for 40p!

Happily the weather forecast is that the whole weekend shall be gorgeous, and today (Sunday) I have the perfect treat planned. At last, at last, dear Carl and I are going to take ourselves off to The Gardens of Easton Lodge so we can walk around and admire the snowdrops. I just adore snowdrops, I love their elegance and beauty, and the fact that they are the first little whisper that spring is on the way.

When I walked to work on Friday, it was a cool morning, and the trees were just undefined smudges against the sky, because it was that hazy early-morning air, and yet for all the winteryness, there was a tiny edge to the breeze, that seemed to whisper 'spring is coming, spring is coming!' There was a blackbird hopping about in a garden, he could almost have been dancing, when suddenly, he stopped, and cocked his head as if to listen to the 'spring is coming' whisper. In another garden, there was a row of daffodil shoots just starting to emerge, all green and spiky, and reminding me a little of that soft delicate hair that new babies have at the back of their heads. In another garden, there were tiny buds of yellow blossom emerging on a trellis. Before we know it, there will be pinpricks of yellow and purple crocus, and spring will be here!