And while my present from G was virtual crockery, my present to G was actual crockery, thanks to a well-timed hint from The Coffee Lady:
This winter we've rediscovered our love of porridge, topping it with demerara sugar, maple sugar, maple syrup, or golden syrup, depending on what's to hand. But flipping through Home Cooking, I see Rachel Allen recommends whisky and cream--woo hoo! Though after a bowlful, I probably best keep away from the crockery...
Luckily, I have a jump start on the Persephone project. There were two duds this year (It's Hard to Be Hip Over Thirty and Daddy's Gone A-Hunting) but these were more than made up for by a shelf-ful of fabulous reads:
Other highlights this year included Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín,
The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford, and My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell.
I'd love any suggestions for the coming year, Persephone or otherwise, though at 590 pages I think I better leave Few Eggs and No Oranges till 2012!
including a spectacular pinecone sadly much too big for our table or tree,
there were no leaves to be seen.
But we soon found solace in free Christmas coffees and a slice of lemon and poppy seed cake, which was so deliciously more-ish I forgot to snap a picture till we were nearly halfway through!
And because the Café had already closed for the season, we were able to carry our Teahouse tray into the Café proper and sit in its elegant and exotically warm surrounds.
There were big buckets of mistletoe for sticky Christmas kisses:
And on the way out, we passed tray after tray of bright green bulbs and flocks of little golden birds,
a heartening change from the gray, slush-crusted fields outside, and a reminder that spring really is just round the corner.
But before I get ahead of myself, as I so often do, we wish you a very merry holiday filled with love and happiness...
...and maybe a few mistletoe kisses, too!
The café was sparkly with both tinsel and ice. Even with two kettles on the boil, it was a frosty affair.
The polar conditions didn't deter the customers, though, who came in for coffee and cake, then headed back out to stand round the brazier, where the chestnuts were a-popping and wine was a-mulling.
Anticipating the cold, I'd bundled up with three pairs of socks (over-the-knee, cashmere, and ski) inside my snow boots, five layers beneath my coat (I could barely do the buttons up!), and my toasty new cowl.
But after four hours, I was feeling an awful lot like this guy:
Do you think it's too late to add thermals to my Christmas list?!
Hannah and I baked the pieces last week, then decorated and assembled them on Tuesday.
It may look conservative here, but the house really glistens. We brushed the sugar paste leaves and roses with luster dust, sprinkled the roof with sugar crystals, and inset the shingles and window frames with shimmery pale green sugar pearls. Not normally a glitter girl, I found my enthusiasm for the sparkly stuff nearly equal to that of Kirstie! Who knew?
And it has the most divine gingery aroma. Now if only I could escape the holiday hubbub and move in myself...
We've had festive food at home, too, with Rachel Allen's Cardamom Sour Cream Cake. The recipe gives the option to use crème fraîche, but don't be tempted (and you will be tempted, because it comes in just the right size pot for the recipe). Definitely use sour cream for the tastiest cake:
Cardamom is my very favorite winter spice, followed by ginger. Which reminds me, I have yet to start our annual gingerbread cookie production. Where does the time go? Better go look for the cutters!
Purple and green, these socks definitely deviate from my usual beige and gray, but they do coordinate (more so in person than in the photo) with our new Angie Lewin print, By Green Bank:
I fell in love with this print last year but assumed it had since sold out. So I was over the moon to see it at St Jude's in the City at the Bankside Gallery a few weeks ago.
Even better, on the day we visited, Angie was on hand signing copies of her new book, Plants and Places. She was just lovely--so warm and friendly and down-to-earth.
image: Castor + Pollux
And while I wish I'd asked her about her work, or even about where she'd found her beautiful retro blouse, I instead opened with the rather odd 'We've stayed in your house!' Will I ever learn?
The London Review Cake Shop inside is the perfect meeting place, serving super strong cups of Monmouth coffee at its big wooden table. But even under the influence of caffeine, I managed to leave without any new books.
Which is just as well, since I already have plenty to read, including several titles in the The Bloomsbury Group series. After starting the series back in 2009, I somehow lost my momentum. But not too long ago, I picked up where I'd left off, with Love's Shadow by Ada Leverson, the first in her Little Ottleys trilogy:
The plot is complex, involving a slew of romantic entanglements enacted by a host of characters, all deftly drawn, especially the ridiculously pompous Bruce Ottley and willfully unconventional Anne.
Ada Leverson was a close friend of Oscar Wilde, and the writing is very Wilde-like, the quips flying thick and fast. While the barrage of witticisms seemed overwhelming at first, I soon settled into the rhythm and was completely engaged from then on.
Henrietta Sees It Through by Joyce Dennys is the sequel to Henrietta's War, an earlier read in The Bloomsbury Group:
Henrietta, a Devonshire doctor's wife, continues to document daily life on the Homefront in letters to her childhood friend Robert. As the war enters its third year, the residents of the village push on in their various projects, contributing to the war effort in sincere but often muddled ways.
Laugh-out-loud funny, I was in stitches from page one, though there are serious and sad moments, too. The perfect combination of sublime humor and quiet sentiment, the pages just flew by. Definitely rates among my favorite books of this year, or indeed of any year!
Looking back, I can't fathom how I gave such an unflattering review to the first book. Guess I'll just have to reread Henrietta's War to see.
Of course it's not nearly as much, but it's something. At least it makes a good excuse for a new cowl: the Chunky Cowl from Purls of Wisdom in Blue Sky Alpacas' Bulky.
I love the way the cowl reduces in circumference toward the chin, making it extra warm and cosy. And the yarn is sooo thick and soft. It does shed like the dickens, though, so thank goodness my winter coat is light gray not black!
My only change to the pattern was to cast off on the purl side rather than the knit side for a nicer top edge.
Such a quick knit (only an hour or so). But the blocking did take a full day, as I blocked it twice to reduce edge curl and keep it standing tall. Because at -2°C, the taller the better!
