Of Bright Hues and Cheering Books

Are you sitting comfortably?

I am in need of a little solace tonight as our gentle, barely-out-of-kittenhood cat, Sakura, has returned from an overnight stay at our local vet.  Forgive me for being prejudiced but there is this not-so-friendly black cat who stalks our neighbourhood, feared by all, who first chased our innocent feline (who is not so good at practising self-defence) around the houses and then dug her claws into her leg.This resulted in the most unsightly and, I imagine, very painful infection.  I am sure the vet has done a marvellous job but she is not quite out of danger yet.  It is daunting to see an animal suffering and to witness the children's sadness.

I shall move on to more cheering thoughts and ask you all  a deep and meaningful question;

 What do these colours conjure up in your mind's eye?

Think a moment... and tell me...

I see....

 Dahlias! 

 Yes, those cheery hued embroidery threads bring to mind dahlias and quite possibly Chrysanthemums but could we please wait a while before thinking about Chrysanthemums?  They will be forever associated with La Toussaint - All Saint's Day - here in France and the splendid, somewhat gaudy bunches of flowers dotting those rather austere French cemetries.

These dahlias guard the entry of Chaumont Château with bright determination.

When I am in need of much cheering and a little instruction I turn to one of my favourite books which resides by our humble fireplace.  This book has been picked up by many guests (possibly weary of our post-dinner art of conversation) sighed and smiled over and jotted down on many a book wishlist.  "The Ivington Diaries" by Monty Don.  Now, some of my British readers may be rolling their eyes a little thinking such thoughts as 'goodness, I've had that book for ages'.  I apologise but I must confess to being a profound admirer of Montague Don. 

Before acquiring "The Ivington Diaries" I first read "The Jewel Garden" .  I was fascinated by the concept of a garden inspired by jewels.  Incidentally don't you think Dahlias are rather jewel-like in colour?  This book is the story of the garden that over the past few years has bloomed from the muddy fields around the Dons' Tudor farmhouse, a perfect metaphor for Monty and his wife Sarah's own rise from the ashes of the spectacular commercial failure of their fashionable jewel business in the 1980s. It was a quick and pleasurable read which gave me a taste for the beauty of Monty Don's writing.  

Wanting more I then devoured the more substantial "The Ivington Diaries" , published in 2009, a book with heavy creamy paper and splendid colourful photographs taken by Monty Don himself.  It is a month-by-month account of his work in the Herefordshire garden which he created with his wife from 1992 onwards.  This gardening space has been central to Monty's well-being and beautifully put down in words.  His passion for gardening shines through together with his need for consolation and a strong devotion to his (dare I say) patient wife, Sarah.

This is also a book you can dip into and so tonight I searched for Monty Don's thoughts on dahlias.  This is one of the jottings I found and I urge you, should you find yourself beginning to nod off, to read at least the second paragraph, please:

13 September 2003

Show dahlias are like Ascot hats.  They come out only for the big occasion.  But they got a bad reputation amongst those who care about reputations for being somehow a bit naff and lacking in the subtlety necessary to appeal properly to sophisticated tastes.  The truth is probably cruder.  Dahlias were considered common and vulgar in the same way that gladioli, hybrid tea roses and hanging baskets are still frowned upon.  Nowadays 'Bishop of Llandaff' is allowed within the inner circle of good taste, and perhaps 'Arabian Night', but as exceptions that prove the ghastly rule.  This is, of course, pure snobbery, and stupid snobbery at that.  For all the democratisation of gardening through television, there is still a ridiculous streak of aspirational snobbery that runs throught too many back gardens.  I hate it.

And I love dahlias.  They are undiluted fun.  The deep, dark ones are velvety and voluptuous like the inside of a bordello, and the bright, garish pinks, yellows and oranges have the 1950s sumptuous joyfulness of Monroe or Bardot.  They come as tight, minimal pompons of flower or clumsy starbursts of petal.  They can be childishly simple or mathematically complex.  They are busy plants, giving out more energy than almost any other.

 Beautifully written, don't you think?  

 So this is a tribute to those Monroe and Bardot-like dahlias cultivated by a charming man who cut us a bunch and donated a generous-sized butternut squash (which was devilishly hard to carry home with a wriggling, screaming toddler).

If all dahlia growers are as kind and cheery as this gentleman then I say three cheers for dahlias!

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As an end-note to this VERY lengthy post I would also like to recommend a wonderful book I have just finished; Barbara Trapido's "Sex and Stravinsky".  It is a superb concoction of fairytale and opera written in a brisk and substantial style.  Whilst Stravinsky features as a leitmotiv there is virtually no sex to be found so I suppose the title was chosen mostly for its alliteration.  I found the style and the storyline whisked me along at almost breakneck speed from Oxford to South Africa. Give it a try if you do not know it already?

I was also delighted to discover that my giveaway gifts found a loving, enthusiastic artist's home .  Go see for yourselves as Vanessa has just had these STUNNINGLY beautiful cards of her work printed.  I also discovered from her photographs that, by a strange quirk of magic, she has chosen the very same yarn for her Never Not Knitting pattern as I am knitting up right now for another (simpler) Never Not Knitting pattern. 

Love to you all and have a peaceful happy week with plenty of time for reading and creating.

A freespirited Curly Locks in the gardens of Valmer Château

Welcome to Valmer Château Gardens!

I am fortunate that this little corner of paradise has become so familiar since moving to the Loire Valley over two years ago.  The owners, Alix and Aymar de Saint Venant, are warmhearted, hospitable as well as being formidable experts in horticulture and wine-growing.

Today the gardens celebrated the last weekend of a long, fruitful season before closing to the public until the following April.  The weather was glorious and we were blessed with the intensity of early autumn light.

The charm of the four acres of Italian Renaissance-styled pleasure gardens with their complex terraced system is undeniable.  However it is to the sixteenth-century kitchen gardens that I am drawn every single time I return.

The ingenuity of proportion and design meant that by the seventeenth century the kitchen garden -extending to two and a half acres - were completely invisible from the château and other gardens, including the Léda terrace which rises above the potager by almost twenty feet.  This was, of course, intentional.  This garden is enclosed within high stone walls with two circular towers originally built to house gardeners and tools.  The central steps which descend from the Léda terrace into the kitchen gardens did not exist in the seventeenth-century plans and so gardeners and cooks were obliged to use a small flight of steps built in the north-facing wall to lug salads and leeks to kitchens.

In France the eighteenth century turned things round for potagers.  While Jean-Jacques Rousseau extolled the virtues of nature in Versailles the Fashion Queen Marie-Antoinette built a farm at the Petit Trianon and dressed up her sheep in pink bows.  Kitchen gardens became à la mode and consequently at Valmer the wall was opened out and majestic stone steps, descending directly from the Léda terrace, were added.  This meant that eighteenth-century onlookers could admire this garden of produce as they strolled around the terraced lawns in their fancy clothes.

There is no doubt that in the twenty-first century Valmer's potager is also in l'air du temps.  The success of Madame de Saint Venant's sumptuous book, published in 2010, testifies to this opinion.

Before descending the stone flight of steps into the garden it is a good idea to pause and gaze over the potager as a whole.   When I do this I am reminded of a poignant childhood memory of pressing my nose close to our local sweet-shop window and yes, drooling at the sheer variety of treats displayed.  The delicious anticipation of choosing which sweets I would leave the shop with is also captured here at Valmer for these gardens, situated in the very heart of France, are so very atypical.  Mme de Saint Venant wholeheartedly urges all visitors to smell, stroke, and taste all her produce; vegetables, fruit, herbs, and flowers alike.  In short, they are invited to become active participants in the garden by carousing with all five senses.

My children relish this freedom each and every time.

This time they were not alone.

Today we were joined by Curly Locks!

This young lady has been hard to pin down.  Apparently,according to the nursery rhyme, Curly Locks was eligible for high-society marriage due to her curly hair which would afford her the luxury of sitting on a cushion whilst sewing a fine seam and gorging herself upon strawberries, sugar, and cream.  Her locks would free her from the obligation of washing dishes (lucky girl) and feeding swine.

 Our Curly Locks, however, is freespirited and refuses to be tied down to a cushion.  She shows no interest in seams and could do with a few lessons from Cathleen at My Sewing Serenity

 She prefers instead to run freely through the kitchen gardens at Valmer and pitch in and help the gardeners...

climb trees and pick apples.

And who can blame her at such a tender age?  

She is in excellent hands with Alix de Saint Venant and her team of spirited gardeners passing on their horticultural skills.

I am sure she will also find the time to wander through the pleasure gardens...

smell the flowers and enjoy being young, footloose and fancy free.

Before we left today after a glass of grape juice and a lengthy chat with Mme de Saint Venant Curly Locks whispered in my ear that she would very much like to stay at Valmer and to be sure to let you dear readers know that this lady won the Nursery Rhyme Giveaway.  Please could you send my your e-mail address so that I can send you the Never Not Knitting pattern of your choice?

A bientôt, says Curly Locks!

Wild Cyclamen and Sugared Almonds

Writing a thesis has taught me several things: that having the freedom to choose your own subject is both thrilling and unsettling (I understand now why children crave structure and limitations), to love a (vast) subject with a passion whilst remaining concise and precise (the latter did not come so easily to me), and finally, that attention to detail is a marvellous thing but that one must know when to stand back and curb the desire to give too much detail.

I love detail.  One needs, however, to balance out embellishment with simplicity.  Details matter but simple pleasures are wonderful too, right?

Our walk this morning married the simple pleasures of being with loved ones in the sunny autumnal countryside and relishing nature's ornaments.  

Wild cyclamen.  In spring I hear tales of carpets of dainty bluebells in the British Isles which I have yet to hear in France.  While I miss that marvellous sight I know that come autumn the woodlands here are covered in heavenly pink and white cyclamen.The pleasure is just as intense.

The cyclamen's Greek name grew from encircling like the Cyclades which encircle Delos. Their old English name 'sowbread', however, is much less poetic.

Today these little flowers wove their magic on our children and the woods around us.

As always it was the children who first spotted the gifts lying in the dappled sunlight.

Why should we find a cupcake dress and an apron lying among the ivy and cyclamen?

 Who put the dress on the tree?  Some benevolent woodland sprites perhaps?

 Oh my goodness!  Sugared almonds?  Such kindness!

 A sugared-almond blue cardigan made from the finest fairy gossamer.

One finds the lovliest little people in these woodland glades.

 Whoever made these clothes loves giving attention to detail.

 Yes indeed.  There was magic in the woods today.

 Magic of the sweetest kind.

And now please tell me; do you prefer making things on a small or large scale?  Do you too love weaving details into your creations or, on the contrary, do you find embellishments too fussy? Please share your preferences with me.

A warm welcome to my lovely new readers and a big thank you to my loyal ones.

I cannot wait for dear Vanessa  to return and discover she has won the giveaway gifts.

Don't forget the Nursery Rhyme winner will be announced soon... very soon.

Have a beautiful week.

ps I made these doll's clothes for a wonderful friend, Zara, who claims they will be for her daughter Lucy's doll.  I wonder who will play with them the most? ;-)

The Giveaway Winner

Dear, dear readers,

Today I was quite giddy with excitement at the thought of picking a winner out of my son's apple-green gardener's hat.

I would like to thank you ALL for participating in my first giveaway with such relish and enthusiasm. 

There were one hundred entries.

I called upon my dear son Tristan to pick out the winning paper this afternoon as I know he can be counted on for sharing every crumb of excitement.

He did well.

With a flourish he pulled out a little green slip...

Grapes devoured by Angélique

The winning blog name is revealed in the first verse of a poem taken from:

Garden Poems, edited by John Hollander (Alfred A. Knopf, 1996)

(Simply take the bold letters in the order they appear and string together the name of the winner.)

The Garden in September

Now thin mists temper the slow-ripening beams

Of the September sun: his golden gleams

On gaudy flowers shine, that prank the rows

Of high-grown hollyhocks, and all tall shows

That Autumn flaunteth in his bushy bowers,

Where tomtits, hanging from the drooping heads

Of giant sunflowers, peck the nutty seeds;

And in the feather aster bees on wing

Seize and set free the honied flowers,

Till thousand starts leap with their visiting:

While ever across the path mazily flit,

Unpiloted in the sun,

The dreamy butterflies

With dazzling colours powdered and soft glooms,

White, black and crimson stripes, and peacock eyes,

Or on chance flowers sit,

With idle effort plundering one by one

The nectaries of deepest-throated blooms.

Robert Bridges

(There are two more delicious verses.)

Congratulations dear Vanessa! Although I know she has taken absence of leave from blogland for a fortnight.

The winner of the Nursery Rhyme giveaway will be announced in a few days when a little beauty will be finished and the stage will be set for the winning rhyme.

ps Do You Mind If I Knit? is the winner ;-)

What's for Pudding?

Dear readers, if you are looking for the giveaway, here it is!

Something is cooking in our little corner of the world.

There have been many sweet dreams of desserts.

Rich Fig and Almond Pudding, The Duchess's Pudding,Quince and Pear Doublecrust Pie, Lemon Posset, Icky Sticky Toffee Sponge.

I could go on.

And I will!

Did you know that Richmond Maids of Honour, which are little almond-flavoured curd tarts, were great favourites at the court of Henry VIII in Richmond Palace, particularly with Anne Boleyn?  Henry is said to have named them after her when he saw her eating them while she was maid of nonour to Catherine of Aragon, his first wife.

And that Blancmange is mentioned in some of the oldest cookery books?  Chaucer, in The Canterbury Tales, describes it as a mixutre of 'minced capon with flour, cream and sugar'. By Elizabethan times the dish had become a mixture of cream, sugar and rose water, thickened with egg yolks, the meat was by then omitted.  By the 18th century it had become a kind of jelly, stiffened with isinglass or hartshorn and flavoured with almonds and rose water.  By the early 1820s, arrowroot was being exported to Britain from the West Indies and became the thickening agent.  It was set in elaborate moulds and seasoned with cinnamon and lemon peel.

This book is fabulous.  Every recipe I have sampled has worked a dream.  If you are tempted click here .

I have called this dear nineteenth-century nightdress 'Devonshire Junket'.  Junket, which dates back to the 13th century, was a rich confection of cream which was flavoured with rose water and was eaten alongside jellies and flummeries at the end of a meal.  It is especially good with fresh strawberries.

Which is a good thing.

The nightdress may be worn with the pantalettes...

and marries beautifully with the Strawberries and Cream dress.

But to whom does it belong?

Not her, obviously!



Now dear readers, here is the catch.  These clothes are destined for a Nursery Rhyme character (who is in the making).

Can you guess which Nursery Rhyme it could be?

The name of the dress and pantalette outfit is the only clue I will give you.

 To the person who finds the Nursery Rhyme in question I shall offer another Never Not Knitting pattern shortly after my first giveaway closing date (September 11th).

I cannot wait to see your answers!

What has caught her eye?

A polkadot ladybird, of course!

These photographs were taken between heavy showers and bright spells.

I really, really wish to spill the beans here and tell you that every single photograph you have seen on this blog so far has been my dear husband's work.

I also want to express how touched I have been by the generosity of so many fellow bloggers who have kindly mentioned my giveaway on their wonderful blogs.  I owe you all a huge favour!