The Month of June

Henry Moore again but with a different friend. Sheltering from the rain again though.
My birthday!!!
The Crucible at Regent's Park Theatre - a great sunny sunny day. Hurrah for my fantastic wide brimmed black summer hat from H&M.
Nails painted - A list again but that was to match the red polka dot of my....
Boozy, very sunny, friend filled let's finish off the Wedding pimms Birthday Picnic in Holland Park.

Baked my first batch of macaroons - Nigella's chocolate - oh my they were delicious and shall be baked again. Re baked Hummingbird Strawberry Cheesecake Cupcakes.
Mad Men Series Two - Warmth now loves it too. Hurrah!
A christening and time to catch up with dear friends.
My first Cricket Match - Lords 20:20 and unlike football I would go again.

Grace Kelly and The Quilt Exhibition at V&A
SATC two a chance to watch it with two dear friends who I rewatched all the series with over SATC weekends. Miranda's character just gets better and better and better....
Visiting my father in hospital - a badly broken ankle from sliding down a ladder.
A new job, our offer accepted for a house.
Toenails Tangerine and fingernails Lilacism
A delicious supper in Smiths of Smithfields
To Worthing to visit Granny Warmth. Paddling in the sea, eating 99 icecreams (oh they look so much better than they taste) playing on the 2p slot machines.

and yet each day she did

I've just finished reading Seventh Heaven by Alice Hoffman. It fits in quite well with all the Mad Men we've been watching as it's set in America at tail end of the '50's very early '60's, however it's small town.
Nora is trying to settle in there with no husband and a young family. I loved this thought she had one day.

'Whenever he stumbled into Nora's arms she would think it wasn't possible for her to love him any more than she did, and yet each day she did; she loved him so much that she discovered that her hands and feet had grown a little larger to make room inside her for all that she felt...' Alice Hoffman Seventh Heaven

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Love, Respect and Fancy

We went to Worthing Pier and played on the 2p slot machines.

Warmth had a turn on the fruit machines I thought of this quote.

'What did we want from a man, what were we looking for? What I wanted was someone I could love, respect and fancy. I thought that was what one should be aiming for,...And when I started with men it always seemed as difficult as getting three strawberries in a row on a fruit machine.' Julian Barnes Talking it Over

My Favourite Quilts

Thank you for all your lovely comments about the V&A Quilting Exhibition. Through making notes at the exhibition and the glory of Google images here are some of my favourite ones.

Applecross by Pauline Burbidge

Punctuation by Sara Impey b. 1953.

Go to the exhibition and discover the meaning behind the words and sentences she used.

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I think I like this as it reminds me of printmaking. Bright colours. I like the haphazard look, the 'it's perhaps not as painstaking as the hand sewed ones.'

Jo Budd b. 1956

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Other favourite ones which I couldn't find images to were. The 'strippy quilts' from the late 19th Century. Another modern one from Caren Garfen 'How many times do I have to repeat myself? I liked bringing in 21st Century quilting with Cell Works from Wandsworth Prison. A great exhibition. Go on a Friday night, it will be quiet and then you can sit down in the great entrance and sip a glass of wine.

Which were your favourite quilts?

The Inheritance of Loss

I don't quite know what to write about The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai, apart from the title is perfect. If ever a novel had the right title then this is the novel. Right on page two we have this sentence.
'Could fulfilment ever be felt as deeply as loss?'
We journey with four main characters
'these were four shadow puppets from a fairytale flickering on the lumpy plaster of the wall - a lizard man, a hunch marked cook, a lush-lashed maiden, and a long-tailed wolf dog....'

There are moments of light heartedness, tender touches.
'Ah, the dumpling stage of love-it had set them off on a tumble of endearments and nicknames. They thought of them in quiet moments and placed them before each other like gifts.'
But yet oh the hatred between couples.
'... the dread they had for each other was so severe it was as if they had tapped into a limitless bitterness carrying them beyond the parameters of what any individual is normally capable of feeling. They belonged to this emotion more than to themselves, experienced rage with enough muscle in it for entire nations...'
Reading plays a large part in their lives, especially English authors, and another moment of humour.
'I always said,' she turned to the others in a frivolous fashion, ' that I would save Trollope for my dotage; I knew it would be a perfect slow indulgence when I had nothing much to do and, well, here I am. Old fashioned books is what I like.'
Like all of us they're trying to make sense of, understand who they are, in the country they live in, at this moment in time.
'How many lived in the fake version of their countries, in fake versions of other people's countries? Did their lives feel as unreal to them as his did to him?'
I don't think this review tells the story. Partly as I don't know how to without giving things away. So instead I've tried to show some of the emotions of the novel. My over riding memory is of The Inheritance of Loss. It moved me, it made me feel desperately sad yet there were also glimmers of hope in it and that's what I shall hold onto.

Midsummer's Day

For some reason I thought the longest day of the year was the 24th June - do not ask me why so I'd scheduled this post for today. Then on the 21st June I realised.... Oh dear it's too late to change it all around - so here it is a few days late - but it still stays light late.

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In winter I get up by night
And dress by yellow candle-light
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see

The birds still hopping in the tree,

Or hear the grown-up people's feet
Still going past me in the street

And does it not seem hard to you,

When all the sky is clear and blue,
And I should like so much to play,

To have to go to bed by day?

Robert Louis Stevenson

My mother loves poetry and so as children we would be read it. Due to an early wake up, and my love of sleep, I go to bed early. This poem often comes to mind as I draw the blinds. Epecially since living in a city where one 'hears the grown-up people's feet/Still going past me in the street.'

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Happy 'Belated' Midsummer's Night

History of the world in 100 objects

The British Museum and Radio Four are in the middle of a series called 'The History of the World in a 100 Objects'. I was baking my birthday picnic cakes, using my Grandmother's electric hand mixer, whilst listening to this programme and it made me think. Firstly about the family history behind that object. Was it the first one my Grandmother had? What difference did it make to her baking life? All the thoughts and cakes, hopes and dreams that happened with it. This would be especially true with Granny as she shows her love through baking. And when she became too old to bake, I was just beginning and so inherited it. I still use it. I treasure it even more that she's frail, her memory is disappearing she's still Granny but oh so different.
So it holds great family history. However it holds social history too. It's brown and a 'Curry's' home brand. And yet it also holds world history. On the side it says 'Made in Yugoslavia'.

So, although I may lust over a kitchen aid

I shall remain faithful to Granny's.

What object holds history for you?

In honour of Wimbledon

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There were never strawberries
like the ones we had
that sultry afternoon
sitting on the step
of the open french window
facing each other
your knees held mine
the blue plates in our laps
the strawberries glistening
in the hot sunlight
we dipped them in sugar
looking at each other
not hurryng the feast...
Edwin Morgan

Reading this poem just made me want to sit outside in the sun and eat some.

Nice

...'nice' is such an anodyne word... hardly an adjective at all, and certainly not one worthy of using... it doesn't convey much. To call my father 'nice' to emphasise his niceness above all else, was to make him sound bland and insipid and he was neither.' Margaret Forster The Memory Box

Another classic example for me when something you've always thought is put onto paper and you no longer feel alone in the world in your thoughts. I've always disliked being described as 'nice' for exactly the above it's anodyne. Surely say I'm intelligent, kind, happy... nice is just lazy and do you really know me?

So here are some beautiful pictures to start the week with.

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The V&A Museum

So I'm having a bit of a V&A week. On Saturday Twin and I went to see the Grace Kelly exhibition. We did enjoy it. As a great High Society fan I loved seeing some of the clothes from the film.

This dress is in the exhibition .

My favourite line from High Society is when Tracey Lord's sister is sitting chatting to Dexter (Bing Crosby) her ex-husband and she asks if he'll marry again. He replies along the line of he's waiting for her to grow up. And her response is.

'oh for you Dexter I'll hurry.'

And Grace Kelly? Well to quote from when she and Dexter talk about their honeymoon boat True Love - 'oh my she was yar.'

And then this evening having posted about this back in March, and then April, I'm finally going to the Quilting Exhibition and so here's my final quilting quote. I'm looking forward to seeing all the quilts but I think it's the modern ones which interest me most.

'It's not just the words I make that are sewn onto the blanket that are important. It's the thoughts and the words that are spoken as the blanket is sewn.' Tracey Emin Vogue March 2010

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And then after the exhibition we shall speak thoughts and words over a glass of wine.

A perfect Friday night. What are your plans?