HAPPY HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!

Saturday, December 31, 2011
 New Years Eve .... 
I can't quite believe 2011 is drawing to an end, we are planning on having a very quite night in ...
last night we had friends over for a catch up dinner on
the deck, the sunset was so beautiful ....




 we ate pasta and fresh salad leaves from the garden ..... 


  and talked and drank well into the night, actually we ended up drinking a little too much and today I'm feeling the effects .....
  so I'm really not feeling like the New Year thing, and really we're not that big on New Year anyway ....

I was planning on wearing my new dress if we ended up doing something, but I'm quite happy to leave it hanging for now, I do love it though (I got it for next to nothing on ebay).

What I am looking forward to seeing are the Sydney New Year fireworks, normally fireworks don't really interest me but designer Marc Newson is in charge this year so it should be really interesting.
 
So here's wishing you a very, very Happy New Year and a wonderful 2012
XXX

The Gracious Time

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

The Gracious Time

Some say that ever ‘gainst that season comes
Wherein our Saviour’s birth is celebrated,
The bird of dawning singeth all night long:
And then, they say, no spirit date stir abroad;
The nights are wholesome; then no planets strike,
No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,
So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.
William Shakespeare

The presents have all been delivered. They sit under the sparkling trees of our friends and family, waiting to be unwrapped in the cool light of Christmas dawn. Wine is mulling on the stove and carols are softly playing through the cottage. Edward and Apple, tummies as full as their hearts, lay at our feet, breathing in the fragrance of fir trees, star anise, and orange, and no doubt planning what to say when midnight strikes, affording them their once a year gift of magical speech.
Thus begins the gracious time - an unhurried time of peaceful reflection.
A time to celebrate all the quiet joys; my favourite week of the year. If you chance to think of Edward and me during this week of endings and beginnings, think of stacks of books waiting to be read, long walks taken in the the cold afternoon air, soup simmering on the stove.
And please know how much I appreciate each and every one of my readers. Your letters and comments make my world a richer place and I am grateful for your friendship, each and every one of you.
As we enter this special season, I thought you all might enjoy a glimpse into the House, and the Garden, of Edward at Christmastime.








Edward and I wish all of you a most Happy Christmas!

Do They Even Need A Christmas?

Friday, December 23, 2011

Do They Even Need A Christmas?


Even though the night is clear, and sown with more stars than normally allowed this close to one of man’s more colossal achievements of a city, still, I cannot see it. I stand in the back garden staring up at fistfuls of shimmering diamonds casually tossed over the dark velvet cloak of a sky, looking for another blue ball with swirls of icing white - a sister, a twin, of my own.

But I am disappointed.

Well, I didn’t really expect to find it.

Too far away, after all.

But still.


I had been sitting in the center of Christmas, midst a swirling flurry of red and green - a bit of baking flour on my cheek, a snippet of ribbon stuck to my sleeve - when I first heard the news. Another planet had been found. This one a mirror image of our own, where water flowed and life could presumably flourish.

Information such as this has a profound effect on a dreamer.

It ensnared my thought for days.


So very, very far away .........

do other blue eyes watch the sky, eyes just like my own?

Do other lips sing carols?

Other hands hold other hands?

Do they even need a Christmas?

Is it necessary to remind them not to lie, to hate, to kill?

Would we have to explain war, or illness, or fear?

Would they look at us in horror, or too well recognize our state?

Or was the apple never eaten?

Did they never fall from grace?


The possibilities are amaranthine for this unknown kin wandering round their own blue planet. It floodlights the mind to imagine. I wrap my scarf a bit tighter round my neck as I leave the speckled darkness of the garden, climbing the back stairs with Edward close at my heels. He never worries about such things, I know. Contentment weaves a cocoon around him and he shares it liberally with me. Just sitting beside his quiet soul provides a balm to my own and I am grateful for his sweet example.

But still, I can’t help but look up over my shoulder as I enter the warmth of the house.


So far, far away...

It is always summer, never winter?

Do they even need a Christmas?


*********************************


You can read more about this newly discovered planet,

found in what scientists call the Goldilocks Zone (I love that), HERE.


HAPPY HAPPY CHRISTMAS !!!

Wednesday, December 21, 2011
 Well the Christmas season is well and truly here ...
we have family staying and plan on spending Christmas day like our early Christmas last year, on the deck with lots of good food and wine, I plan on making my baked cranberry chicken (so yummy and very pretty too) and my father-in-law has arrived with lots of amazing looking vegetables from his garden including some purple carrots (can't wait to try them) .... and there will be a big bread and butter pudding made with Bourke St  prune and almond bread and a flourless chocolate cake for dessert .... I think there will be some very happy tummies ....
It will be so lovely being home this year, no packing or driving long distances ....
I like spending the holidays at home.

Thanks so much for reading this blog and all your lovely comments throughout the year ....
Hope you have a wonderful and safe Christmas 
XXX 

pic via here

SCARY SANTA

When I was a kid I loved seeing Santa and sitting on his lap but that's not the case for every child .....




































.... nice to see he can still make some boys happy !!!
photos found here

GREAT (BROOKLYN) SPACE

Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Really liking this Brooklyn space featured on 

 
 
 















.... especially the amazing windows overlooking the East River and Downtown Manhattan
.... very nice indeed.

Santa

Monday, December 19, 2011

Santa


He was the mysterious figure in red that sat in the shadows of Christmas. Though I’d never seen him face to face, never hid behind the living room door to watch in amazement as his black booted feet descended from the netherworld of chimney darkness to land like raven feathers on the hearth, still I believed without question in his solid reality. He knew what I wanted for Christmas, always. I didn’t need to write him a letter. I didn’t need to share my requests with my parents, something that for some reason I never quite understood, tended to cause them a bit of consternation.

Why did they need to know what I wanted?

Santa knew.


Each year we would make the annual pilgrimage to visit the department store Santas, but being blessed with an imagination that was liberally sprinkled with a healthy dose of suspicion, no one could convince me those fellows were real. There were far too many of them for one thing. And it was a rare occurrence when even one of those chaps remotely resembled the genuine article. Too baby-faced and whiskerless, with beards that tied behind their ears. Or too bombastic and patronizing, lacking even the remotest twinkle in the eye that the real Santa Claus would most certainly have. Oh I still stood shoulder to shoulder with other children my age, as we wound our way through the sugar plum forests and candy cane villages of the toy departments in local stores, waiting my turn to relate to these red-suited impostors the things I most wanted for Christmas. It was a ritual not without amusement and I participated in the festivities quite willingly. But I knew, yes I did, that the actual Santa could only be seen in the silver light of Christmas Eve.


So every year, I would endeavour to stay awake and catch the old elf at his work. I would leave out the cookies and milk for his refreshment and toddle off to bed as usual, never hinting at my plans for a sleepless night.

Snuggled under blankets, eyes wide and heart thumping, I would lie awake in the darkness, my little ears tuned for the sound of sleigh bells, staring, unblinking, at the vertical crack of my bedroom door.

The longer I lay there the more terrified I’d become.

What would I say to him when we met?

Would he catch a glimpse of me and instantaneously evaporate into mist, leaving me stunned and present-less?

Or would he pack me off to the North Pole where I would become a toymaking elf, always wearing green, never to return?

Big thoughts for a little girl.

As the night grew frosty and still as the grave, I would strain to hear the hoof beats of reindeer from up above on my roof, my little body rigid with the increasing terror of my vigil.

Waiting.

Listening.

Listening.

Waiting.

And then - how suddenly it always seemed- the pale pink light of a winter dawn would nudge me awake. Awake to Christmas morn! And I would run, slipperless, down the hallway to the living room door and throw it open wide. There would be the Christmas tree shining and bright, almost laughing as it presided over a room full of presents.

The cookies were eaten, yes there were the crumbs!

The milk was drained from the glass!

Later on Christmas Day, when I was sitting amongst my new books and dolls, feeling richer than Croesus, it would hit me. I’d missed him again. Drat. Well, there was always next year, I’d say to myself. Always another chance.

But next year came and all the years after that, and still, ever tricksy, he eluded me.

But perhaps..... just perhaps....with Edward’s help....this year...

One never knows.


Now, I ask you.
Do you blame me for wishing myself far, far away
from this obviously spurious department store Santa?

SCENES OF LIFE

So loving this photo series entitled Scenes of Life
" Lucie & Simon’s projects are conceived as a series of photographs which all outsmart our perception of reality by staging a quirky view of daily life from urban or family solitude to existential wanderings, their compositions capture different moods of man’s silent melancholy, focusing on the narrow chink between our existence and the world of dreams. In an enigmatic universe rekindling the memory of Edward Hopper’s paintings, each character seems totally absorbed by the timelessness of dreams "......





















..... found via Miss Moss

FRIDAY FAVORITES (ON SATURDAY)

Saturday, December 17, 2011
These stars ....
via here
these little houses ....
 via here

these garlands ....
via here

these lights ....
 via here

.... and this tree.
via here

 This bulb lamp .....
 via here

these star stamps ....
via here

 this Marni for H&M dress ....
via here

  this book, so enjoying it .....

roasted cherry tomatoes .... in season at the moment and my favorite way to eat them, especially with eggs for breakfast, yum ....
pic via here

.... and this art loving cat
(just because !!!)
 via here

Some late "Friday Favorites" this week ....
can you believe Christmas is almost here ?
It seems like only yesterday we were celebrating last Christmas here and here ... 
Hope you have a lovely pre- Christmas weekend
XXX